Registered: 06/25/99
Posts: 16735
Loc: Benton, LA, USA
I sometimes shift pitch up an octave and do "Crazy" for comic effect. Better than most of the bimbo female girl would-be singers that I hear. I also use it to do the high voice in "Bread and Butter", when working with my friend Dean Mathis, one of the original Newbeats.
Don....an interesting appraisal of female wannabe singers!
That's a good idea though right there...the Bread and Butter Song for variety. Since it's not going to happen in my lifetime (finding a female vocalist), I might just start working with a voice processor and do songs like that and songs like Don't You Just Know it (Huey Smith). You can sing unprocessed and immediately bring in the "chorus repeats" as a group. I think! I haven't worked with a harmonizer.
I gave you some tips about lifting the thyroid and a video about various techniques. I would appreciate some short comment about that. If you intend to approach a more female singing, you shouldn’t solely rely on digital processing.
Registered: 06/25/99
Posts: 16735
Loc: Benton, LA, USA
I thought that was quite interesting when I first read it. I'm content with my own scraggly voice these days, although it took years before I could stand to listen to it. I don't even have a falsetto but wish I could develop it for songs like "Runaway", "Crying", etc. Larry Henley, who did the high voice in the Newbeats' songs, couldn't explain how he did it; it was just there, but may have indeed been related to a technique such as you describe.
A guitar/singer colleague of mine uses a vocal processor to bring his voice up or down an octave, usually for comic effect but it actually works quite well on some more modern dance/ hip hop that he sometimes does. I don’t think those effects would work well with Great American Songbook material though, but who knows?
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It not the keyboard, it's the keyboardist.
I thought that was quite interesting when I first read it. I'm content with my own scraggly voice these days, although it took years before I could stand to listen to it. I don't even have a falsetto but wish I could develop it for songs like "Runaway", "Crying", etc. Larry Henley, who did the high voice in the Newbeats' songs, couldn't explain how he did it; it was just there, but may have indeed been related to a technique such as you describe.
The technique with the thyroid lifting doesn't even deal with a "higher" pitch of the voice, that's often overestimated to make a voice more female. Resonance and overtones are equally important. This woman born with male body characteristics manages the technique extraordinarily well, but I think she had good prerequisites and not an extremely male voice in the beginning... I admit, probably too much hard training necessary just for the purpose in question here...