Last week we were going over certain issues singers bring up with me. I gave two or three statements that are often posed, and here’s a few more:
“This song doesn’t even go that high, but I’m finding it tiring/straining to sing in THIS particular part”
“Why is it that this OTHER song has a much wider range, but this simple song seems to wreck me?”
“I’m struggling with THIS genre. Every song in it always seems so hard… what gives?”
These are yet more, all too common complaints I hear about people trying to sing some songs.
Per last week’s article, there are mechanical and musical reasons for why certain melodies and certain musical phrases are harder than others. The goal with this two parter is simple – the more of these you can remember and recognise, the easier it is to assess the songs you’re trying to tackle.
From there you can put songs in more favourable keys, or make changes that enable easy singing of the song. If nothing else, you won’t beat yourself up as much when a song kicks your butt.
Five more characteristics of difficult songs
Last week we covered our first five traits, and now we’re onto the second five. Like last time, I’ll discuss each briefly so you can grasp why these characteristics make songs tricky.
6. Melodies that sit right on a vocal bridge
Bridges are the connecting regions between respective registers of the voice. The simplest one to help grasp this is the first bridge. This is the region connecting chest and head voice.
In reality, there are multiple bridges, and each have their own peculiarities and mechanical challenges we must learn to negotiate. Most of U2’s songs require male singers to sing on their first bridge for verses and most of the choruses, then climax on their second bridge.
Put simply, it is typically harder to sing right ON a bridge, than to notes either side of it. It’s technically challenging to land right on a bridge and not go too heavy or too light, and by simply nudging the melody up or down a single semitone, it can often make the melody much more favourable to sing.
7. Half-step melody notes that sit right on a vocal bridge
Here’s the tricky bit. Sometimes by changing the key to move a certain melody note up/down and away from the bridge, you end up positioning another note onto a bridge. This is a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul – you aren’t fixing one issue, you’re just moving it elsewhere.
This makes it impossible to get a really great feeling key for certain songs. This is especially true with key melody notes a half-step/semi-tone away from each other.
A simple example of this would be ‘Only You‘ by Yazoo. The chorus repeatedly hits two notes that are side by side and only one semitone away. Tricky stuff, especially when placed right on a bridge.
8. Really wide/really narrow vowels on key notes
Vowels are an under-discussed element of good singing, and errors in vowel work is generally what derails most singers, even at higher levels.
Certain vowels are tricky. For example, in the song ‘Always Remember Us This Way‘, the top-most melody in the chorus has the lyric “and I can’t find the words“. You have to ascend to these top notes, and sit on almost the same note for all of these words.
All of the vowels are either really quite wide or a dipthong (two vowels together). This makes it extremely challenging to get the vowels right when sitting that high.
Other times, we have to sing a high note on a very narrow vowel. This tends to tip the colour of the voice towards a lighter headier quality, when we are often wanting a beefier fuller quality. This makes narrow vowels also very tricky to stay consistent on.
9. Songs with no gaps between song sections
Most songs have gaps between verses and choruses to give some musical and vocal respite. But not all genres do.
A lot of early motown has no breaks between verses. Think ‘Higher‘ by Jackie Wilson, ‘Rescue Me‘ by Fontella bass, ‘Ain’t Too Proud to Beg‘ by The Temptations. All of this have song sections running one into another with no rest. This gives even very capable singers no respite from hard melodies, and also gives the audience no respite from hearing the singer going at it hard.
A simple solution to this is to add breaks between song sections, or alter verses to contain more short micro-breaks. But this may be easier said than done if you are contractually obliged to deliver music exactly as written, and other solutions may need to be found.
10. Songs with stylistic flips
Singers like Sam Smith, Adam Levine, Leona Lewis, etc, all sing with stylistic ‘flips’. This is where the lower range sounds one way, and the higher range seems to flip into a much lighter/softer sound.
Whether this is head voice or falsetto isn’t relevant. This involves ‘letting go’ of the muscular contraction more characteristic of their lower register, in order to make it into the higher register. Then they have to suddenly regain that contraction when returning to their lower register. Think of it like pulling an elastic band tight, then snapping it, pulling it tight, then snapping it, repeatedly.
This is mechanically very wearing on any voice, and for most singers, exhausts them when done for even a few songs on the trot.
Conclusion: Sometimes songs seem hard, because they are
The reality is, some songs seem hard, because they are hard. Certain melodies are very favourable in voices, others less so. While we can all train to improve our voices, sometimes less experienced keep insisting on trying to sing melodies that even experienced highly skilled singers would actively avoid – not because they can’t do it, but because they can quickly assess a melody and know whether it would be easy/hard to sing.
Want to sing your songs better?
If you would like to start to tackle some of the songs you find very difficult, I’d love to start work with you. All these issues are solveable with good technique and time spent building your voice. If you want to make your favourite songs sound and FEEL much better, you can book in your initial consultation via my booking form right here.