Vocal Qualities: Bite, Depth, Warmth, Intensity, and Other Hard to Define Qualities

I’ve been contemplating “bite” in the upper registers recently, and in turn, other vocal qualities that singers develop and possess, in varying proportions. It’s increasingly striking to me how, while all separate qualities are developable as vocal skill, listening to similarly advanced singers demonstrates how the proportions of different qualities vary. You hear upper partial bite versus low-to-midrange harmonic fullness, and all manner of timbral variation.

For clarity, “bite” is a very desirable trait for modern music and for convincing the average listener of a connected voice. It’s that top end intensity you hear in certain singers, and especially elevated in modern singers. But as you listen to voices fill in, not all voices can acquire and deploy the same amount or character of said voice “bite”—and similarly, many with plenty of bite tend to never acquire the same depth and warmth (or bottom end) that others do.

1. Root Causes vs. “Vocalising by Numbers”

When people come in, they are typically not happy with how they sound. They will list qualities they have too much of, or too little of. “I’m too breathy/too nasal/not powerful enough/lack depth/warmth” etc.

However, it is not that these issues are the true problems. Rather, it is a lack of vocal balance (the root cause) leads to under- or over-represented qualities (symptoms downstream of balance), such as nasality, bite, top end, bottom end, or perceived intensity. We must address the functional issues in their voice, such that these qualities reach their optimal state.

Unfortunately, the very act of “fixing vocal balance” in sessions modifies their vocal qualities. The singer can therefore come away thinking that vocal training is more like “vocalising by numbers”, where we can add or take away any vocal qualities an individual singer desires.

Certain vocal pedagogical methods exist that explicitly or implicitly teach through this lens. Speech Level Singing does NOT claim this, quite the opposite.

2. Concrete Exemplars vs. Unique Capacities

Descriptions are meaningless without concrete examples, so let’s use a few. I’ve timestamped each so the video starts from the right point for you.

I think Domingo’s 2nd bridge in ‘Una Furtiva Lagrima’ is probably the “clearest” exemplar of how the 2nd bridge should be approached by most male singers. Please note, I am not seeking to claim all singers should SOUND like Domingo here, I’m talking exclusively about the vocal balance he is exhibiting.

Whereas other singers, whether they sound better, worse, or different (e.g., Pavarotti, Kaufmann, Brownlee, Juan Diego Florez, etc.), all do it well, but either have affectations or unique vocal capacities that make for poor or less universal exemplars.

Pavarotti had more bite, maybe even borderline squeeze at his second bridge compared to Domingo. If you listen carefully you’ll hear the quality become more strident and less deep as he reaches the climax of this same phrase. He also approaches it much faster, which is often a reflection of the singer finding a phrase tougher and desiring to get through it quicker.

One more example, but a different song. Lawrence Brownlee has far less bottom end and WAY more top-end and bite than Domingo. Listen until the end of his section of this duet to hear the intense bite and top end he has.

3. The Voice Reveals Itself

Something I have always found hard, at every stage of vocal development, is when I listen to singers – whether or not they have more/less capacity than me – but when they have a sound I just don’t have.

As someone who is always working towards vocal capacity and ability, for coaching and my own singing, this then prompts the question: “Am I missing anything here?”… Am I doing anything wrong? Am I missing components in my singing that means there is an absence of certain qualities, or at least certain qualities may be more dialled back than they ought.

Over time I’ve realised that even if I have had further to go with my own voice, it develops in it’s own way. It’s less like an artist painting an image, where they get to add whatever they want… it’s more like a sculptor taking AWAY unwanted material that clutters the image, until the final sculpture is revealed. If you are working on your voice for vocal balance, rather than trying to “vocalise by numbers” or treat your voice like a customisable top trumps character, it will become what it is meant to be.

Now, a small caveat is that the exact sound you generate is a little negotiable, depending on the song, intent, intensity, etc. Howwever the voice will be what it will be, and you’ve got to learn to work with what you’ve got.

Conclusion: The Tricky Thing

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference”

This is the Serenity Prayer, written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. It is famously deployed in Alcoholics Anonymous programmes in the US, but it is also applicable here.

To improve our voice, we must have the will and discipline to train our voice for the long term. That is where change will occur. But over that time you may observe certain things remain less changed than perhaps the perfect image in your head. Some of that may improve, but some of it may just be the innate quality of your voice – offensive to no-one except your own internal sense of what you wish you sounded like, or love about others voices.

What it really gets at is where that dividing line is. It comes back full circle to a long-standing point about taste: knowing when something is genuinely missing versus recognizing that that IS how it’s meant to be.

If this is something you’d like to explore in your own voice, please do book in using the big red button below.