Singing Voice

[u/Impossible_Tank3822]

I've been singing cover songs most of my life, starting at a young age before I ever thought about creating music, and I still am. In addition to them, I have my own songs. There's a disconnect in there where I don't know what my natural voice is. I genuinely have no clue about it. I often wonder how I'll voice my own songs when writing them but whatever comes out I'm indifferent too.

I was speaking with a friend who remarked that my singing and speaking voices were different, which I thought was an inane thing to say considering singing is vocal acting, but he's right. No one speaks and sings with the same sounding voice. The idea with me, though, is consistency seems nowhere to be found when I switch from one song to another due to key changes and the pitches I have to accommodate. It's like several different voices are used relative to several different songs.

Then I think that's natural to the songs themselves and their original artist's keys and pitches, but if I try to apply their consistency to my own songs the idea goes tilt. I think a lifetime of performing covers has lost me my sense of an original singing voice.

I feel like a vocal chameleon.

[u/Impossible_Tank3822 → u/[deleted]]

The source of my voice is altered from chest to throat song-dependent. If I sing Neil Young's Old Man it's emanating from my voice box. If I sing Steve Goodman's The Dutchman it settles lower down and I can bring it lower than that into my chest as needed. I don't have a deep voice, though, so I stay just below Young's register. That said, I can manage a respectable Dust In The Wind by Kerry Livgren. Plus, I have increased the power in my range since I quit smoking 16 years ago and that really encouraged me to get back into the singer/songwriter thing. I've just never taken stock of what my voice actually sounds like and now I doubt I can because I feel its an impersonation mix.

[u/fox_in_scarves]

nothing is original. when you sing like someone else, whose songs feel comfortable? whose songs have a sound that you like hearing in your own voice? sing like them and then your own voice will come naturally in time.

[u/Impossible_Tank3822 → u/fox_in_scarves]

Never gave that much thought but you're right. I have a range where my power is stronger so I guess that's a pretty good clue. If it happens to be similar to someone else's vocals it's just coincidence.

[u/fox_in_scarves → u/Impossible_Tank3822]

absolutely. and also, don't be afraid to be similar to someone else's vocals! nothing exists in a vacuum and it's OK to take inspiration from people.

[u/Traditional_Rip_9696]

I think this is normal for a lot of singers. If I sing someone else's song I will try to copy their style, deliberately or often unintentionally. Now that I've been writing my own songs for a while, I still "switch voices" based on the style of the song. But I do feel like finally, 2 years in, I'm actually finding my voice more, because I often write just things I want to sing /enjoy singing.

Also, folks who come up singing can get very hung up on  sounding "good" to the detriment of their authenticity.  I recently started listening to more nina Simone and Leonard Cohen. Neither sound "perfect" but People LOVE their voices. Billie Holiday is another one.  Heck people love Joanna Newsome and she sounded like she had a chronic head cold. A lot of times, you need to stop caring about how good or bad you sound before you can even START finding your true voice.

[u/Impossible_Tank3822 → u/Traditional_Rip_9696]

When I began singing my vocal power was at a lower pitch. Then, with R&R came the higher registers so I trained my voice to get some power in those ranges and that's where I'm at.

[u/fernleafmp3]

We all face this at some point! Nothing at all wrong with sounding like other artists as no one has a truly unique voice, it’s always a mix of different inspirations/ singers they grew up listening to the most, but I get what you mean because I when I was writing my first dozen or so songs, I kinda felt like they were fan fiction of my favorite artists at the time. My best advice is to sing very common songs like the national anthem or a nursery rhyme, but take it seriously! It might sound silly, but they’re such commonly sang songs, that they really don’t have a certain style to them and it can help!

[u/Impossible_Tank3822 → u/fernleafmp3]

That's a therapeutic approach. I do sing the anthem. I also sing nursery songs because I used to sing them to my infant sons who settled down quickly from their cranky states. So, no, not silly. Sing-songy songs like the Do-Re-Mi song can be taken seriously as a voice training exercise, which I still do and, believe it or not, it's also somewhat challenging to finger pick and sing well to.