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...
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)
> 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?
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.
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 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.
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.
> 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
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 :-)
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.
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?"
Updated with cvi term notes and map.
To come: beginner guide
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
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
Enable mic to test pitch
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.
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.
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?