TV talent shows would have us believe
that great singing is all about big wide vocal range
and massive top notes.
But is singing all about the extremities, the very highest
notes you can possibly reach?
Let's find out.
Sound check.
Check one, Check two.
Hi, my name is Dr. Dan.
Welcome to voice essentials where we develop your voice,
and we improve your sound.
And today, I want to quickly talk
to you about this idea that seems to be constantly pushed
on singers that they've got to have this big massive range.
But specifically, these big massive top notes.
Is that what singing is?
Well, if that was what singing was all about,
then Frank Sinatra definitely wouldn't have had a career.
Frank is known as having had a career based on about an octave
to, at the most, an octave and a half.
You see, for Frank Sinatra, it wasn't
about big massive top notes, it was about how he used,
fully used, an octave to an octave and a half.
It was all about the feel.
It was all about the phrasing.
It didn't have everything to do with how high can Frank sing.
No, it had to do, once again, about what
was the message Frank was looking to communicate.
And he's called the king of swing for a reason.
And I think there's a lesson there.
A lesson in that, for us, singing
is not about how high can I go.
Yes it's cool if you can go (SINGING) help me.
That's great, but is that what singing is about?
You probably spend only 5%, probably less,
of your time in the song hitting those top notes.
And yes, we do want to become more efficient, more
proficient, at singing our top notes.
But you spend the majority of your time
in the body of your voice, in a space where it's generally
for most of us, if we're singing a song that
is in a comfortable key, we're singing
in a zone of the voice that is a relatively straightforward.
It's comfortable.
What are you doing with those notes?
Don't be so captivated by the extremities of your range
that you forget to work on the body of your range, that one
and a half, you know, one to one and a half octaves
where your voice sits comfortably,
where you feel the voice sitting really nicely.
The classical people refer to that as the "Prima Voce."
It's the prime voice, that zone where
you feel really comfortable.
Spend a lot of time working on that because that's
the area of your voice that you are going
to spend most of your time.
Sound check.
Secondly, the area that I want you think about is
don't find yourself captivated by the exceptions of the rule.
When we look at certain singers,F we can all name
the singers that we love.
I think of a John Farnham when I think of the singers
that I enjoy.
I look at John's voice and I go, or listen to John's voice
and I go, wow, his range is exceptional.
And that's the key.
It is exceptional, and that word exceptional
means it is the exception to the rule.
Don't find yourself trying to gravitate
towards holding the exception to the rule up as the rule.
Yeah?
It is the exception to the rule.
Be who you were designed to be.
Use your voice to the best manner it possibly can.
Realize the potential of your own voice
before you go looking to, I guess,
achieve the potential of another voice.
It's a lot of fun to try and emulate other singers
but it's most important that you spend
time working on your own sound.
Be the singer that you were designed to be.
I hope you've enjoyed today's really quick tip.
If this is the first time you've joined us,
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Essentials, the tips, the singing tips
that you would like to hear.
But until I'll see you in the next Voice Essentials YouTube--
YouTube clip, my name is Dr. Dan.
Sing well.
[STUDIO CHEERING]