This is cool! There's a lot of bad (and by bad, I mean misaligned with modern voice science and science-informed pedagogy) on the internet, so it's nice to see a resource striving to organize some good information.
A couple recommendations I'd suggest exploring to be even better aligned with current understanding:
Current literature does not distinguish between head voice and falsetto. While "falsetto" often carries a connotation of breathiness, that is not inherent to the register. Both are referred to in literature as laryngial mode M2, in which the Cricothyroid muscle is dominant in shaping the vocal folds. In contrast, chest voice or M1 is Thyroarytenoid dominant. While that may be a bit in the weeds, I found wrapping my head around this very helpful in cutting through a lot of confusing language around head voice .
Use of these different registers changes across genre and voice type. Classical sopranos and mezzos use head voice in their upper range, while musical theatre sopranos and mezzos bring their chest voice up (i.e. belting). Meanwhile, tenors and basses typically use chest voice for their full range in both classical and musical theatre genres, with much more use of head voice in pop/contemporary genres.
One other suggestion is to more prominently feature SOVTs (semi occluded vocal tract exercises). You reference them in your warm up section (lip trills and straw phonation) but these are highly effective and evidence-based tools to develop efficient phonation.
Further, for anyone looking to learn to sing (and anyone can learn to sing!), there's no better resource than a voice teacher. Most teachers nowadays teach online as well as in person. A great place to start looking for a teacher is through NATS or ICVT.
> Current literature does not distinguish between head voice and falsetto.
Hmm, are you sure about this? I thought chest voice and head voice were understood to be a single register called the modal register. And falsetto was fundamentally different.
Yes, though again, the language around registration gets really messy. Here's a great article (with a great title!) from the Journal of Singing by Christian T. Herbst "Registers—The Snake Pit of Voice Pedagogy": https://www.nats.org/_Library/JOS_On_Point/JOS-077-02-2020-1...
One relevant excerpt before the article goes into several pages discussing M11 vs M2:
> These four laryngeal mechanisms are typically termed as: vocal fry (M0, pulse
register); chest voice (M1, modal register); falsetto (M2, head voice?); and whistle register (M3).
Another article by Dr. Ingo Titze (an icon in the field of voice science and basically the father of SOVTs) about the debated "mix" register, starts this way:
> One is called chest voice, full voice, or modal voice, which is described by
a vibratory mechanism that some have labeled M1. Acoustically, harmonic energy above the fundamental dominates the sound spectrum in this register. The other anchor is called falsetto or light head voice, which is described by a
vibratory mechanism labeled M2.
Thanks for adding your thoughts. First tenor here with a high C+ when trained and active. I lost my (true) falsetto 10 or so years ago, any tips on how to get it back?
Also I lost my whistle register 30 years ago, but I think this is normal :)
Yes! This is something I've been working on - not for the sake of the M2 mode itself (head voice / falsetto), but because M2 development tends to help with high notes in M1. When I started studying with my current teacher, my M2 felt somewhere between absent or very weak.
Typically exercises I work on for M2 start with an SOVT (typically straw phonation, puffy cheeks, or water bubbles) and then transitioning to an [u] vowel on a five note descending scale. For me, at least, while this can be very unstable depending on the day, M2 is much more easily accessible with an SOVT.
You might also start with a gentle SOVT in M1/chest and siren up as high as is comfortable without pushing/pressing or trying to be loud. Don't think about registration, just let it go - SOVTs tend to let the voice go where it wants easily.
They have qualitatively different sounds and, without significant training or a bit of luck, a break as you transition between those qualitatively different sounds. Even if not a laryngial mode, is it not worth giving that observation a name?
For all those who think they're not talented and therefore can't learn how to sing, some good news here: Learning to sing is a matter of coordinating and strengthening muscles, so it can be practiced and improved just like anything else. The predisposition is largely the same for everybody (vocal pathologies excluded).
The reason why most people can't just naturally sing well is that singing is not a primary biological function, but a bi-product of a survival mechanism (vocal folds, aka airflow control / airway protection).
The muscles interacting with the vocal folds (thyroarytenoid and cricothyroid) have antagonistic function and work on reflexes rather than control, so the hard part of learning how to sing is to train them to coordinate properly rather than work against each other.
>For all those who think they're not talented and therefore can't learn how to sing, some good news here: Learning to sing is a matter of coordinating and strengthening muscles, so it can be practiced and improved just like anything else. The predisposition is largely the same for everybody (vocal pathologies excluded).
When I got children I started singing for them almost every night. After doing that for some years now it's incredible how much better my singing has become (for me at least). Before that I didn't dare to sing when other people could hear me, but now I have no problems with that. I really enjoy singing for my kids and look forward to it every evening.
If that's true, why do some multi-person bands have some good looking people that can't sing, even after decades of going? Do they not practice every day? These are famous people but I never seem to have seen any famous bad singer which eventually becomes a good singer.
Ed Sheeran seems to have gone from objectively awful to subjectively passable. There is a clip of him on british TV host Graham Norton’ show playing a recording of some pretty terrible singing.
There's so many examples of famous fat people that got skinny. I really struggle with this idea that it's all just muscle / muscle control to sing well under the lack of examples.
Huge thanks for your thorough feedback. Do you have some links for this info that I can examine?
Btw. I'm investigating how I can map the traditional Vs CVT without doing too much confusion. I'm leaning towards keeping traditional and adding cvi notes. And a mapping page.
I've been taking classes for one year when I was in uni, about 15 years ago. I have always had the problem that I would run out of voice after 1-2 songs. My teacher at the time kept saying my problem was that I had to strengthen and use the diaphragm, which I did but only made little progress. Eventually, since every class felt like defeat, I gave up. Did I just not train enough? Likely. Do you have any advice to share?
Thanks for posting this. I hate (frequently) hearing people conclude that because they haven't previously learned to sing or play an instrument, that they're simply "not musical," as if this weren't a normal capacity that simply takes practice.
