Changing Male Voice

Miscellaneous topics on Carnatic music
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vedKallak
Posts: 1
Joined: 17 Mar 2021, 20:38

Changing Male Voice

Post by vedKallak »

Hi.

I'm a teenager learning carnatic music. My voice has been changing for the last 3 years. I know my voice should settle at C-D#sruthi, but no matter how much I try, I'm unable to go above A ( I can't sing tarasthayi Pa in A# or higher). If I sing higher than A, my voice gets strained and cracks a lot. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by SrinathK »

The cracking is because the voice box is not fully mature yet. It is possible for the shruti to sink very very low and it could become a bad habit. My suggestion is never strain your vocal cords, but choose a shruti to allow enough range to go down to the lower D or P for now. Don't go below that.

Slowly only your vocal range will come back up in tara sthayi. Never abuse your voice at this time, instead do more basic exercises, akara sadhakam and spend your energy on learning about gamakas, rhythm and manodharma, ragas and expanding your repertoire of songs. More knowledge work for now.

Like you I had to bring mine down to A# at one point as a teen, and I still couldn't sing tara sthayi, but then after some time raised it back to B then C again. If I could have ever trained properly by today I could sing in C# with no problems. Also by around 18-20 the voice cracking issue will vanish and by the time you are in your mid to late twenties you can hit the upper P or even D easily. Then you can extend your upper range using mixed voice or head voice also.

The range in mandara sthayi will also go on increasingly slowly over time if you are not abusing your voice.

Your masculine timbre however may not sound very good now. But fear not. It will continue to improve well into your 30s or even 40s. For someone like BMK, his best tone was in his 60s and 70s!!

You must be very patient through this period and not get discouraged and give up. This is quite natural at this age.

shreyas
Posts: 251
Joined: 03 Mar 2018, 13:16

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by shreyas »

I'm still stuck in patalalokam as far as sruti goes 😂.

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by SrinathK »

Are you even trying? 😂

shreyas
Posts: 251
Joined: 03 Mar 2018, 13:16

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by shreyas »

I did until a few months ago when I gave up forever. If I'm going to be another MDR, then so be it 😂.

SrinathK
Posts: 2477
Joined: 13 Jan 2013, 16:10

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by SrinathK »

I haven't stopped trying for half my life now and it did pay off. Where's your willpower young man?

ramamatya
Posts: 150
Joined: 16 Dec 2015, 11:04

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by ramamatya »

Hi Ved

Train your mind, don't strain your voice. Take up an instrument and learn the gamakas and ragas. Then, one fine day, the ugly duckling will turn into a beautiful swan. Your voice will simply open up on its own, you'll be able to sing high notes seamlessly. It happened to me.

Manian
Posts: 76
Joined: 09 Aug 2020, 13:48

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by Manian »

The average length from the vocal chords to the lips is about 17 cm for males and 14.5 for females. On puberty the length in general stabilizes. But for some it may change later. The brain grows excepting for the frontal lobe until 18 years when most organs in the body reach their maximum size. At the age of around 22 females frontal lobe where decision making, planning, distinguishing good from bad etc., matures. That is the same area for males matures around 27 years old. This is the 95% statistical rule. Females voice has pitch becasuse that the length from vocal chords to lips is shorter. So, if voice is still changing that means the brain is still growing in volume and connections for vocal functions are maturing but not yet completed. The rule is: the larger the length the lower the fundamental pitch or sruti and vice versa. Please check with your endocrinologist for confirmation.

thenpaanan
Posts: 635
Joined: 04 Feb 2010, 19:45

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by thenpaanan »

vedKallak wrote: 20 Mar 2021, 00:46 Hi.

I'm a teenager learning carnatic music. My voice has been changing for the last 3 years. I know my voice should settle at C-D#sruthi, but no matter how much I try, I'm unable to go above A ( I can't sing tarasthayi Pa in A# or higher). If I sing higher than A, my voice gets strained and cracks a lot. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Carnatic music is many times very harsh on the average human voice, teenager or adult. I have taught a workshop on voice culture for Indian singers a few times and this question has come up in many forms. It is reality that some voices take a long time to settle down and one must also face the reality that not everyone is blessed with a comfortable range of two octaves. There are many exercises available to increase one's range or to sing comfortably at higher pitches than normal. They are all incremental and will not show their effect overnight, and there are limits to what they can help you achieve. The focus is on making the voice smoother and resonant over the long term, and I know this is a hard thing for a teenager to hear, especially one that is struggling with range issues. But it is possible.

