I was speaking with a few clients this week about songs they find difficult to sing.
“I’m fine until the bridge/chorus/outro, then I’m knackered”
“It doesn’t seem particularly high, but I seem to struggle to hit the same notes I can in other songs”
“I can’t seem to find a key that makes this song singable – what’s going on?”
These are all common complaints I hear about people trying to sing some songs. In particular, certain songs and certain genres seem to hold much harder melodies for people to sing.
As it happens, there are mechanical and musical reasons for why certain melodies are harder than others. There are characteristics that, once you learn what they are, you can scan for when listening to songs. Moreover, the more of these melodic characteristics a song possesses, the harder the song inherently becomes.
Characteristics of difficult songs
I’ve got ten traits in mind, but I’m going to start with the first five rather than let this run long. I’ll discuss each briefly so you can grasp why these characteristics make songs tricky. There are many others I can think of, but we’ll start here for you.
0. Key too high/too low/wrong for you
I go on so much about key choice, so I’m going to be brief here. If you are trying to sing a song in the wrong key for you – too high, too low, etc – the song will always be difficult so sing. The following points are to cover attributes within songs themselves, assuming that key choice isn’t an issue.
1. Wide ranged melodies
This one is fairly obvious, but often people don’t check the absolute range of songs. If a song requires too great a range (typically 1.5 octaves or above), most untrained singers will find this very tricky to sing, as they generally have less than 1.5 octaves of reliable range. Ergo, the range of the song in ANY key will always exceed their facility to sing it.
Even trained singers can find this tricky, as 1.5 octaves-plus will require one or two bridges in their voice to be perfectly robust to allow access to all that range.
2. Narrow ranged melodies
This may seem counterintuitive, but songs with very NARROW melodies are also very tricky. This is because, to sing low notes the vocal folds have to contract and thicken, to sing high notes the vocal folds have to stretch and thin. The ability to sing smoothly from low to high and back again is dependent on one’s ability to move smoothly from that more contracted state, to that more stretched state. This requires the vocal folds to not just be capable of moving supply, but to remain in a supple condition throughout singing a song.
But melodies that are too narrow mean that the vocal folds get stuck at one length for the whole song. They don’t get to stretch longer or contract shorter. This inhibits that supple condition, and doesn’t let the voice operate optimally. Fast fatigue is a problem with such songs.
3. Melodies with heavily repeated notes
This is a specific outworking of point 2. Many rock or modern pop songs involve choruses hitting the same single note over and over (think AC/DC, Demi Lovato, etc). Much of modern worship music does this, as do some choral arrangements. The act of having to hit the SAME note over and over can leave the voice feeling very tired, because it is LITERALLY the same length of vocal fold throughout. It is very fatiguing over long periods, hence songs that do this throughout are very demanding to sing even for trained singers.
4. Verses and choruses are the same range/melodies
This overlaps with the previous two points, but is it’s own point. Some songs have nearly identical melodies for the verses and choruses. As such, even if the melody isn’t too wide or narrow, the vocal folds are stuck hitting the same co-ordinations over and over and over. That makes the song tiring to sing for the same reasons.
This is a mechanical (and musical reason) why verses that sit lower than the chorus are so favourable to sing (and so enjoyable to listen to).
5. Octave jumps
An artist that writes fairly similar melodies for verses and choruses is James Bay. On his record ‘The Chaos and The Calm’, a lot of the verses and choruses follow nearly identical notes. The only difference being that he sings the chorus melody an octave higher than the verse to impart extra intensity.
This often requires more range than a singer has (per point 1), often means the melodies are too similar (point 4), but also means the singer is jumping from very low to very high. This can lead to either the top sounding strained (as they’ve grabbed too much muscle from their lower register to try and make the top), or results in the lower voice becoming too light (in an effort to avoid the first problem mentioned).
It also tends to leave a yawning void in the middle of their voice, both in such songs and mechanically. The jumping from low to high and back again is demanding and quite wearing.
Another five, next time
I’ve already got the next five characteristics lined up and ready to go, but between now and then, I need you to do something for me. Go and look at the songs you are working on that you consider hard to sing, and see if you can spot any of these characteristics in there.
Check the key first of all, but check the absolute range of the song. If it’s not too wide or too narrow, then check where repeated notes might exist, or where melodies between the verse and chorus are very similar. You may find some of your songs fall foul on many of these points, or maybe have just one or none of these characteristics.
Don’t worry, there will be a reason, but we may need to dive into next week’s list. You may also be struggling with vocal issues in your voice that make a given song hard for you, and no amount of key changing will address this.
Want to sing your songs better?
If you would like to start to tackle some of the songs you find very difficult, I’d love to start work with you. All these issues are solveable with good technique and time spent building your voice. If you want to make your favourite songs sound and FEEL much better, you can book in your initial consultation via my booking form right here.