Popular Music of the Twentieth Century – Voice

How important is the singer and the voice? Here is a comparison of the singing of Bing Crosby versus Billie Holiday. Which do you like better and why? How much is in the voice and the person singing?

What’s in a voice? A lot! Here are some attributes of opera voices: (from Wikipedia) A voice type classifies a singing voice by vocal range, vocal weight, tessitura, vocal timbre, vocal transition points (passaggia) like breaks and lifts, and vocal register.^[ref]

There is also the Fach system for opera singer types. 

There is also:

tension, raspiness, nasality, high/low register, breathiness, loudness, vibrato, reverb, ornamentation, vocal harmonies

Getting rid of tension in singing

From 2:14

And here’s your five minute warm up!

vocal warm up

Here are the six attributes of voice:

• Volume (Loudness)
• Pitch (Rise and Fall)
• Pace (Rate)
• Pause (Silence)
• Resonance (Timbre)
• Intonation.
• and perhaps, also TWANG (how much you smile when you are singing)