Here are some quick do's and don'ts:

0. Never strain: keep your voice in the happy zone for most of your practice and challenge your voice only a little bit. If you feel your voice tightening up, back off. Heroics will get you nowhere or even damage your voice.
1. Always incremental : take the voice up one note at a time and do not move to the next higher note until you feel no hoarseness or discomfort at the current note.At some point you will need to wait for several days or weeks before you can move to the next.
2. Always warm up: sing or hum some favorite song of yours a few times before singing your exercises or kritis.
3. Never shout: if you feel like you have to shout a note, take a step back. Even if you are unable to sing the note comfortably today, you should have the belief that you will be able to do the same note comfortably tomorrow. I have seen some voice culture teachers raise their volume as they go up. That is wrong technique. Your volume should be even across the range.
4. Vowel enunciation is of utmost importance in singing. However this is complicated for Indian singers for some reason. There are many youtube channels on voice that focus on vowels.


Voice technique is a vast universe and there is a lot to learn. These are just a few things to get you started and keep you from damaging your voice. If nothing else, just get strength from the thought there are countlessly many others in your predicament and some big fraction of them even surmount these obstacles.

Post here if you need more help.
Good luck
-thenpaanan

Manian
Posts: 76
Joined: 09 Aug 2020, 13:48

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by Manian »

Vowel enunciation is difficult for Indians because they have no training in Phonetics in Linguistics. The teachers themselves do not have the knowledge nor the schools care about it. It is a different question if you can find a competent Phonetic teacher to train music students. The vowels are produced by raising the front, middle and back part very subtly. When the mouth is wide open with the middle tongue slightly raised, produced the sound “a” which is not “a” but “ǝ” (slightly higher in 3 frequencies 750-950-1100 cycles). The same is true with “I” as in 'ri” which is different in Hindustani “re” and so on. So, what is to be done is to learn phonetics which also will give clear enunciation of words from other languages such as Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali” and so on. In addition there is a need for acoustic laboratory where the stored “vowel” can be heard in slow, medium speed and the singer practice it and compare it with the stored pattern until he or she masters it. The ideal voice should be “male” (not due to discrimination of female singers) as the fundamental frequency (base sruti in male voice) is lower and easy to hear.

Also, we do not have an Electro Spectrogram, palatogram(as in Dental School ) and other tools to make the learning easy and artiuclate the lyrics very slowly. The second major problem is , the lyrics in other languages have joined words – sandhis- should be separated first and learned. First time those words in the lyrics should be articulated and on the second take sung with sandhi. The same is true when chanting slokas. Most were written when every one spoke the language, nut only written form is used. For example, “Namsthesuismaha maye..” is “Namsthe asthu sri Maha Mayee..”. If you listen to Music genius Ariyakudi, he will not enunciate the words, rather glide through them- pleasing but can not understand the words, like wind instruments do.

Now, I am writing this not to complain or criticize, rather to provide possible solutions when problems are stated, without which only complains will remain.
So, for my own enjoyment, I am using the separation of words in learning lyrics and then sing with joining words with sandhi. I am doing this for self enjoyment.

Manian
Posts: 76
Joined: 09 Aug 2020, 13:48

Re: Changing Male Voice

Post by Manian »

Vowel enunciation is difficult for Indians because they have no training in Phonetics in Linguistics. The teachers themselves do not have the knowledge nor the schools care about it. It is a different question if you can find a competent Phonetic teacher to train music students. The vowels are produced by raising the front, middle and back part very subtly. When the mouth is wide open with the middle tongue slightly raised, produced the sound “a” which is not “a” but “ǝ” (slightly higher in 3 frequencies 750-950-1100 cycles). The same is true with “I” as in 'ri” which is different in Hindustani “re” and so on. So, what is to be done is to learn phonetics which also will give clear enunciation of words from other languages such as Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali” and so on. In addition there is a need for acoustic laboratory where the stored “vowel” can be heard in slow, medium speed and the singer practice it and compare it with the stored pattern until he or she masters it. The ideal voice should be “male” (not due to discrimination of female singers) as the fundamental frequency (base sruti in male voice) is lower and easy to hear.

Also, we do not have an Electro Spectrogram, palatogram(as in Dental School ) and other tools to make the learning easy and artiuclate the lyrics very slowly. The second major problem is , the lyrics in other languages have joined words – sandhis- should be separated first and learned. First time those words in the lyrics should be articulated and on the second take sung with sandhi. The same is true when chanting slokas. Most were written when every one spoke the language, nut only written form is used. For example, “Namsthesuismaha maye..” is “Namsthe asthu sri Maha Mayee..”. If you listen to Music genius Ariyakudi, he will not enunciate the words, rather glide through them- pleasing but can not understand the words, like wind instruments do.

Now, I am writing this not to complain or criticize, rather to provide possible solutions when problems are stated, without which only complains will remain.
So, for my own enjoyment, I am using the separation of words in learning lyrics and then sing with joining words with sandhi. I am doing this for self enjoyment.posting.php?mode=reply&f=2&t=34993#

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