I like the message but I think it's worth tempering people's expectations. I spent years working with a few different voice teachers and the amount of practice and dedication you need is substantial. Even after the best part of a decade I am unable to belt.
Was looking for this comment. You articulate it well. Many people claim they "can't sing" but when they try it's clear to me they just have an underdeveloped muscle control
Some people can't tell if the note they're singing is the same as the note they just heard. This is also learnable but it's not as simple as just muscle control
I'm perfectly willing to grant that this is the usual case, but since I'm not interested enough in being able to sing well to dedicate a lot of effort to it, it doesn't matter. I probably wouldn't sing if I had the voice of an angel.
Totally!!
I mean, like everything else in life there are people with more innate skills for it and people with less, but again like everything in life if you put the right amount of effort you can go from zero to "hey you are not bad!".
In my case, I've always had good musical hear but I always struggled with anything passing (I think) B4. Now, 3 years ago I joined a totally amateur choir and our (wonderful) teacher makes us do every week 15 minutes of breathing/belt exercises. Not a lot, and it was pretty hard getting the right coordination in the beginning but eventually stuck. And now I can reach D5 and even E5 when pushing out all the air I can. It's still a bit complicated to control the volume at that pitch but I would never ever imagined I could do it 3 years ago!
Okay, what's the actual point of this website? It's just a glossary of singing terms, that if you sing at all you would know pretty much all of them. Even the "resources" section that links to youtube just links to a search on youtube of the term, not a specific video. Was this just your AI project for fun?
> It's just a glossary of singing terms, that if you sing at all you would know pretty much all of them.
Not everyone studies theory. I sing in my church choir but I had heard of almost none of these terms before. So don't underestimate the value of a glossary.
For the average non-schooled singer there is a lot of new information here. I have sung most of my life, in choirs, in church, and otherwise (not much in the shower though), and don't explicitly know most of these things. I have heard there are things like chest and head voice but I wouldn't know where one ends and the other begins.
For overcoming pitchiness, the "one weird trick" I learned from a singing teacher is to imagine you are moving in the opposite direction from the actual pitch. If you're going higher, imagine you're going lower and vice versa.
This helped me overcome the tendency to constrict the throat when reaching for a higher note or to go flat when heading lower.
This is so cool, but the youtube link really sucks as it just points to a search. It would be so much stronger if it pointed to a single video vetted by the author of the page so I know what I'm watching demonstrates the principle in question properly.
No, the search is completely an utterly meaningless and annoying. It doesn't matter how well-informed the user is when they click that button, it will become clear that it's useless once they click it. The solution - remove the button.
Better solution: don't be the kind of person that builds AI slop and has people waste their time on it - especially if you don't have the UX skills to know what is good in a product yourself.
This is great, I feel we will be seeing more and more of these hyper focused niche learning projects.
As for the project itself, I think it's useful, definitely has Claude interface - colors and font even. :) But still so much better than the umpteenth productivity SaaS AI wrapper.
Yeah, this can be confusing. This is referring to the "growl" effect in complete vocal technique. Imagine Christina Aguilera making a dramatic car engine growl when you kick down the gas pedal. I think this is roughly what this is about.
I think this is a great summary and resource. No, it's not all you need to learn to sing, but it wasn't intended to be.
Regarding singing on pitch and in tune, that too is a learned skill. A good coach or singing class will work on ear training. Sometimes the (wrong) mechanics of your vocal technique can make it difficult to hit a pitch accurately, but you can definitely improve your ability to hear a pitch and sing it. These are things that even pro singers train and receive coaching on.
There's a story (dunno if it's true, but it could be) about an anthropologist who is living with an African tribe to study them. He gets to know the tribe and is accepted by them, and one day a village elder invites him to join a group sing that evening. The anthropologist says "No, no, I can't sing." The elder looks at him in astonishment and says, "What do you mean you can't sing? You can talk, can't you?"
- beginner guides
- how to use tool and understand labels)
- submit yt links (for voting, should be moderated)
- better descriptions and examples also how not to.
I'm not gonna mess up the simplicity. Want it to improve.
Which part addresses the “without killing yourself”?
This is a hyperbole too, right? As in: incorrect belt sing would only be lethal in extreme scenarios and otherwise it would be harmful at most; is that the case?
I'm sure you can find some formulations that are AI written. Because I've used AI for structuring content and developing site.
As I wrote somewhere else this is made with AI, not by AI.
Ive been singing and developing for years. I'm not the expert but using others. Also, anyone finding anything that looks remotely wrong, I'll happily receive the feedback and update.
And use chatgpt, but use it the same way. Be curious if it's correct.
Unfortunately, if you reveal that you use AI in your projects, you will instantly turn a segment of your readers against you, even if your project is objectively good.
I suspect a lot of people don't reveal that they use AI for this reason.
> I could just ask ChatGPT for any of these things myself.
You wouldn't know what to ask, unless you have expertise.
The question isn't whether an LLM was used, but the trustworthiness of the human(s) behind it. Why would you trust anything by an unknown person on the Internet?
So putting this on hackernews resulted in visitor numbers through the roof. From zero to 7000 unique visitors over 24 hours. I have no expectations that that will continue.
Honestly my thought was to make a good ressource and leave it at that.
But now I'm thinking how could I improve the guide.
I'm not gonna polute the current version with ads nor will I add a paywall around the guide.
I might add a sponsor links but nothing that will get in the way. I'll keep the cost low instead.
But maybe if I do it right I would like to add new features that could cost a buck.
If there is anything I should / could add that you think would make sense then please send me feedback using the feedback feature or here.
What makes you say that? I think Cornell is fantastic - such intensity, amazing range, so many effects and such great control, inhabits different voices - but I have no idea what I'm talking about. :)
Nit: please don’t push to my browser history every time I expand one of the sections… I had to press my browser’s back button a dozen or so times to get back out of your site.
You can also hold down the back button to get a menu of previous pages in order to skip multiple back button presses. (I still agree with your point and you might already know that. Maybe it helps someone.)
