How to find key of your voice-singing with guitar

J

johnmills

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I\'m a co-writer in a band, and usally I write songs for my self, but we waned to do double vocals on some songs, and it became evident that I could not sing on my co-writers songs. Then I realized his songs were mostly starting in A5 and G5. If I use standard tuning and try to sing out of A5 or G5 or F5, to reach the note I have to sing in a almost taking very soft voice. But if I start the songs in B5, I sing in my natural voivce. It led me to believe that my voice isn\'t fit for standard tuning. If I play normal chords like Amaj etc. my voice is also low and talky. If I use a capo it\'s natural again. What I want to know is, in what key is my voice, how do I find out? If I know what should I do woth that knowledge. Should I write all my songs out of that key. Or is there a spectrum eg. if your voice is in G then u can start songs in a a certain no. of keys in your range????????? cause even if singing out of B5 sounds right, im still unsure. thanks a milion.
 
i don't think its wise to limit yourself to a key your voice can handle. take some vocal training lessons to learn how to breathe and use your chest, throat and stomach muscles correctly. Increase your vocal range rather than reside to making songs around your voices shortcomings.

I take vocal lessons and after the first month i'd increased my range by a whole octave just from practicing and warming up properly. its well worth the effort.

peac
 
Yep, It's more about vocal range than your voice being in a certain key - some keys and scales just fit your range better.
 
Maybe your thinking of your range... bass, tenor, alto, saprano...

If your voice can cover all 12 notes in a full octave, you can sing in any key. It may be limited, but I'm sure some of your favorite rock singers can only cover one range. Use your instruments to go above and below your singing range.
 
err... i think kurt does lose his voice... 'cept that it sounds good when he starts screaming till he loses his voice. heh

...back you your question: i dunno, smoke a lotta greens probably?
 
About finding the right key

The key of a song can be very important as a singer usually expresses himself in different ways at different pitches i.e. screaming at high pitch, performing moody talk at low pitch. The feeling of the song is many times dependent on the performance of he singer. If the verse is kind of mellow for the singer it could sound very good if the chorus is close to the peak of his upper registry.

Most vocalists are more comfortable in certain keys than others. To find your own keys you need to have a repertoir wich you can sing without having problems with your vocal range. When doing this you would probably have to transpose some of the tunes or you could find a singer wich has about the same range as you do and then learn from his songs (I think that's the way I got it goin'). A teacher could tell you weather you're tenor barritone or bass but there's really no such need - this is mostly implied in choires.

I think it's about how you want your vocals too sound like. Try keeping that sound when playing and singing. Make it feel natural, expressive and good.

Your voice doesn't have a certain key but it is most likley that you sing better in certain ones.

Giannis
 
warm up!

warm up! warm up! you won't be able to sing well in any key until you get in the habit of warming up.

voice does not relate to keys. there are no switches or keys or holes in there, you know? it's a continuous variation along a single range, except for a few exceptional cases like falsetto singing, yelli (a kind of traditional african singing), tibetan throat singing, etc...

the main characteristic of your voice is range, that is, how high & how low you're able to sing. now this may affect which keys you're able to sing, because.. well for instance, if there's a C that's the lowest note you can sing, then you could sing a song in C that has that note, but you couldn't sing the same song if transposed down a half step into B. not because the KEY OF B is a problem, but just because that one note you wouldn't be able to hit.

fortunately, your range is not determined at birth. it changes as you practice singing, & in fact it changes dramatically over the course of a day, a hour, a song, a few minutes of warming up. a proper warm up can increase your range a WHOLE LOT.

here's a simple warmup, if you've never heard of such a thing: (you might recognize the sound of this warmup once you do it, because you've probably heard singers warming up sometime, & this is the most popular one).. singing a simple relaxed open sound/word, like LA, sing a broken major chord, then go up to the next (semi-tone) chord, & so forth until you get to the top of your range

so, for instance, sing: C E G (high)C back down to G, down to E, down to C.. then sing C, Csharp.. Csharp, F, Gsharp, highCsharp, Gsharp, F, Csharp... Csharp, D.. D F# A D A F# D

etc!

vocal warmups!

instrumentalists should warm up too!

yay warmups!
 
I don't sing with key, I'm still practicing grunts, yells, and shouts.
 
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