You remind me of a woman in my college music class who, in regular conversation, would always sing phrases rather than simply say them whenever the phrase itself was a popular (or obscure, for that matter) line in a song. A couple classmates said they found it off-putting, but I always defended this unique habit of hers because, A) she was a singer unabashedly practicing her talent as a matter of course, B) her voice was consistently eardrum friendly, and C) her repertoire of songs was downright colossal and yet never presented in a spirit of gloating or condescension. At worst, it was always the perfect conversation starter to hear her finish any particularly mundane statement in full Broadway fashion, leaving you no choice but to smile from ear to ear and ask, “Why do I know that line?” And with full singsongy enthusiasm, she always knew how to remind you that you did in fact know exactly where she had lifted the refrain in question from and that you had simply forgotten how delightful it was in the moment.. and not to worry about it because, of course, that happens to the best of us. So, I’ll close by saying, whether your voice is marvelous or becoming marvelous, share it unabashedly! Those who say nay today may very well PAY to say yay another day!
I’m bilingual - English Spanish- and I realized that I sang differently in English (husky) than in Spanish (Brassy flute-y). Now I add more nose when I sing in English. I sounded pretty good in Spanish, at least to me.
This was awesome info for me as an amateur singer and voice actor. I realized I was doing something right when I changed “where” my voice was, and how I noticed certain people talked in “different places” in the voice, but I’ve never heard an explanation for why that is, let alone such a technical, in-depth one! This helped explain a lot of things I’ve been struggling to understand about different voices, thanks so much for making this video! I almost feel guilty for getting to watch this for free 😅.
This was so incredibly helpful! I didn't realize my voice is actually more husky, and I've been trying to push it with air and strength, hit when I bring it up into the back of my mouth I use less effort and get a clearer, warmer sound. It's going to take some practice but it shows me that I can find a sound I like
Omg I did the same thing as you except the other way around. My voice is brassy and I would push it too much out of the mouth. Wish u the best with ur singing journey.
Very interesting info! Now I know why all these years when I was in bands, my voice had a hard time cutting through all the instruments even though it was powerful. My voice is super warm. I knew it was warm but I didn’t know about husky, brassy, and flutie voice. I also think the dog knocked out in the back resting is absolutely adorable just hanging out while mom makes a video.
My voice is always on the soft side... Even with power, it sounds very very light and whispery even without whispering, it also sounds rather child like... And it can only vary from sweet and soft to strong like when a kid is trying to sound like an adult and i guess that's the part that can't be changed
First time hearing timbre explained so well, thanks for this! As a side note, also thanks for the reminder that our dogs can get used to anything and everything we do.
This puts me in mind of the difference between a trumpet and a flugelhorn. The length of the chamber is the same, however the trumpet is almost entirely cylindrical while the flugelhorn is almost entirely conical. This results in two totally different timbres that have their own distinct character. If that flugelhorn thought it was supposed to sound like a trumpet, I guess it would have an identity crisis!
You're a such a genius! I've been looking for this everywhere. My timbre is husky, and I've been looking for ways to brighten it up a bit. This explanation is the best I've seen on this topic. Thanks Madeline
This explains why I prefer my voice speaking Norwegian! I'm not very good at it so have to pay attention to what my face is doing rather than sitting in that kinda wonky natural space. Wonderful guide, thank you
I'm so brassy it's almost trumpet like. I still hate it but it surprises me how many people admire a cutting & powerful tone. It's fun watching such a discreet description of something that took me years to learn about my own voice.
I’m trans so I’ve had to work really heckin hard to change my timbre, but it is possible! While the skull shape can’t change, your larynx position and mouth shape can modify the size of your resonance chambers and can shift your timbre wildly. I went from being a dark tenor to a bright mezzo soprano and sound like a completely different person now. Its not easy, nor intuitive, but it is possible :)
This! My voice has gone from low tenor /baritone to alto so far. I don't know if I've changed my timbre in some of the ways she's talking about, but certainly we can shift our comfortable vocal range a huge amount.
I'm also a baritone tenor that can hit Mezzo-Soprano thanks to all the teachings of Z from Transvoicelessons. If R1, and R2, & false folds are controlled Madeline's tips to produce a beautifully stylized voice are perfect. Now I need to work on complementing my brassy voice 😩
THIS is the information I've been looking for since I started learning how to sing (and with it, accept my voice). 🙌And when you said "the timbre is usually that one thing we don't really like about our voice", it felt weirdly therapeutic, for some reason. Thank you for another fantastic video, you're just a whole different level. 🙏
Yo... Your dogs expression during those "yikes" is priceless. Such a cool dog. Thank you for the advice. I did as you asked and subbed because I like the way you asked. Keep sharing your gift. Peace.
Oh my goodness I have never been able to put my finger on what it is I hate about my voice. I am brassy, and I always say “my voice is just not melodic and pretty” now I know! Thank you!!