Singing is one of the few things that I suspect may not be just learned. Sure, you can improve a little, but not go from complete trash to someone you would actually tolerate hearing sing. I think our anatomies constrain us much more than for other things. How come some people can naturally sing and others produce a horrible screech? What I've been trying to find is a style that best suits my voice that will make it seem like I'm not horrible. Don't know what that is yet. Finding that is not so easy when you don't have a large vocal range nor a particularly interesting voice.
Some vocal techniques - like belting and the classical voices - require the actual development of musculature, both to hold a shape (for high pitches) and to be able to stabilise shapes. That's not going to happen overnight, so you have to spend sometime sounding horrible before you can do those well. That doesn't mean it's impossible - it's like lifting weights, anyone can improve it.
However, that's not the techniques used in the majority of popular singing. You absolutely can sound drastically different very quickly. This is simply because most people don't use most of the degrees of freedom that the voice has. If you look at the Estill method reference material, which concentrates on how the vocal system features actually operate to produce different vocal effects, they identify around 14 degrees of freedom.Some discrete, but a lot of them continuous. It is very common for someone who thinks that they have a terrible voice to take a few lessons and find that they can sound much better. It's just that, as another commenter pointed out, you can't see inside your own mouth and throat. You can't see that you're always holding them in a certain way.
For example, some women habitually sound shrill, usually because they have had to develop a penetrating voice. This is often true of teachers, who have to be able to make themselves heard over a bunch of shrill children (and aren't able to use the option of a deep bass). This is a vocal technique (twang) but it can also become habitual,to the point where they don't think they can do anything else.
From your comment I don't know you have tried this or not, but get some sessions with the best trainer you can. Singing and even speaking with a good voice is incredibly counterintuitive for some people, speaking from experience.
You might have everything needed for a great voice expect the skills, or you might be trying for a voice that's far from what works well for you.
Being able to sing on pitch is more music training than voice training. Music can be trained in any voice pretty much. As for vocal range - it is one of the easiest ones to improve! Simple daily drills can get you there. It's the same for simple voice quality things like learning to sing from your chest/diaphragm rather than just a head/nasal voice. As for having an "aesthetic voice", the steps needed is is extremely specific to each individual and each trainer. Both of you will "path" towards something that will be aesthetic for you and also achievable. Musicians e.g do this to adapt themselves to the "beloved" voice of their target industry. For an example, see https://www.google.com/search?q=arijit+singh+voice+transform... - the AI overview is a pretty decent summary with links to original source. Bollywood really likes love songs to be in husky male voices, so he adapted to that. You don't have to do all that of course, but a small % of similar work will get you to "aesthetic" territory.
Listening to lots of vocal music (preferably with very light accompaniment) also helps a looot. We are really good at imitation.
> How come some people can naturally sing and others produce a horrible screech?
From my own experience many of those "natural" singers simply grew up around music, so it can definitely be learned. Natural talent doesn't really go that far and it's just a small temporary boost that can just as easily be ruined by bad habits later in life. The same is true for other physical abilities.
Some of the best singers got their start on wind instruments. Music is all one big ecosystem of overlapping skills. Unless we're talking legendarily insanely great levels of singing, I don't think any musicians would agree singing is all that special.
In fact, if you isolate the vocals on many hit tracks you might be surprised and disappointed.
Yep, and it's not just a childhood thing. At any age, simply listening to a lot of vocal music (with very light accompaniment) helps a ton in improving your singing (alongside other active work)
We probably have some instinct for vocal imitation, to intuitively understand how the sound we hear is made - otherwise, it would be hard to learn to speak.
Why do people that don't know how to do a thing vibe out reasons that they'll never be able to do it? It's the hugest self-own. Also if you don't know how to do it, why would you assume it's based on some secret anatomical lottery. Could it just be you don't have access to the right information and direction for improvement at the moment?
I can play instruments but never thought I could sing outside a range of less than an octave in the baritone range.
When I was 50 we had a singing teacher over at our house for my children. I asked if she could help my range. That day she took my voice to a high C. I am actually a tenor and can sing pretty much all the high parts. I am my in-laws’ favorite opera singer now.
Also I was too timid. Singing is really just controlled shouting.
You can. That progression is normal. I know this because I am such a case. I wasn’t able to produce a single sound on pitch. Now I can nail some songs (as long as they don‘t go crazy on technique).
Learning to sing is taking control of your voice. You use the same biology that you have been using for speech and other vocal sounds since birth. It all comes built in. Of course it comes more naturally to some people, just like any other activity.
There are some decent videos on YouTube, but take actual vocal lessons if you can. Videos are not a substitute for lessons.
I don‘t like the posted page. The descriptions aren‘t very helpful and neither are most videos on YouTube. I know from experience. For a complete beginner, this is frankly a useless resource.
Because it is so easy to get lost in the muck, do you have any particular recommendations on some “decent” YouTube videos/channels to get at least some practice before taking lessons with a vocal coach?
The channel I've watched the most videos on is Chris Liepe's. The video "STOP Singing Vowels this way! (its making you tense)" was in my singing playlist:
Oh and I forgot: I can play some instruments, but the voice is the cruelest one to learn. You can‘t „see“ what you are actually doing (wrong). And most of the time you can‘t even feel it very well. This why vocal training is full of analogies and imagery.
I wish it weren't. I would have gotten a lot more mileage out of "force a yawn, see what your mouth does, and do that" rather than "more space, more space, open up!".
Their work includes pedagogical research to develop a consistent terminology which abandons lots of outdated and confusing terms such as you mention. No more ambiguous words like "project" or "space" or "support".
Their research also includes using endosciopic cameras to directly observe the vocal tracts of professional singers.
I've not actually trained with them, I just like their research and approach.
Seconding both points. I'm not one of those cases, as I could already sing decently, but I've seen people go from "terrible" to singing professionally.
