Vocals I : Increasing Vocal Range (this just works!)

This blog post is an informal brain dump of about 3+ years of trying to improve my vocal range. The intended audience is casual/hobby singers who have a problem singing high. This is going to help, I promise :)

Nov '05 :

This is how I sounded back then: http://www.uhooroo.com/live?track=OTEyMDg5 Seriously lacking vocal range and power, which also translated to a "whispering" style of singing.

There were various books and techniques out there on this topic, and it wasn't immediately clear if there's really any correct way to achieve this. What I was looking for was some technique that had worked for most singers out there - and after a lot of digging I selected the "Seth Rigg's Speech Level Singing (SLS)" technique.

This technique is rapidly becoming the de-facto standard in vocal training: http://www.speechlevelsinging.com/client_list.html

Recently, "American Idol" released a vocal training kit "Singer's Advantage" which is essentially an evolved version of SLS.

Very briefly, the philosophy behind SLS is to help a vocalist learn to consciously and later, sub-consciously develop vocal muscle strength and memory to maintain a relaxed "speech-level" vocal posture as s/he sings from lows to highs, across the entire desired vocal range. This means keeping the larynx at a neutral position, breathing right, and keeping the vocal chords and supporting muscles as relaxed as they are when we normally speak.

That's it. That's the concept in a nutshell. Rest is a series of carefully chosen vocal drills that the student has to sing/repeat for months to years (with a vocal coach ideally) to achieve this level of comfort in singing.

Oct '07 :

About 2 years of funny-sounding SLS exercises later, I had come from a deep Baso/Baritonish voice: http://www.uhooroo.com/live?track=OTEyMDg5 to this:

The last note there used to be hard to even hit once, forget sustaining it like that with full breath-support for several seconds.


Jan '08 :


It was getting easier and easier to hit those high A4, B4 and C5s (male Tenor range) ! Although not with as much ease and flexibility as I'd like.



There were also some sur/intonation issues in my singing.

I was also deeply inspired by one Pakistani singer Atif Aslam. In fact, I got introduced to SLS at just about the same time that I got hooked onto Atif. For an amateur vocalist, listening to Atif is like what watching Federer is for someone into Tennis - just plain educational! I noticed a lot of beautiful melodious alaps sprinkled over almost all of his songs. Like the "Woh Lamhe" outro above, or this:

Both my vocal coach (into Western rock/pop mostly) and I were impressed by how relaxed his voice is while singing so high, the energy and the level of control as well. Inspired heavily by his singing style, I was drawn towards Hindustani vocals - mostly to achieve better vocal control, flexibility, and to improve on sur/intonation.

I am currently training under Shri Suhas Vyas . My guruji is not only an accomplished vocalist, but an excellent teacher as well. There's an infinite amount of knowledge he has to share. Uhooroo will soon have some posts on Indian classical music. Briefly, in the context of vocal range & control, what I observed so far is unlike light music (rock/pop/film music) Indian classical vocals have a heavy emphasis on sur, control and improvisation! I can't believe after 3+ years of training under a vocal coach and feeling great, I am back to singing individual notes (Sa, Re, Ga) and trying to hit them with perfect intonation - and finding it difficult! We spend hours singing just 2-3 notes, and I had never sung a komal (flat) Re in my life - I had no idea singing individual notes like this could sound and feel so amazing! SLS trained vocal coaches focus more on the relaxed larynx than on pitch/sur.

Further, in the vocal drills used in Hindustani vocals, the key concepts of SLS get automatically exercised. E.g. you will be singing a scale from some beginner raag like Yaman, starting with the first few notes, singing them over and over for hours, focusing on breathing and sur, then adding higher and lower notes to this range as your voice gets better at handling the current range of notes. Eventually you end up being able to sing the entire desired range (2-3 octaves). There's so much more to Hindustani vocals though than just this. More will follow in a subsequent blog post.

Looking ahead, I am expecting a slight (few semi-tone) improvement in vocal range with SLS, and over a couple of months/years, significant improvement in sur and flexibility!

Stay tuned for similar posts on Hindustani music, vocals, mixing & mastering, remixing, recording and anything related to music!