It is very interesting to see your voice in action. I haven't seen any teacher talk about this so far, thanks!!! I am reminded of the Indian film playback singers of the 60s, 70s and some 80's (especially in the South) who used this technique to modulate their voices to suit the actros on screen who they were singing for. The composers would repeatedly set the songs in a certain scale for the same actor if they found that a certain facet (ah! Timbre!) of the singer's voice suited the actor and the audience would then go crazy because they felt as if the actor herself or himself was singing! These singers ruled the roost for many years but this trend has stopped long since.
You explained the various shapes and sounds of resonation in the voice really well. Hearing those demos and slowly walking through all the differences and options we have available to us was easy to understand and very clear. Thanks for another great video!
Thank you for another beautiful lesson Madeleine!! Knowledge is power and I never realized how true that is in singing until discovering your channel! I feel my voice is husky when I sing low and flutey when I sing high:)
Thanks, this is good excercise. It's not that I don't like my voice, it often just feels I can't do much with it. Maybe this helps. I used to sing in a choir, but I kind of dropped out of it, because it didn't feel comfortable anymore. The reason is that being a bass my voice is still getting lower and I have a hard time hitting those high notes that I used to reach (and am expected to reach) and I don't have the motivation to keep excercising in keeping those notes in my range as it kind of hurts. I have a lot of low end that doesn't get any use and since I don't get excercise in singing those low notes, I don't have much power in them and they lack timbre. I did get some ideas in developing in that area. I do keep reminding myself that basses evolve slowly and I'm only 40, so... :D I do like singing in the band I'm in, often it's backing vocals and I know my voice compliments the leads, but when it's my time to lead it often feels I lack clarity or dimension, but now I think that maybe I can do something about that.
Do you have any advice for getting used to how your voice sounds to other people versus how it sounds internally? I HATE listening to myself on recordings and hate that other people hear something so much higher than what I hear.
It has been such a relief to now understand why I hated my voice even after training 😳 I am almost ashamed to say how many times I quit training because I believed that I could never get better, and started believing that, no matter how hard I worked, I could never get better and that the vocal teachers mantra that, “ANYONE can learn to sing,” was a lie!! Madeline, I cannot thank you enough for this gift of knowledge you have given me! Its gonna be, tamber, tamber, tamber for a long time for me! So excited! 🫶
Eh. America pronounces it weirdly. Grew up hearing it pronounced "TOM-burr" which makes more sense, when you read the word with a French-ish pronunciation in mind
As always Madeline, wonderful job. Thank you very much. I've been frustrated for so long, and felt kind of lost, and believed all the time and effort I've spend was a waste of time cause I didnt understand why I sounded like I do. Now there's something new to work and focus on. You are an absolute professional ❤️
Oh, How i have benefited from this youtube and actually many other youtubes you have made. I have a husky and dull voice. My voice tends to fall back in my throat and not very projected. After watching this youtube, I followed your instructions to find the placement of my better placement of voice with a different mix. It is such a breakthrough. My voice is brighter and more projected now. What a light bulb moment and a joy to make such process. Thank you so much Madeleine. You are the best!
I’d never have imagined you’d have tattoos. Holy macro I think this helped me immensely with the I can’t help falling in love with you by Elvis. I was always getting the low tone without a problem but was wondering how in the world to get the warmth aspect of the tone and you demonstrated it here. I can’t thank you enough! I do have a darn cold at the so my voice is not very smooth at the moment but I definitely can here and feel the difference. The low tones requires the back of the mouth while the warmth especially the part “a river flows” “to the sea” and “somethings are meant to be” utilize the front of the mouth. Correct me if I’m wrong but so far it’s seems it has made the difference I’ve been longing for. ❤
It’s fascinating to hear Theory applied to stuff I’ve just been kinda doing on my own for a few years, this is Incredibly well explained Also you have a very similar voice to voice actress Laura Bailey, it keeps throwing me
Madeleine, you are just amazing! Thank you so much for making these videos. Some of them have really warmed my heart and made me think and feel differently about the not-good-enough-ness of my voice...
I've never sung a day in my life, so I have no idea why this came up or why I clicked on it or why I paused and recorded myself reading a book, but I guess I'm flutey?
Really liked this ... I do a fair amount of acting and stage work as well as singing ... so different "characters" / different "me s" have different voices and sometimes different accents ... your approach offers a whole new tool set to approaching the work ... Thank-you
Wow such a sense of theatre about your performance. That deserve a sub. I have a voice good only for print, but I make up for it in my sound design skills. But this is interesting.
This was very helpful to me. I guess you’d call my voice husky. I sometimes think of it as mushy because I can’t always get that clear sound I want, but this helped me a lot. I’ll do some more exploring with it.