I also agree that the linked page isn't useful, it's more of a glossary than anything, but then again, I'm not convinced that a distinction between head voice and chest voice actually exists. I've never been able to tell any qualitative difference, as opposed to, for example, falsetto, and the community can't really agree on whether they actually are a thing or not.
I see a lot of people in here posting success stories from lessons, which is great. But I tried lessons for about 2 months and go absolutely nowhere haha. It was just repeatedly practicing some song that I wasn't super into and I never even felt like I was "singing" just talking kind of louder / longer and felt very forced and odd. Terrible experience tbh, but I do love singing and still want to some day. (I generally just sing in falsetto to songs in my car because I'm too timid to really project my actual voice)
It sounds like you didn't have a very good coach. My first coach wasn't very helpful, my second was amazing. Keep looking!
Open mic nights at your local bar are a great source of data. Approach people after their performance, compliment them, and ask them if they have a coach they'd be willing recommend.
As with many things in life, see it like stats in an RPG: your 'character' may have "0" in the singing skill INITIALLY. But it's still a skill that you can learn, even if you start low.
However, what is true is that, you will sound like YOU. You can get close or make impressions of artists you like. But ultimately your voice is YOUR instrument and it can gain range, and power, but you'll sound like you.
For instance, I'm well aware that I will never have "Celine Dion's voice". I don't mean her skills, I mean literally her voice.
That's what one of the first AND biggest tough thing to accept when singing: you might never sound exactly like the singers you admire. But it doesn't mean you can't sing or be extremely good at it.
It's like Michael Jackson was sad because he knew he would never be able to sing like Barry White. Does that mean Michael Jackson is not a good singer? Nope.
Genetics limits your potential and influences your timbre, but pretty much anyone can learn any technique, and I'll go out on a limb and say anyone can learn to sound really good.
There is such a thing as being tone deaf. It's hard to get good if you can't even tell if you're bad, and I've been to enough karaoke nights to know that most people can't tell how bad they sound.
Yeah I took over a year of singing lessons from a vocal coach and saw minimal improvement.
That’s fine, but it annoys me when people lie about this stuff. I don’t say everyone can program, and that’s okay. Nobody can say “everybody can X” because nobody has met every person.
I mostly agree, almost everything is possible for almost everyone, but some people have hurdles to overcome that would probably take their entire life to overcome.
Having said that, some people choose that path anyway, and sometimes they actually end up mastering the field from the bottom up in a completely new way that no one else would ever think to do.
I say this on the off-chance someone reading this is one of those people. But yeah, I'm not gonna try grow from 5'7 to 6'4 or sprint faster than Usain Bolt. But more power to anyone who tries!
This is cool! There's a lot of bad (and by bad, I mean misaligned with modern voice science and science-informed pedagogy) on the internet, so it's nice to see a resource striving to organize some good information.
A couple recommendations I'd suggest exploring to be even better aligned with current understanding:
Current literature does not distinguish between head voice and falsetto. While "falsetto" often carries a connotation of breathiness, that is not inherent to the register. Both are referred to in literature as laryngial mode M2, in which the Cricothyroid muscle is dominant in shaping the vocal folds. In contrast, chest voice or M1 is Thyroarytenoid dominant. While that may be a bit in the weeds, I found wrapping my head around this very helpful in cutting through a lot of confusing language around head voice .
Use of these different registers changes across genre and voice type. Classical sopranos and mezzos use head voice in their upper range, while musical theatre sopranos and mezzos bring their chest voice up (i.e. belting). Meanwhile, tenors and basses typically use chest voice for their full range in both classical and musical theatre genres, with much more use of head voice in pop/contemporary genres.
One other suggestion is to more prominently feature SOVTs (semi occluded vocal tract exercises). You reference them in your warm up section (lip trills and straw phonation) but these are highly effective and evidence-based tools to develop efficient phonation.
Further, for anyone looking to learn to sing (and anyone can learn to sing!), there's no better resource than a voice teacher. Most teachers nowadays teach online as well as in person. A great place to start looking for a teacher is through NATS or ICVT.
> Current literature does not distinguish between head voice and falsetto.
Hmm, are you sure about this? I thought chest voice and head voice were understood to be a single register called the modal register. And falsetto was fundamentally different.
Yes, though again, the language around registration gets really messy. Here's a great article (with a great title!) from the Journal of Singing by Christian T. Herbst "Registers—The Snake Pit of Voice Pedagogy": https://www.nats.org/_Library/JOS_On_Point/JOS-077-02-2020-1...
One relevant excerpt before the article goes into several pages discussing M11 vs M2:
> These four laryngeal mechanisms are typically termed as: vocal fry (M0, pulse register); chest voice (M1, modal register); falsetto (M2, head voice?); and whistle register (M3).
Another article by Dr. Ingo Titze (an icon in the field of voice science and basically the father of SOVTs) about the debated "mix" register, starts this way:
> One is called chest voice, full voice, or modal voice, which is described by a vibratory mechanism that some have labeled M1. Acoustically, harmonic energy above the fundamental dominates the sound spectrum in this register. The other anchor is called falsetto or light head voice, which is described by a vibratory mechanism labeled M2.
(from https://vocology.utah.edu/_resources/documents/mixed_registr...)
Wouldn't this be because musical falsetto intentionally bypasses vibration of the vocal cords?
Seems similar to a case of tomato the fruit versus tomato the vegetable. Biologically and agriculturally, both are correct.
Thanks for the articles, great sources.
Thanks for adding your thoughts. First tenor here with a high C+ when trained and active. I lost my (true) falsetto 10 or so years ago, any tips on how to get it back?
Also I lost my whistle register 30 years ago, but I think this is normal :)
Yes! This is something I've been working on - not for the sake of the M2 mode itself (head voice / falsetto), but because M2 development tends to help with high notes in M1. When I started studying with my current teacher, my M2 felt somewhere between absent or very weak.
