HOLY CRAP!!!! I just realized how difficult a 4 octave vocal range is!!!

baimun

baimun

Funkasaurus Rex
I've got a pretty decent vocal range (I can sing all the parts of Bohemian Rhapsody) but I was just doing some George Benson style scat singing along with a clean guitar through my amp....

Most of the Benson-esque stuff is around 5th and 7th fret on the DG and B strings.

I started messing around with other things I knew and coincidently, the lowest pure note I can sing is the low E on the guitar... so I work it up the other direction and the "Gallileo" part of Bohemian is the 12th and 13th frets of the high E.

So unless I'm mistaken, that's three octaves.


What the hell.... how do you get 4 octaves? Sing Mariah Carey "dog whistle" notes? :messedup: hell.
 
baimun said:
I've got a pretty decent vocal range (I can sing all the parts of Bohemian Rhapsody) but I was just doing some George Benson style scat singing along with a clean guitar through my amp....

Most of the Benson-esque stuff is around 5th and 7th fret on the DG and B strings.

I started messing around with other things I knew and coincidently, the lowest pure note I can sing is the low E on the guitar... so I work it up the other direction and the "Gallileo" part of Bohemian is the 12th and 13th frets of the high E.

So unless I'm mistaken, that's three octaves.


What the hell.... how do you get 4 octaves? Sing Mariah Carey "dog whistle" notes? :messedup: hell.
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either that, or you're Bowser from Sha Na Na.
 
markwein said:
The other thing is that a range like that is kind of silly to listen to in rock music.
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Only as "pure" notes.

If you're doing cover tunes, switching from Godsmack to Alice in Chains, to Journey requires at least 3 octaves.

Rob Halford probably utilizes at least that much and he kicks ass.
 
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKpA36hIqHg"]YouTube - 4 octave wonders Pt. 16 - Jim Gillette (E2-D6)[/ame]
 
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAeYPg6AccI"]YouTube - 6 Octave Vocal Demonstration - Brett Manning[/ame]
 
baimun said:
Only as "pure" notes.

If you're doing cover tunes, switching from Godsmack to Alice in Chains, to Journey requires at least 3 octaves.

Rob Halford probably utilizes at least that much and he kicks ass.
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True. But doing it in the same song is silly.

On cover gigs I end up using my head voice quite a bit to get into the registers that my chest voice just will not work.
 
markwein said:
YouTube - 6 Octave Vocal Demonstration - Brett Manning
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Ths is so weird.

The way the guy does his first demonstration (the 5 octave) I can sing right along with him.... but that doesn't seem right because I don't think I have a 5 octave range.

It must be because the human voice is made from so many overtones. Changing the tonality it still overlapping certain notes but adding and subtracting others. Sort of like a chord, and the bottom end of the chord dips into one octave and the top edge of the chord goes into others as it moves up the range.

Making a squeaking noise or a gutteral noise is not the same as "singing" a note in those ocataves.
 
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baimun said:
Ths is so weird.

The way the guy does his first demonstration (the 5 octave) I can sing right along with him.... but that doesn't seem right because I don't think I have a 5 octave range.

It must be because the human voice is made from so many overtones. Changing the tonality it still overlapping certain notes but adding and subtracting others. Sort of like a chord, and the bottom end of the chord dips into one octave and the top edge of the chord goes into others as it moves up the range.
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I'm not sure I understand. Are you crossing over into your head voice at any point?
 
markwein said:
I'm not sure I understand. Are you crossing over into your head voice at any point?
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Head Voice lol.

If you have a keyboard handy its pretty easy to figure out.

My range is decent, sadly hitting the right one at the right time is the problem. :embarrassed:
 
markwein said:
I'm not sure I understand. Are you crossing over into your head voice at any point?
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You mean falsetto? Definitely on the top end. I work hard on choosing when to pass into falsetto and when not to, mostly for it's tonal change (falsetto is smoother than high rock voice) but there's only so far the normal voice can go up without falsetto.

There's definitely a crossover. I can sing certain AC/DC and Zepplin stuff without using falsetto, but I have to use falsetto for the high notes at the end of Bon Jovi Runaway, or for Bohemian. However, I switch to falsetto to sing smoother for some notes in songs like "Let's stay together" where I don't want the high notes to have any "rock edge".
 
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Do most people count their head voice as part of their range? I usualy don't, even though it would add quite a bit to mine...
 
Good example of a true 4-octave range:



Thing is that McFerrin (unlike the other guys shown in this vid) can actually make effective use of that range.

Of course, vocal range has very little bearing on what makes a great singer; Ella Fitzgerald had three octaves, Sinatra had two, Billie Holiday had one-and-a-half octaves, Bessie Smith had just the one... even in opera, some of the greatest singers have a vocal range of less than three octaves.
 
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