Well, since voice resonates only in the vocal tract(throat and mouth cavity) it's possible to change your timbre. And all of you do that on daily basis. Most of you will change your timbre when you speak to a child or when you're annoyed and when you're shouting. The "brassiness" is basically narrowing of the epiglottic funnel (called twang). You can adjust the intensity of that narrowing(try to quack like a duck to get the feeling). In order to have unhindered voice production you should retain at least minimal amount of narrowing (if you don't - your body will do the narrowing for you, but using the wrong parts of your throat - hello constrictions and pain). Also you can adjust your larynx height, the height of your tongue, open/close nasal passages, smiling reduces volume in the mouth and brightens the tone and finally raising and lowering your soft palate. The general rule - the more volume of the vocal tact - the darker the sound. Of the darkest possible and the lightest possible sound colours may vary from person to person. Higher notes requires less space in the vocal tract. You still can make you high notes slightly darker, but the darkest sound colour in the high range is way lighter(also requires higher larynx) than the darkest sound colour in the low range. So you can and should always adjust the size of your vocal tract to the pitch (also adjust your breath support). Also the timbre may be husky due to unintentional constrictions. So never protrude your jaw, keep it relaxed and use adequate support energy. And the last thing about belting - only open vowels could be belted (OH, EH as in stay, A - as in and, I - as in sit, OE as in herb(in British accent). You will never be able to sing vowels "oo" as in "you", "o" as in "woman", and "uh" as in "hungry". Depends on accent though. So, basically the voice that you have - is your habit. I mean there a lot of people who just adjust their vocal tracts so the voice just sounds like one of the famous singer’s. Or parodists who just match the sound colour, the accent and annunciations so you would be really confused them with someone else just hearing them on the phone.
@@drewvega2260 The point is: the voice has nothing to do with the shape of the skull, but with the shape and size of the oral cavity and size of the vocal tract. And it could be adjusted to the great extent. For example when singers sing countertenor parts they adjust their harmonics by reducing the vocal tract size. But at the same time they speak with normal voice. I mean of course people with wider skulls would more likely have wider mouths and poses relatively darker timbres. But scientifically proven that only one chamber that resonates is the vocal tract (throat and oral cavity). So the point is that the timbre could be changed to the point it sounds like a completely different person’s. And also it’s a big part of voice feminisation in the trans community. Some of them speak with a really feminine timbre, so you cannot even tell that originally it was a male voice. So, most likely your timbre would resemble the voice of one of your family members, because you imitate them while learning to speak. It's rather cultural aspect rather than anatomical. Most of you probably were confused with your mothers/fathers over the phone. Anatomy only gives you dimensions within which you can change your sound colour (the darkers/the lightest) so only the extremes of one voice might be unreachable by another.
Most of that would be true if sound doesn't vibrate the skull which it does. Vibration from our singing will vibrate everything around us and create reverb, it just gets dampened based on thickness of the object.
@@cytwc yes, you can feel vibrations in your body. Unfortunately it doesn’t reverb or amplify or add any frequencies to the sound. The chambers in our skull should be connected with the source of the sound to be able to add anything to the sound. So the sound waves are reflecting from the walls of your vocal tract and you can feel it. Sound just doesn’t go any further because sound wave won’t be able to pass through your soft tissues and return back to your mouth opening. (Start singing oh any vowel. Oh for example. Then take a pillow and press against your nose and mouth. You will still be able hear the source but the pillow will absorb the resonating sound). Also try to change any aspect of your voice (vowel, brightness, sound colour, or switch between your “head voice”/“chest voice”(if you use those terms)) without changing anything inside your mouth. Don’t move your tongue, don’t change the shape of opening. So actually your vocal tract is a nonlinear source-filter. And New frequencies (harmonic distortion frequencies) are created by the vocal tract.
I've been doing this, but I've been too busy judging and not relaxing into the exploration process. thank you for this. I see how I can just do this to become more familiar with my voice, the air flow and body. to develop a relationship with myself. also I've experimented with singing a little with nose, but thought it was improper technique bc my musician ex brother-in-law used to criticize a very well loved Grammy award-winning singer for "singing through her nose". and for that reason, said she cldnt sing. a lot of confusion and illusions abt singing that I need to get out of my reality.
Omg! Subscribing immediately!!!! First and foremost, incredible intro!!! And everything else, thank you dahhhhrling! So graceful and clear! I’ve learned so much, with a playful smile the entire time! Okay byyyyyyyyyyyyyye!
Hahahaha! It Is strange how people don't love their own timbre! I love her brassy tone (even when exagerated). Me, beeing a Smokey timbre, i Would like to gain overtones to sound a Little bit like medeleine!
Thank you for the explanation of the different timbres, it's incredibly helpful! Can you make a video with exercises to work with and design sounds with the various timbres? Thank you for sharing your knowledge ❤️
So I’m brassy. I don’t like it. It rests high too so it actually hurts my own ears. I wish I had more range. I struggle to bring it low (hurts my throat instantly).
Thank you for this information! So let’s say someone like Jordan Smith from The Voice who was one of my favorite singers of all time, Would you say that he has a husky voice? It seems like a lot of the popular singers of today fall in that husky voice range, especially the females. Would you agree?
I know this post is old… but I have question about moving that brassy natural voice and adding mouth tone, is the difference in changing the space of the mouth/jaw?
