Karaoke Forums

Hello Everyone,

I just joined up yesterday and am so thrilled to me "meeting" everyone here.  It's great to hear so many different voices and singing styles, and to hear singers who are supportive and not cut-throat all the time.

I have a question for male singers out there, and for females who may be voice teachers or have younger songs or had brothers who sang- I am looking for exercises and/or songs that are good for the young male voice in its final stage of vocal change.

I have one or two boys now who have their treble range but can't connect it to their new lower range.  The lower range is downright bass like.  Seriously, these boys could do low end doo-wop or bass II harmonies.  They cannot phonate at middle C or above.  Sometimes the voice cuts out even at the top space B in Bass clef.

What songs did you guys sing when this was your range, with a large break in the middle?  What excercises and warm ups did you do?  What did it feel like, physically and mentally?

I make my students use their higher range, but they're too large to be cast in any roles that would sing there like Oliver or Josh in Big.  And they're too young and white to do Old Man River without being laughed off the stage.

Any advice besides what I've been giving them, which is to sing the stuff even though they won't be cast in it or use it now, so that hopefully it will be easier to use and connect later on in life?

Anything anyone can say here would be helpful.  I only had sisters growing up, and didn't know many singing boys until high school, and their voices had all changed by then.  I'm going off of textbook stuff and gut intuition.

The look of sadness in their eyes and frustration just about kills me.

Jen, I resemble your problem .  I sing with no range in the treble clef but I can hit the E below the bass clef.  What genre of music are we talking about as there are a number of tunes in country music by singers such as Johnny Cash, Josh Turner, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Trace Adkins, etc. that lend themselves to that range.  Also, I sing a few tunes done by Tina Turner and Olivia Newton John that sound fine when dropped a couple of octaves and the background music doesn't even require a change (same key ).

Mentally, their situation bites.  I remember it well from when I was in school.  I played trumpet rather than deal with my voice cracking when I didn't want it to.  I dropped out of church choir because I was embarrased when singing the bass line and suddenly hit a tenor note.  It took about 2 years to stabilize completely.  I did concentrate on learning the bass clef and singing first the baritone then the bass lines depending on the score.  Vocal warm-ups were the usual; hit a note that's comfortable towards the bottom of their range and hold it as long as possible, then up a half step and hold, etc. until the notes become uncomfortable.  Then start do some hops (up 2 down 1 repeat) then go back to long whole notes but changing the vowel (a, ahh, oh, e, i).

As far as connecting to their top range ... makes for good yodeling but my top disappeared by the time puberty was complete.  My falsetto sounds like two cats on a back fence fighting.  And it hurts.  Give them parts/tunes that they can succeed at and they can expand from there.  BTW what's wrong with Ol' Man River??? I sing that as well as some Louis Armstrong and a number of gospel tunes, even back in the seventies, with no problems.

Hello Dave, thanks for your reply!

I should have said what type of music.  Stupid me!!!  Most of my voice students are Broadway style singers or want to be.  Quite a few of them (and all my kids with changing voices) are working professional actors in commercials, voice over work, musicals, and touring plays and are required to use at least their speaking voices daily.  What's more, they need their voices to earn money for college, so I sometimes am afraid to give them strenuous exercises that might make it difficult for them to speak or do a character voice sound for media work.

Therefore, the only reason Old Man River isn't okay is that, in theater, you are supposed to sing songs that go with your physical type and character type.  In other words, even though I can sing Christine in Phantom of the Opera, I'm too tall to play her, so I get typed as Carlotta, the diva singer.  Consequently, casting directors and such tell me not even to bother singing Think of Me or Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again (Christine songs).  I CAN, but they don't care to hear them, and instead would prefer if I did some kind of comic piece to show I can play funny and b*tchy at the same time.

Now, there is more leeway in terms of song/singer/type with kids in general, since so many theater songs are adult songs or love songs.  Kids can sing songs for opposite genders or older characters if they can sing them, and can even have keys changed for their younger voices.  So I can change keys on some pieces and let my boys do those songs.

The trouble is, the casting directors instantly hear that keys are changed, and label the kid VOICE CHANGING, and don't want to use them for a long contract- they don't know what the voice will sound like, how it will hold up, where it will end up, etc.  So it's not the best thing in the world to "let the cat out of the bag", so to speak.

That said, since it's pretty obvious voices are changing anyway, I was thinking of writing alternate lyrics to Old Man River for these boys:  "Voice is changin', my voice is changin'... don't know what key I should put the range in... My voice is changin', so now I'm singin' this song...."

I'm still laughing about "I resemble your problem"- great line!

So, getting back to your reply, I had been thinking of some pop music but I'm not too familiar with a lot of it, so I will look into Johnny Cash and some of these other singers.  Country music is actually very theatrical, so it lends itself to theater auditions better than pop music.

ONJ is also theatrical.  Tina Turner music might work.  At least one role she has done was later made into a musical (Acid Queen in Tommy), but I think that's an obviously female lyric.

Both my boys still have their high range pristine and intact, just like it was when they were singing treble.  So I still have them using it, but they look like teenage boys, so they're not going to be cast in parts like Oliver anymore.

It's the same situation, mentally.  They come from musical families- families that actually go out and do karaoke together at local places, and my one student won't get up and sing anything anymore, because he's embarrassed.  I told him to go out there and crack just like the rest of us singers do!!!  But I feel his pain.

