Top Of My Lungs

I think it was the Behind The Music episode on Heart in which Ann Wilson talked about having to *discover* that high-powered voice of hers. Apparently she and Nancy had been playing and singing for years, as kids, but it wasn't until they got the band together and started playing live that Ann was pushed by circumstance to really reach for some of those high-notes-with-power that she's well known for.

I'm thinking about this because I'm pushing myself to keep at my vocal technique. It's a truism that most untrained singers sing too low in their range (or below it). I took no more than five "adult education" singing classes twenty years ago and that was one of the FIRST things the teacher told us. She said it's particularly true for men, who believe that we're supposed to have lower voices than (whoever).

Nevertheless, when I started writing and singing my own songs I often composed fairly low in my range. A) There's any number of bass and baritone rock singers whose tone I admire (Philip Oakey, Stephin Merritt, etc), and B) it genuinely felt more comfortable.

More than one friend has reported back to me that the songs in which I reach higher in my range happen to be the ones that work better for them. And that some of the low songs don't work. No matter how I feel about my voice, this is good information.

I've often felt kind of like the comment that Geena Davis makes about her kid sister in A League Of Their Own regarding high pitches: can't hit 'em, can't lay off 'em. Except for me it's the LOW pitches. ;-)

Since I have no objection to learning to sing better *anywhere* in my range, though--other than some emotional discomfort I know better than to give in to--I've kept at working the higher end of my range as well.

Yesterday I came home from brunch with a good friend and the house was empty, so I plugged in my guitar and started rocking out live on some of the new songs I'm working on. Part of the process I'm trying to go through this time it to have played and sung these things more often before committing them to media.

Got partway through one song that isn't too low in my range, necessarily (the new material incorporates some of my learning about where I should place my voice better) .... but started to feel as if I was missing a bet by not letting myself go higher. But I'm not quite smart enough to change keys on the fly. So I just went up an octave.

And, perhaps a little like Ann Wilson, I found I had some notes in me that I hadn't thought of.

Everything wasn't fabulous .... the verse I was in ends on some high notes that maybe *aren't* in my range, if I'm up in that octave. (Or that I'll have to keep working at.) Maybe I'd have to re-key the song down a step to be able to go up an octave. I probably want to sing the earlier verse in the original octave, save the reaching-higher for the middle bit. That would suit the emotional arc of the tune.

Still. Some high notes. Pretty good tone and pitch. Loud, too.

I was all kind of "whoah." That was me singing that. Interesting.

Practice makes better.