So, how many of you play guitar? Whether you play guitar or have ever seen a guitarist play, you will likely have come across something called a ‘capo’.
What this nifty gadget does is make it possible to shift songs from one key to another, without having to change what the fingers would be doing.
Why do we need something like this? Well, the guitar is built and tuned in such a way that some keys – like the keys of A, C, D, E and G – are really easy to play in. However, this means that all the OTHER keys in between those 5 – Ab, Bb, B, Db, Eb, F and Gb – are comparatively less easy. Not impossible, but they are undoubtedly more difficult, just because of the way the instrument is built. These notes and their related notes that fall in their scales/chords all fall either just above or just below where the pitch of the next string up starts. Put simply, this means that certain notes end up lying in difficult to reach places, or you can’t use a particular string you’d otherwise want to, or it just doesn’t seem to sound as good (to do with the resonance of certain notes and their placement on the guitar).
What’s this got to do with singing?
The exact same problems that plague guitarists also plague vocalists – but MOST singers don’t even know it’s an issue.
Really? How come?
The answer lies in the ‘bridges’ of the voice. I’ve talked before about ‘bridges’ in the voice. Bridges are just passages from one area of the voice to another.
At certain points in a singers range, the voice moves through a bridge or passageway (referred to as ‘passaggi’ or ‘passaggio’ in the old Italian) from one area to the next. You may well have encountered these in your voice and perceived these as ‘breaks’ or ‘disconnects’ in your voice (they’re not actually breaks, they are just difficult to cross without training).
It is ALWAYS easier to sing in between the bridges than it is to sing right on top of, or just either side of the bridges.
So what do I do to pick the right key for me?
OK, the short genuine answer is “it depends!”, but here is a general rule of thumb to follow.
1) Using a piano or guitar (or some other instrument), work out where the highest note of the song is.
2) Start by moving the key of the song so that the highest note you just identified is towards the top of your chest voice (women, your chest voice ends at A4; men, your chest voice ends at E4 – I’m omitting true basses and true altos because 99% of all men and women are tenors and sopranoes respectively). The top notes should feel comfortable. Move the key around there til it feels comfortable. Don’t skip this step.
NOTE: You may find the lowest notes in the songs with larger range requirements feel too low. Beyond further development of your chest voice (which is essential anyway!), you should note that without a functional mix to extend your range, this indicates that the song is too large in it’s range for your current vocal ability.
3) Work on making this sound full and like your speaking voice. Any disparity between your singing and speaking tonality will compromise the full extent of your tone that can be unlocked with training.
THIS is what makes a great singer. A great phrase is “half the range, double the quality”. The more you focus on quality, the less range truly matters. Great singers almost sound like their high notes are NOT that high. Why? Because they follow the above steps, and then, through training they follow the 4th step…
4) Take the key up ONE key, then repeat step 3. This step can be looped for many years to come. But the emphasis MUST be on the quality at each key change. If the quality ever diminishes at a key change, there is work to be done to develop and build quality into the voice.
Your number one objective as a singer is to SOUND GOOD!
So many think it’s to impress or riff or deliver an astounding performance. While these are not irrelevant objectives, if you make your number one priority to sound good, the extra stuff almost happens as a matter of course.
What this means is that if you have a song in a key that lands the melody you want to sing right on top of a bridge, or slightly either side of it, you will find it harder to sing than if it was somewhere between your bridges.
The crucial thing is to pick a key so that the melody fits as best it can around your bridges. Sure, it can be good practice to put a key right in the way of your bridges, but that is for practice – for performance you need to know where to put songs to get the best out of your voice.