Typically exercises I work on for M2 start with an SOVT (typically straw phonation, puffy cheeks, or water bubbles) and then transitioning to an [u] vowel on a five note descending scale. For me, at least, while this can be very unstable depending on the day, M2 is much more easily accessible with an SOVT.
You might also start with a gentle SOVT in M1/chest and siren up as high as is comfortable without pushing/pressing or trying to be loud. Don't think about registration, just let it go - SOVTs tend to let the voice go where it wants easily.
Highly recommend my teacher's book: https://www.pluralpublishing.com/publications/a-systematic-a...
> both are M2
They have qualitatively different sounds and, without significant training or a bit of luck, a break as you transition between those qualitatively different sounds. Even if not a laryngial mode, is it not worth giving that observation a name?
Thank you for the feedback, caryme.
And big yes - there is no better ressource than a voice teacher!!
This is just a lookup tool (and then some)
For all those who think they're not talented and therefore can't learn how to sing, some good news here: Learning to sing is a matter of coordinating and strengthening muscles, so it can be practiced and improved just like anything else. The predisposition is largely the same for everybody (vocal pathologies excluded).
The reason why most people can't just naturally sing well is that singing is not a primary biological function, but a bi-product of a survival mechanism (vocal folds, aka airflow control / airway protection).
The muscles interacting with the vocal folds (thyroarytenoid and cricothyroid) have antagonistic function and work on reflexes rather than control, so the hard part of learning how to sing is to train them to coordinate properly rather than work against each other.
>For all those who think they're not talented and therefore can't learn how to sing, some good news here: Learning to sing is a matter of coordinating and strengthening muscles, so it can be practiced and improved just like anything else. The predisposition is largely the same for everybody (vocal pathologies excluded).
When I got children I started singing for them almost every night. After doing that for some years now it's incredible how much better my singing has become (for me at least). Before that I didn't dare to sing when other people could hear me, but now I have no problems with that. I really enjoy singing for my kids and look forward to it every evening.
If that's true, why do some multi-person bands have some good looking people that can't sing, even after decades of going? Do they not practice every day? These are famous people but I never seem to have seen any famous bad singer which eventually becomes a good singer.
Ed Sheeran seems to have gone from objectively awful to subjectively passable. There is a clip of him on british TV host Graham Norton’ show playing a recording of some pretty terrible singing.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ed+sheeran+graham+norton+bad...
Shouldn't there be many examples though?
There's so many examples of famous fat people that got skinny. I really struggle with this idea that it's all just muscle / muscle control to sing well under the lack of examples.
Huge thanks for your thorough feedback. Do you have some links for this info that I can examine?
Btw. I'm investigating how I can map the traditional Vs CVT without doing too much confusion. I'm leaning towards keeping traditional and adding cvi notes. And a mapping page.
Let's see
I've been taking classes for one year when I was in uni, about 15 years ago. I have always had the problem that I would run out of voice after 1-2 songs. My teacher at the time kept saying my problem was that I had to strengthen and use the diaphragm, which I did but only made little progress. Eventually, since every class felt like defeat, I gave up. Did I just not train enough? Likely. Do you have any advice to share?
I just would get a different teacher. Not every teacher is a good fit for every student.
To me it sounds like you were not using the proper technique or didn't warm up enough and your teacher wasn't able to guide into the right direction.
Just like any physical activity it's a balance of technical efficiency and strength/endurance.
I'd argue efficiency is far more important for singing because the vocal system is very delicate and injury prone
Thanks for posting this. I hate (frequently) hearing people conclude that because they haven't previously learned to sing or play an instrument, that they're simply "not musical," as if this weren't a normal capacity that simply takes practice.
I like the message but I think it's worth tempering people's expectations. I spent years working with a few different voice teachers and the amount of practice and dedication you need is substantial. Even after the best part of a decade I am unable to belt.
Was looking for this comment. You articulate it well. Many people claim they "can't sing" but when they try it's clear to me they just have an underdeveloped muscle control
Some people can't tell if the note they're singing is the same as the note they just heard. This is also learnable but it's not as simple as just muscle control
> they just have an underdeveloped muscle control
I'm perfectly willing to grant that this is the usual case, but since I'm not interested enough in being able to sing well to dedicate a lot of effort to it, it doesn't matter. I probably wouldn't sing if I had the voice of an angel.
If God gave you some incredible talent I would hope you use it well, not spoil the world with a rotten attitude and keeping it hidden
Totally!! I mean, like everything else in life there are people with more innate skills for it and people with less, but again like everything in life if you put the right amount of effort you can go from zero to "hey you are not bad!".
In my case, I've always had good musical hear but I always struggled with anything passing (I think) B4. Now, 3 years ago I joined a totally amateur choir and our (wonderful) teacher makes us do every week 15 minutes of breathing/belt exercises. Not a lot, and it was pretty hard getting the right coordination in the beginning but eventually stuck. And now I can reach D5 and even E5 when pushing out all the air I can. It's still a bit complicated to control the volume at that pitch but I would never ever imagined I could do it 3 years ago!
Okay, what's the actual point of this website? It's just a glossary of singing terms, that if you sing at all you would know pretty much all of them. Even the "resources" section that links to youtube just links to a search on youtube of the term, not a specific video. Was this just your AI project for fun?
> It's just a glossary of singing terms, that if you sing at all you would know pretty much all of them.
Not everyone studies theory. I sing in my church choir but I had heard of almost none of these terms before. So don't underestimate the value of a glossary.
For the average non-schooled singer there is a lot of new information here. I have sung most of my life, in choirs, in church, and otherwise (not much in the shower though), and don't explicitly know most of these things. I have heard there are things like chest and head voice but I wouldn't know where one ends and the other begins.
The actual point is a guide for people who wants to sing or already sings. A handy tool to lookup how to ...
I'm not positioning it as anything else.
Regarding AI. Sure i used it. But i use it as A(ssited) I(ntelligence). Being both a singer and developer I hope I qualify
I recommend the CVT app for more comprehensive information. (Also the Estill book is quite good if you have an Estill teacher.)
