When people first start, we have to start building their voice from the ground up. This is true no matter how long someone has been singing, or how advanced the material they want to sing happens to be.
Once we have a reasonable technical foundation laid down, we can start to deploy that newly built facility on song.
One of the hardest things to grasp is that not all songs are equally favourable for the voice. Three songs could have the same notes and same range, but the nature of the melody is such that one may feel exceptionally easy to sing, another a bit more difficult, and another may seem impossible. I’m sure you may have even experienced this ponderance first hand…
“This song goes EXACTLY as high as this other song which I’m doing so well on, yet I feel like I’m killing myself trying to sing it… what on earth is going on?”
How easy/hard a note in song is depends on many things: what was the note before, what was the note after, how fast or slow is the piece, how intense are you singing, how staccato or legato is the piece, etc.
It means that some melodies are extremely favourable for the voice, and others less so. It then follows that there are some songs that are amazingly favourable for the voice, and provide a fun playground to start to build your voice and figure out how it works.
With that in mind, I’m going to share the THREE songs I suggest most often, for male singers and for female singers:
1) For Women – Make You Feel My Love
The most well-known version of this song is Adele’s, but it was originally written by Bob Dylan.
What’s excellent about this song is that the verse and chorus have simple but beautiful melodies, so you don’t have to be the most musical to learn it easily.
The whole song really only covers about one octave, so no matter how much chest voice a female singer has available, we can find a workable key to tackle it in.
Moreover, the verse sits in the lower half of the female voice, and the chorus jumps a little higher. This is very helpful to keep a female singer grounded in chest without getting fatigued, and can then make little manageable jumps into the upper part of their voice.
This also helps give the singer a comparator inside their head – if the verse felt one way, then they will be inclined to try and keep that same internal feeling as they jump into the upper part of the voice. This helps wire their singing approach to create congruency across their range, forging even-ness from bottom to top and back down again.
2. For Men – With or Without You
This song operates in a very similar way to ‘Make You Feel My Love, but is geared more towards the male voice. The verse sits in the lower half of the male chest voice, and the chorus requires just two higher notes to be jumped to.
Because we require male voices to sound masculine (seems obvious but still requires stating), this particular melodic arrangement requires real masculinity in the tone throughout. This helps build the same sense of congruency in the voice as the first mentioned song, but with a slight leaning towards what we demand from the male voice.
The melody is also remarkably simple, rhythmically as well as harmonically. This in turn makes it very accessible for all singers at all levels of musicality.
It also has a range of an octave or so, so we can move the key around as the singer improves their facility. Often I’ll start this 3-5 keys lower than the original, and we will work our way up as their consistency improves.
3. For Men AND Women – Can’t Make You Love Me
Bonnie Raitt
George Michael
This song has been covered many times, but the original was by Bonnie Raitt, and (argably) the best male cover was by George Michael.
The mechanics of this melody and the demands it places on the male/female voice sits between the first two mentioned songs. The chorus melody demands or “asks the same questions” of your voice as ‘Make You Feel My Love’. The verse is a little different to both, but sits in broadly the same range, if not extends a little higher. The difference between the verse and chorus is therefore more similar to ‘With or Without You’, though the difference is fairly minimal.
Musically it’s a nice progression from the first two, so that singers who are making some headway with the first songs mentioned can start to try their hand at this one.
How to work on these
Start with the hardest bit – the chorus – and pick a key that this is supremely manageable in. Then transition into the verse. It may feel too low (unavoidable in some cases), or it may just feel not exciting enough – good, it’s not meant to feel exciting. It’s consistency we are aiming for. This is a technical exercise first, not an artistic shaping goal, not yet anyway.
Sing a verse and a chorus through a few times and get to know that feeling of consistency and even-ness. Then try taking it up one semi-tone. You are looking for EXACTLY the same consistency. If the tone of your voice budges even a little, then you need to spend more time bouncing between the starting key and that one up. Once that next key up becomes truly identical, then you can take it one higher and repeat the process.
The consistency is what we are looking for. Once it sounds and feel utterly congruent from bottom to top, with no reach, or change in timbre at all, then you are starting to build mastery over your instrument. From there, you can start to spend time exploring style… though truthfully, once you start to get it into reasonably high keys, the style tends to take care of itself, as the core tonality of your voice will be so good and vibrant that you don’t need to work that hard to make it sound your own.
Want to experience this first-hand?
If this is something you’d like to explore in your own voice, but you’re not sure how to start, you can book in your first session via my booking form right here.