And it's funny you mentioned yodeling- I actually gave them yodeling warmups and exercises!!!  Right away I noticed how "cracking" sounds like yodeling without control, so I started encouraging them to experiment with the flexibility to try to improve it.  As it happens, the young baritone lines designed to be easy for changing voices usually are fine on the low range (don't go nearly as low as my boys can sing, anyway....) but also use notes around and above middle C.  The only way my students can sing those is in head voice, but while they can get those notes moving down from very high treble range, they can't flip up to head voice from their husky baritone sound.  It's like the cords won't even come together.

So I'm hoping yodeling will make that slightly easier for them.  But that and changing keys are all I've got.

Mostly, I feel bad that I can't tell them from any direct personal experience that it's okay, and that it will be fine.  And my husband didn't sing until after puberty, really, so in this respect his is not very much help.

Thanks again, I will assign some of your exercises tonight and hopefully some country music will do the trick for what they should be singing at auditions.

Cats fighting!!!  You crack me up!!!

Good luck with them.  Unfortunately, most broadway tunes were written for tenors and baritones.  They might have some luck with some of the Bing Crosby or Dean Martin tunes.  Being a bass is tough finding music without a key change.  The best key for me happens to be E/Eflat.

sounds like their teacher has her head screwed on right. Just a thought and I am sure you are onto it...If these kids earn from their looks and their voices then as much attention needs to be taken of their mental ability to deal with the physical and emotional changes as to their continued singing voices. Someone who is touted as a child protegee can sometime find it intolerable to no longer be the little darling. Tis a hard transition indeed for the cossetted into the real world

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

A good point, Morgan, and one I don't think of nearly often enough!

It must be so hard for these kids.  I wish I could relate better to what they go through.  I just try to be here for them.

You know what is absolutely ridiculous?  Because of this stupid American Disney show called Zach and Cody or something like that, every boy is being asked to grow their hair out to that shaggy mop-top 'do.  The result is a bunch of acne on their foreheads.  I mean, really, who thought of this?  And why are they allowed to make decisions?

the same people who decree women should be anorexically thin to be beautiful I guess.
Reubens should have lived forever

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

Ha!  You're so right.

I have long held onto the belief that the king of the reality shows would be if they god a bunch of stick thin supermodels and tied them down and then force fed them fattening foods for an hour.  The audience could call in and vote what to feed them, and how much, and the b*tchiest of the lot would get the food smeared all over her face before she ate it.  Tell me THAT's not a show with something for everybody!!!

Anyway, I thought I'd mention the utter irony that where I normally kind of wing-it with lessons (prepping too much is just pointless with these kids; there's always a new audition that just came up or something....), I actually took some time off from SS yesterday to change a bunch of keys for my student, only to find his range had shifted even more and nearly every key without exception has to be changed AGAIN, to a different key.

I told his mom to basically send him to me for an hour from now on, then go away for a bit,  and come back and get music.  Cause I'm never doing that much work again unless I have the kid in the room singing along to see if it's the right key!!!

Finally, though- I can relate a bit more to the frustration of a changing voice.

That break in the middle for most males (and most males sing tenor, or in my case counter-tenor) is middle "C".  It is at or near that part of the solfegio (scale) that the "chest voice" gives way to the "head voice" (I'm putting this in simple terms--it's pretty complicated to explain and I don't fully understand the details myself) so can pose difficulties when singing down or up to that critical point in terms of tone.  The best way to deal with that is to identify or be aware of that critical point where the shift occurs and learn how to quickly shift from the "chest" to the "head" (starting below the throat) to nail the damned thing.  In other words, that particular note is the dividing point between the "chest" and the "head".  The tendency is to want to produce it from both points at the same time!  My teacher told me to approach from the "head" angle and it sounds best when I get to that point.  It is a matter of just running the scales and learning to manipulate quickly from the chest (lower notes) to the head (higher notes) at that critical junction.   I know it drives me nuts!

unfortunately for me, and it sounds like some of Jen's students, is that their 'head voice' is, or will be, baritone.  It's really disheartening to be able to sing a tenor line one day and the next thing you know you're doing head voice, throat constriction, etc. and still can't hit the note.  Especially if you've been taught, as I was, to breath from the diaphram ONLY.  (That was thanks to my band teacher.)  That also intesifies the difficulty of acheiving a 'head voice'.

But I'll tell you what, people love my '16 Tons' and 'Big Bad John'.  I'll sub both once I have a system that allows me to record MP3.

....in the days of my youth..(wait that's a Led Zeppelin song coming on).Seriously, the warm up I used was From the Sound of Music"Do-Re me"
Doe,a dear a female dear,Ray,a drop of golden sun,me...i'm sure you know the tune.A simple vocal scale.For fun and vocal practice,our theatre group would "talk and communicate" in harmonies before a show for warm up.This is a practice I still use today.You wouldn't know it by my O to 60 gutteral screams of heavy metal,but I do it.Pushing out and releasing vocals from your bodies diaphram is an art,controlled and measured by the vocal chords in our throat.I don't think I have to mention this to a singer such as yourself....as my theatre teacher use to say,"no carbonation and smoking before the show"!.I would hope youngsters wouldn't be doing that in the first place...

Hi...This is Tonya's Husband...I have  been teaching voice for about 18 years.

The best thing you can do about the changing voice is to not make a big deal about it.  With male students that were in this time of their life..I spent more time on developing breathing and enunciation.  Most of the change will work it self out with cosistant practice and not forcing things.  The danger ....I have found...is that many teachers will try and force things and end up causing more damage from strain.

Some Suggestions:
All thru the night is a good basic song....(F is always a good transitional key)...


Just some thought...

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Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Psalm 100:1