You should ask the word machine to try a little harder to be consistent about the language it uses:
> Adele (signatur), de fleste popsangere bruger det selektivt
(I'm assuming you didn't spot this bit during your proofreading because this, whatever it is, is your native tongue)
Oh. Thanks. Yes that's a slip. And yes it's my native (danish).
Updating ...
For overcoming pitchiness, the "one weird trick" I learned from a singing teacher is to imagine you are moving in the opposite direction from the actual pitch. If you're going higher, imagine you're going lower and vice versa.
This helped me overcome the tendency to constrict the throat when reaching for a higher note or to go flat when heading lower.
à la Frasier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdLJfz157uk&t=70s
I think that everybody can sing better with a little guidance. Thats already worth something to 1 + those nearby
Yes everyone can sing, but not everyone can be listened to :).
Sometimes it requires a lot of love and forgiveness
I've been learning false chord screams and guttural sounds to complement my software development career.
This is so cool, but the youtube link really sucks as it just points to a search. It would be so much stronger if it pointed to a single video vetted by the author of the page so I know what I'm watching demonstrates the principle in question properly.
Yeah, it's very inconsiderate. Let's say I'm a total beginner (which is why I'm reading this guide, right). How could I know which tutorial is good?
Thanks. I added the search because that's what ppl do anyway. But this way the search is with some keywords that hopefully is helping.
Thanks for the feedback. This is on the list. Im looking into that. I can't and won't myself. I'd like to find someone that shows this consistently.
I should prop inform better that this is a search.
No, the search is completely an utterly meaningless and annoying. It doesn't matter how well-informed the user is when they click that button, it will become clear that it's useless once they click it. The solution - remove the button.
Better solution: don't be the kind of person that builds AI slop and has people waste their time on it - especially if you don't have the UX skills to know what is good in a product yourself.
This is great, I feel we will be seeing more and more of these hyper focused niche learning projects.
As for the project itself, I think it's useful, definitely has Claude interface - colors and font even. :) But still so much better than the umpteenth productivity SaaS AI wrapper.
Thanks and I agree. And yes Claude is on the team :-)
> Growl > > Famous examples: > Christina Aguilera, James Brown, Tina Turner
I was not expecting these names!
It's not metal growling. Thanks for mentioning this. I'll add a note to the effect
It's an AI website with zero credentials
Thanks for your valuable feedback :-)
It's made with AI not by AI ;-0
Yeah but at least that was funny!
Yeah, this can be confusing. This is referring to the "growl" effect in complete vocal technique. Imagine Christina Aguilera making a dramatic car engine growl when you kick down the gas pedal. I think this is roughly what this is about.
Not growl as in death metal vocals.
Yeah I got that but more often than not now the growl vocal technique is associated with extreme metal genre
Exactly
I think this is a great summary and resource. No, it's not all you need to learn to sing, but it wasn't intended to be. Regarding singing on pitch and in tune, that too is a learned skill. A good coach or singing class will work on ear training. Sometimes the (wrong) mechanics of your vocal technique can make it difficult to hit a pitch accurately, but you can definitely improve your ability to hear a pitch and sing it. These are things that even pro singers train and receive coaching on.
Thank you for your feedback. Means a lot
There's a story (dunno if it's true, but it could be) about an anthropologist who is living with an African tribe to study them. He gets to know the tribe and is accepted by them, and one day a village elder invites him to join a group sing that evening. The anthropologist says "No, no, I can't sing." The elder looks at him in astonishment and says, "What do you mean you can't sing? You can talk, can't you?"
Feature requests from feedback
- beginner guides - how to use tool and understand labels) - submit yt links (for voting, should be moderated) - better descriptions and examples also how not to.
I'm not gonna mess up the simplicity. Want it to improve.
Suggest / comments. Here or feedback via site
Updated with cvi term notes and map.
To come: beginner guide
Which part addresses the “without killing yourself”?
This is a hyperbole too, right? As in: incorrect belt sing would only be lethal in extreme scenarios and otherwise it would be harmful at most; is that the case?
Yes it is. And simplified. Can't put everything in a headline.
Goal is to be a good tool that addresses bad habits too, helps a bit.
Hopefully more ppl will sing (better) and without harming themselves.
Make sense?
This is nice but it looks so suspiciously AI-written how can I trust it? I could just ask ChatGPT for any of these things myself.
I'm sure you can find some formulations that are AI written. Because I've used AI for structuring content and developing site.
As I wrote somewhere else this is made with AI, not by AI.
Ive been singing and developing for years. I'm not the expert but using others. Also, anyone finding anything that looks remotely wrong, I'll happily receive the feedback and update.
And use chatgpt, but use it the same way. Be curious if it's correct.
Unfortunately, if you reveal that you use AI in your projects, you will instantly turn a segment of your readers against you, even if your project is objectively good.
I suspect a lot of people don't reveal that they use AI for this reason.
> I could just ask ChatGPT for any of these things myself.
You wouldn't know what to ask, unless you have expertise.
The question isn't whether an LLM was used, but the trustworthiness of the human(s) behind it. Why would you trust anything by an unknown person on the Internet?
So putting this on hackernews resulted in visitor numbers through the roof. From zero to 7000 unique visitors over 24 hours. I have no expectations that that will continue.
Honestly my thought was to make a good ressource and leave it at that.
But now I'm thinking how could I improve the guide.
I'm not gonna polute the current version with ads nor will I add a paywall around the guide.
I might add a sponsor links but nothing that will get in the way. I'll keep the cost low instead.
But maybe if I do it right I would like to add new features that could cost a buck.
If there is anything I should / could add that you think would make sense then please send me feedback using the feedback feature or here.
Thx
Thank you for taking the time to make this!
Some sponsored or affiliate links would be totally reasonable compensation for your efforts, IMO.
Thank you. Ill keep it as an idea.
There's something satisfying about seeing Chris Cornell and Pavarotti together on the same list.
