07 Expanding Your Range Part 1
In this lesson, we’ll talk about why expanding our range is important for all worship team singers, both worship leaders and background vocalists, and how we can expand both our low and high range by finding freedom and flexibility in the voice. We’ll discuss the importance of building both a solid chest voice and vocal fry coordination in the voice in order to find freedom in the low notes, and Charmaine will take you through a low range vocal workout step-by-step, exercise by exercise, with both male and female demonstrations.
I’m excited to be working on expanding my range lower because I feel like females in general have a small chest voice range. Also, I personally think octave-jumping songs sound better to me when they’re started lower, rather than jumping into high soprano-range. I can sing pretty high comfortably. It just isn’t my preference.
I feel like when I reach for the lowest notes in these exercises, I tend to open my throat a lot (like I’m yawning). I don’t know if this is a OK or if it is causing unnecessary throat tension. Also, I feel like there’s more throat muscles in action when I’m trying to actually hit the notes, even in a fry, rather than just going to what feels like a relaxed, “pitches” fry. But the most relaxed fry literally doesn’t change at all during the entire second half of the exercise.. Which is better?
The yawn-like feeling is fine in these exercises, as long as it’s relaxed—that’s the most important thing here… to not try to reach down for the pitches, whether in chest voice or vocal fry… but to just let the voice go where it’s relaxed… which, in many of the lower scales here, all does sound the same (not on a particular pitch, and that’s fine!).
I am really excited about this lesson. I am fairly comfortable in my high range but struggle with low notes. As a background vocalist, I thought the best way to deal with this was to learn to harmonize by singing the third or fifth above the melody. So the first course I took on Worship Vocalist was Harmony Essentials. My lightbulb moment in listening to this lesson is that, by lowering my range, I can sing the melody comfortable when the notes are low and also sing the harmony part below the melody! That’s a double blessing.
For sure! Great revelation!
I love doing these vocal fry exercises! I also love the way it sounds when used appropriately in a song. I’m excited to add this workout into my routine and hear the difference in time.
Awesome! Glad you’re enjoying the exercises!
Even though I have a much better lower range than high range, I found these lessons helpful. I love how these exercises don’t have to sound good, but overtime, they make your voice able to sound good in those lower ranges naturally. On a side note, I’ve noticed that when I sing with my friend on worship team, she can sometimes hit lower tones than I can in songs. She somehow seems to relax and slide down into them, and although she’s not aware of it, she is probably using this technique. Thanks for this lesson!
Totally! It’s neat to start to notice some of these techniques in other voices!
I really like this topic ! Often times we focus a lot on high notes but as you said it’s very important to have good presence in low chest notes as well !
My lowest comfortable note is currently E2. I’ve always wanted to be able hit a C2 consistently and comfortably but the only time this happens is early in the morning haha. Hopefully what happened to you will happen to me too and as I do these exercices I’ll be able to unlock that C2 in a clear chest voice !
Absolutely! Both the low range and high range are important! You’ve got such a rich low range—love listening to you sing in those low notes!
Uff da, this is tough! But I’m really excited to expand my lower range, which was one of my goals when I started with Worship Vocalist. For these exercises, is it important to be hitting (or approximating) those low notes on which we’re sliding into vocal fry? (If so, how?!) Or is it enough to just sort of think lower and be relaxed, and eventually we’ll get there?
(Well, I just figured out how to see all the older comments and see you addressed this on April 9, 2018 or thereabouts. So don’t worry about responding. But if anyone has the same question, look to 2018!)
Hey Ashley! Great question—and I’ll re-answer here for anyone else who’s wondering! Don’t even worry about pitch when it gets down low! As soon as you’re not hitting the pitch anymore, just go into “vocal fry land”… and don’t worry about hitting the pitch! It’s enough that your voice is relaxed, you’re still making vocal coordination, and your ear is hearing the pitch of the scale… so it is working to build low range over time, but it’s not instantaneous! It does happen over time though for sure… I’ve done these exact exercises and gained quite a few notes on my bottom end.
Thanks, Charmaine! Here’s to a new year of trusting the process!
I’ve been working on Grace to Grace. While the rest of the song is awesome, I’m struggling with the lowest notes in the verses. I’ve been doing these vocal exercises for a while now. I have noticed improvement, but still not able to hit those notes as powerfully as I would like to. Any suggestions on what I can do for this?
Hey! The first thing to make sure is that you are fully engaging your chest voice. You probably are — but I ask, because many vocalists who struggle with low notes, without realizing it, are really only using their head and pharyngeal resonators, so it gets weak in the lower range, and the super low range is totally inaccessible.
Secondly — are you able to engage vocal fry in a comfortable, relaxed way? Are you able to kind of “speak”-sing the words down low, using vocal fry?
Be patient with your voice! Extending the range into the super lows and super highs does take time and patience. And sometimes the best option is to change the key — does it work for you to do the song slightly higher?
Alright, I’m excited to jump into these… octave jumps are my nightmare. So close, and yet so strained😂 I prefer to emote differently and skip the jump rather than shout and strain, but you’ve worked wonders so far, so I’m open! Seriously, though, ugh. Nothing makes me feel “not good enough” more than an octave jump!!
Yup, it’s all about expanding the range so that you’ve got WAY more than an octave to work with!
do we not do the resonance workout from week 3 anymore?
Hi Joel, the upcoming workouts (low range and high range workouts) are taking the place of the Lesson 3: Resonance Workout, so there’s no need to do that one anymore for now. Feel free to do the Resonance Workout 1-2 times per week still if you have time, but make sure to not over-do it and fatigue the voice too much!
I am so excited to do these exercises!!! And even though you didn’t ask for one, here is my goal: I want to be able to sing You Say from Lauren Daigle in the original key. I know it’s a long-term goal, but hey, it doesn’t hurt to dream.
Hey Karen! Haha — you’re always welcome to share your goals! 🙂 Great song!
This made the most sense so far and its easy to see the direct correlation of expanding the range by working way down low in and out of the “vocal fry”. Trust the process, trust the process….
Awesome! Yes! Trust! 🙂
Looking forward to expanding my low-range more. It’s strange how I’m pretty comfortable with these exercises however, I’ve had issues with very low range songs, not painful, just uncomfortable and so low that it can’t be picked on the microphone in our church.
For sure! Well these exercises should help with that! It could perhaps be a microphone/sound issue as well though—make sure you get the levels right at rehearsal before the service, really go over those parts, and your sound engineer may need to change your levels for certain parts of a song.
I love this! My range has already lowered so much through all the other workouts, but wow, I never really thought about it going much lower like what you have done in this lesson. Thank you for this definitely challenging but fun exercise! I see in the practice schedule that you want us to just stick to this workout for the week, but would it still be ok to do the breathing exercises? I really need help with breath support and would like to continue those.
So great, glad it’s been helpful! 🙂 Definitely, feel free to carry on with the breathing exercises! They’re not super tiring for the voice so it’s a good add-on.
This is awesome! I’m feel so blessed to be a part of this group. I understand my instrument so much better, already.
Amazing! So glad to hear it!
Ok wow! I have always used vocal fry to “get a grasp” on notes if you will never thinking it could help broaden the low range, which in a sense I suppose in both situations the voice would be “getting a grasp” Charmaine your teaching honestly blows me away! This lesson is exciting! 👏🏻
Totally!! So neat when we can use something we already know how to do to achieve something else! Glad this lesson was so exciting for you!!!