After choir I usually end up with a sore throat, even though rehersals are only 45 minutes long. Some people may remember my previous rantings about the compulsary choir. What can I do about getting a sore throat every wednesday afternoon? Because its sorta painful!

Hi Subatomic star

Couple of questions for you:

1. What's your natural singing range?
2. What part are you singing in choir?
3. Are you singing that part because it's comfortable, or because there is a shortage of people in that part?

I used to sing alto or even tenor in choirs if that's where the gap was, even though I'm really a fairly high soprano. As a result, because I was filling a gap and was outnumbered, I tended to oversing (or, if I'm really honest, to shout). And so my throat hurt horribly after rehearsals. In other choirs where I sang soprano, I tended to sing loudly to try to drown out other people going wrong (yes, I know, I was horribly arrogant! )

Many years later I learned that trying to sing loudly using muscle power is a bad idea - singing shouldn't take much more effort than speaking - and that relaxing and using my abdominal and tummy muscles as nature intended to drive my voice (rather than using my throat) actually results in much better projection (and a nicer sound). As my singing teacher put it, I stopped trying to sing from the neck up and started using the whole me.

So I guess the point of this ramble is, make sure you are singing in your comfortable range, and don't force your voice louder to compensate for others.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Katyjay

Alto, because its all I can do! I can't go very high...

me neither i can only go to the D an octaveabove middle C. a piece ive got to sing at the xmas concert goes to that D as well eeeek

I usually find this if I am not using proper breath control. If your voice feels as if it is rasping in your throat, take in a massive breath, expanding the back and the diaphragm whilst keeping the shoulders relaxed. Lift your whole facial expression - eyebrows, cheekbones, look alive in your eyes. Look as if you enjoy what you are doing. Whilst you are singing, pull your lower abs in and up to push out the breath, and always have your mouth open as wide as you can. Drop the jaw and make as much room as you can for the vioce to resonate, feeling as if you could hold a whole tennis ball in the mouth. Finally, imagine the sound is emerging from your forehead, and once you feel you have enough breath to support the note then you start to sing. try making sounds like 'ning' or mmm to get that resonance.
Its so hard to explain without actually showing you.

Ya know I've been mulling this topic since it was first noted. I kept wondering if the high notes thing has to do with the way a flautist overblows to produce high notes. I thought of myself as an alto in high school, yet I later realized that even an alto should be able to reach notes I THOUGHT were too high - now find I can produce (somewhat ) higher notes...that relaxing and letting your higher notes float out as charlottethemuppet suggests may be the key, if you can remember to turn your "flute" thinking off!

QUOTE (katyjay @ Dec 2 2004, 10:26 AM)

I used to sing alto or even tenor in choirs if that's where the gap was, even though I'm really a fairly high soprano. As a result, because I was filling a gap and was outnumbered, I tended to oversing (or, if I'm really honest, to shout). And so my throat hurt horribly after rehearsals. In other choirs where I sang soprano, I tended to sing loudly to try to drown out other people going wrong (yes, I know, I was horribly arrogant! ) Many years later I learned that trying to sing loudly using muscle power is a bad idea - singing shouldn't take much more effort than speaking - and that relaxing and using my abdominal and tummy muscles as nature intended to drive my voice (rather than using my throat) actually results in much better projection (and a nicer sound). As my singing teacher put it, I stopped trying to sing from the neck up and started using the whole me. So I guess the point of this ramble is, make sure you are singing in your comfortable range, and don't force your voice louder to compensate for others.

Katyjay - I am so with you there.

I sang alto in the (girls) choir because I found it easy and could not (or so I thought) reach high - even the D above middle C seemed already going high for me, whereas I would go down to D below middle C easily.

Like you there was a hole in the altos (8 of us for 40 singers), and like you half of them could not carry the part and would go off key, and yes, like you, I would push my voice using muscle power to drown them or carry them back to the right tune....and like subatomic_star I would on and off, depending on what we were singing, get a sore throat!

Having since taken lots of lessons with a pro, I learned that I was a mezzo not an alto (though I can stilll sing alto!) and when vocalizing I actually can reach a high B almost 2 octaves above middle C....though I would never sing above an F or G at this point in a performance (as in my upcoming Diploma!!!)...and that it is all about relaxing and not using your throat but your tummy muscles and relaxing!

For the record, a contralto actually should be able to reach F or G in recital - if you listen to any of the greatest of the 20thC such as Kathleen Ferrier (the greatest) or Maureen Forrester, Marian Anderson, or a current one like Nathalie Stutzmann, they all do go to F easily in performance....the major difference between contralto and mezzo other than just a couple of notes up and down (really!) is in the colour and a sort of darkness that only contraltos have. Listen to recordings and you'll see what I mean. They sound almost like men when they go down, a mezzo going down to the same notes will not.

My advice would be to take individual lessons with a professional to try and figure out if you are singing right or wrong :-)

Do you drink loads, becuase I noticed that when I drink (water) before singing I sing better and don't get a sore throat afterwards. My friend's just said that this is the same for her too.

Misssniffler has a point - you should drink plenty of water throughout the day and it will help your voice.

But don't drink too much immediately before you sing or you'll end up burping

Cheers

Katyjay

QUOTE

I sang alto in the (girls) choir because I found it easy and could not (or so I thought) reach high - even the D above middle C seemed already going high for me, whereas I would go down to D below middle C easily.

I can identify with this too Lafrog. And if you can sight-read and hold a lower part ...!

I could manage a D an octave above middle C, and on a good day an E but rarely an F. G was a giddy unattainable height, and A was the province of the special few ......... and I so wanted to sing those higher notes. It was not till I was at college that I found I had a "head voice" of sorts, and now harrumphhhh years later I am still singing soprano.

If anyone had told me at 16 years of age that I would be singing soprano years later I would not have believed them.

Allears is right- it's important not to tighten up. I remember the first time I sang a G - it was light and airy, and it felt like I had suddenly started singing a kind of falsetto - quite different from anything I'd ever sung before. It wasn't very strong - but it had been there all along.

Maggie

QUOTE (maggiemay @ Dec 16 2004, 12:43 PM)

G was a giddy unattainable height, and A was the province of the special few ......... and I so wanted to sing those higher notes. (...) If anyone had told me at 16 years of age that I would be singing soprano years later I would not have believed them.

Maggie - well that sounds VERY familiar too! just replace soprano with mezzo :-)

QUOTE (lafrog @ Dec 16 2004, 04:04 PM)

QUOTE (maggiemay @ Dec 16 2004, 12:43 PM) G was a giddy unattainable height, and A was the province of the special few  .........  and I so wanted to sing those higher notes.   (...) If anyone had told me at 16 years of age that I would be singing soprano years later I would not have believed them. Maggie - well that sounds VERY familiar too! just replace soprano with mezzo :-)

Snap! Except that I did have the head voice notes - just I thought of them as squeaking rather than singing, and I only uttered them out of a sense of bravado during the descants in carols. Having lessons effectively increased my range by an octave - and a good half of that was perception as well as technique!

Cheers

Katyjay

I've sung soprano for years, but just recently my choir was way too top-heavy with sopranos, and desperate for altos....so I offered to help out the altos. After a few weeks in this new vocal range I'm really struggling - it just feels so un-natural to be growling (that's how it feels!). Is it possible to train one's voice to sing lower? Or should I just go back to being a happy soprano. I don't want to permanently damage my voice (it tends to hurt quite a bit after an "alto" session.)