True. Imho Chris Cornell is the goat
What makes you say that? I think Cornell is fantastic - such intensity, amazing range, so many effects and such great control, inhabits different voices - but I have no idea what I'm talking about. :)
the goat = greats of all time :D
I know that part - I mean, why Cornell?
Would be gratified to see a male, David Lee Roth, added to the whistle register examples! (Edit: or James Brown)
I agree. Will add
Could probably just add Mike Patton to all the sections lol
Nirvana and Radiohead do not sing as entire band like barbershop trio/quintet. Their singers have names.
They didn't?? Jokes aside. You're right. I'll update immed.
This has a lot of Riggs/Manning's SLS/SS vibes. Incl. the exercises and terminology.
:-)
Nusrat fateh ali khan could check off multiple rows here.
This is what I was looking for recently! Thank you!
Well I knew that ;-D
Added a beginner guide
Hey this is really neat, thank you
Thank you
Updated. Less pops
Too many popups
Thanks for feedback. I'm fixing that immed.
Jesper
Very cool!
Now tell me how to do polyphonic singing (e.g., Tuvan throat singing, with that drone).
Thank you. I would if I could.
Also not considering beatboxing :-)
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Not true :-) I care a lot
Nit: please don’t push to my browser history every time I expand one of the sections… I had to press my browser’s back button a dozen or so times to get back out of your site.
You can also hold down the back button to get a menu of previous pages in order to skip multiple back button presses. (I still agree with your point and you might already know that. Maybe it helps someone.)
Thanks. I'll look into that. It was recommended exactly for backtracking but I get that if you want to leave it's a whole lot of backpaddling :-)
Use history.replaceState() instead of history.pushState() and you're all good.
Thanks. It makes sense. I'll switch.
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Singing is one of the few things that I suspect may not be just learned. Sure, you can improve a little, but not go from complete trash to someone you would actually tolerate hearing sing. I think our anatomies constrain us much more than for other things. How come some people can naturally sing and others produce a horrible screech? What I've been trying to find is a style that best suits my voice that will make it seem like I'm not horrible. Don't know what that is yet. Finding that is not so easy when you don't have a large vocal range nor a particularly interesting voice.
Some vocal techniques - like belting and the classical voices - require the actual development of musculature, both to hold a shape (for high pitches) and to be able to stabilise shapes. That's not going to happen overnight, so you have to spend sometime sounding horrible before you can do those well. That doesn't mean it's impossible - it's like lifting weights, anyone can improve it.
However, that's not the techniques used in the majority of popular singing. You absolutely can sound drastically different very quickly. This is simply because most people don't use most of the degrees of freedom that the voice has. If you look at the Estill method reference material, which concentrates on how the vocal system features actually operate to produce different vocal effects, they identify around 14 degrees of freedom.Some discrete, but a lot of them continuous. It is very common for someone who thinks that they have a terrible voice to take a few lessons and find that they can sound much better. It's just that, as another commenter pointed out, you can't see inside your own mouth and throat. You can't see that you're always holding them in a certain way.
For example, some women habitually sound shrill, usually because they have had to develop a penetrating voice. This is often true of teachers, who have to be able to make themselves heard over a bunch of shrill children (and aren't able to use the option of a deep bass). This is a vocal technique (twang) but it can also become habitual,to the point where they don't think they can do anything else.
Love this comment. So many people think "this is my natural voice" but a skilled voice teacher will quickly disabuse one of that notion
Thank you for you comment. I want to address that more clearly in some form.
From your comment I don't know you have tried this or not, but get some sessions with the best trainer you can. Singing and even speaking with a good voice is incredibly counterintuitive for some people, speaking from experience. You might have everything needed for a great voice expect the skills, or you might be trying for a voice that's far from what works well for you.
Being able to sing on pitch is more music training than voice training. Music can be trained in any voice pretty much. As for vocal range - it is one of the easiest ones to improve! Simple daily drills can get you there. It's the same for simple voice quality things like learning to sing from your chest/diaphragm rather than just a head/nasal voice. As for having an "aesthetic voice", the steps needed is is extremely specific to each individual and each trainer. Both of you will "path" towards something that will be aesthetic for you and also achievable. Musicians e.g do this to adapt themselves to the "beloved" voice of their target industry. For an example, see https://www.google.com/search?q=arijit+singh+voice+transform... - the AI overview is a pretty decent summary with links to original source. Bollywood really likes love songs to be in husky male voices, so he adapted to that. You don't have to do all that of course, but a small % of similar work will get you to "aesthetic" territory.
Listening to lots of vocal music (preferably with very light accompaniment) also helps a looot. We are really good at imitation.
I was going to basically say the same thing. Few people can "sing" without spending time developing their ear.
> How come some people can naturally sing and others produce a horrible screech?
From my own experience many of those "natural" singers simply grew up around music, so it can definitely be learned. Natural talent doesn't really go that far and it's just a small temporary boost that can just as easily be ruined by bad habits later in life. The same is true for other physical abilities.
Some of the best singers got their start on wind instruments. Music is all one big ecosystem of overlapping skills. Unless we're talking legendarily insanely great levels of singing, I don't think any musicians would agree singing is all that special.
In fact, if you isolate the vocals on many hit tracks you might be surprised and disappointed.
> grew up around music
Yep, and it's not just a childhood thing. At any age, simply listening to a lot of vocal music (with very light accompaniment) helps a ton in improving your singing (alongside other active work)
We probably have some instinct for vocal imitation, to intuitively understand how the sound we hear is made - otherwise, it would be hard to learn to speak.
Why do people that don't know how to do a thing vibe out reasons that they'll never be able to do it? It's the hugest self-own. Also if you don't know how to do it, why would you assume it's based on some secret anatomical lottery. Could it just be you don't have access to the right information and direction for improvement at the moment?
It can be taught!
I can play instruments but never thought I could sing outside a range of less than an octave in the baritone range.
When I was 50 we had a singing teacher over at our house for my children. I asked if she could help my range. That day she took my voice to a high C. I am actually a tenor and can sing pretty much all the high parts. I am my in-laws’ favorite opera singer now.
Also I was too timid. Singing is really just controlled shouting.
I hear you. At 49 I also discovered an extra octave up there above the high e. Also baritone. The YouTube singiverse did it for me
Got any youtubers you'd recommend?
Bob Smeenk helped me personally a lot. But I guess it depends a lot on your background, experience and goals.
How cool is that! Congratulations!
You can. That progression is normal. I know this because I am such a case. I wasn’t able to produce a single sound on pitch. Now I can nail some songs (as long as they don‘t go crazy on technique).
Learning to sing is taking control of your voice. You use the same biology that you have been using for speech and other vocal sounds since birth. It all comes built in. Of course it comes more naturally to some people, just like any other activity.
There are some decent videos on YouTube, but take actual vocal lessons if you can. Videos are not a substitute for lessons.
I don‘t like the posted page. The descriptions aren‘t very helpful and neither are most videos on YouTube. I know from experience. For a complete beginner, this is frankly a useless resource.
Because it is so easy to get lost in the muck, do you have any particular recommendations on some “decent” YouTube videos/channels to get at least some practice before taking lessons with a vocal coach?
One I can remember from the top of my head is "How to ACTUALLY Use Breath Support". Seemed like a good, in-depth explanation of a fundamental topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC1iJfWA1aQ
The channel I've watched the most videos on is Chris Liepe's. The video "STOP Singing Vowels this way! (its making you tense)" was in my singing playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWimkesJDIc
I would still describe myself as a beginner, so please keep in mind that I can't possibly vouch for the quality or accuracy of any of these videos.
Oh and I forgot: I can play some instruments, but the voice is the cruelest one to learn. You can‘t „see“ what you are actually doing (wrong). And most of the time you can‘t even feel it very well. This why vocal training is full of analogies and imagery.
I wish it weren't. I would have gotten a lot more mileage out of "force a yawn, see what your mouth does, and do that" rather than "more space, more space, open up!".
Have a look at Complete Vocal Technique.
https://completevocalinstitute.com/complete-vocal-technique/
Their work includes pedagogical research to develop a consistent terminology which abandons lots of outdated and confusing terms such as you mention. No more ambiguous words like "project" or "space" or "support".
Their research also includes using endosciopic cameras to directly observe the vocal tracts of professional singers.
I've not actually trained with them, I just like their research and approach.
The ambiguous word “support” is listed on the page you linked as the first of their principles
Very true, a bad choice on my part! Still, I stick by the spirit of my comment.
That looks really useful, thanks!
I'm danish. CVI is the source of my inspiration
Seconding both points. I'm not one of those cases, as I could already sing decently, but I've seen people go from "terrible" to singing professionally.
I also agree that the linked page isn't useful, it's more of a glossary than anything, but then again, I'm not convinced that a distinction between head voice and chest voice actually exists. I've never been able to tell any qualitative difference, as opposed to, for example, falsetto, and the community can't really agree on whether they actually are a thing or not.
I see a lot of people in here posting success stories from lessons, which is great. But I tried lessons for about 2 months and go absolutely nowhere haha. It was just repeatedly practicing some song that I wasn't super into and I never even felt like I was "singing" just talking kind of louder / longer and felt very forced and odd. Terrible experience tbh, but I do love singing and still want to some day. (I generally just sing in falsetto to songs in my car because I'm too timid to really project my actual voice)
It sounds like you didn't have a very good coach. My first coach wasn't very helpful, my second was amazing. Keep looking!
Open mic nights at your local bar are a great source of data. Approach people after their performance, compliment them, and ask them if they have a coach they'd be willing recommend.
Try recording yourself as you do karaoke. The external perspective and hearing it "in the mix" really helps you tune your performance.
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Ed Sheeran used to be bad at singing [0]. So was Jon Bon Jovi.
In-person vocal lessons and consistent practice have dramatically improved my voice from terrible to half-decent.
[0]: https://youtube.com/shorts/I05Ahr0tpAc
As with many things in life, see it like stats in an RPG: your 'character' may have "0" in the singing skill INITIALLY. But it's still a skill that you can learn, even if you start low.
However, what is true is that, you will sound like YOU. You can get close or make impressions of artists you like. But ultimately your voice is YOUR instrument and it can gain range, and power, but you'll sound like you.
For instance, I'm well aware that I will never have "Celine Dion's voice". I don't mean her skills, I mean literally her voice.
That's what one of the first AND biggest tough thing to accept when singing: you might never sound exactly like the singers you admire. But it doesn't mean you can't sing or be extremely good at it.
It's like Michael Jackson was sad because he knew he would never be able to sing like Barry White. Does that mean Michael Jackson is not a good singer? Nope.
Genetics limits your potential and influences your timbre, but pretty much anyone can learn any technique, and I'll go out on a limb and say anyone can learn to sound really good.
Yes, tone deafness is more likely to be a problem than physical limits, at least if the goal is merely to sing well with the range you have.
Anecdotal evidence from my own singing at 20 compared to 40 seems to point to the opposite.
There is such a thing as being tone deaf. It's hard to get good if you can't even tell if you're bad, and I've been to enough karaoke nights to know that most people can't tell how bad they sound.
Yeah I took over a year of singing lessons from a vocal coach and saw minimal improvement.
That’s fine, but it annoys me when people lie about this stuff. I don’t say everyone can program, and that’s okay. Nobody can say “everybody can X” because nobody has met every person.
I mostly agree, almost everything is possible for almost everyone, but some people have hurdles to overcome that would probably take their entire life to overcome.
Having said that, some people choose that path anyway, and sometimes they actually end up mastering the field from the bottom up in a completely new way that no one else would ever think to do.
I say this on the off-chance someone reading this is one of those people. But yeah, I'm not gonna try grow from 5'7 to 6'4 or sprint faster than Usain Bolt. But more power to anyone who tries!