Singing For Dummies

Introduction

I’m so happy you chose this book! Whether you’re a shower singer or you secretly desire to sing on a stage, this book is for you. The book is full of helpful information covering all aspects of singing, from posture and breathing to vocal health and techniques for increasing your range. Absolutely no experience is necessary! Even if you know zero about singing, you’re going to have a great time exploring your singing voice.

You can’t develop your singing voice overnight; it takes time. Some people are born with a voice ready to sing at the Hollywood Bowl, but most people who like to sing have to work on their voice to prepare it for the first performance. Whichever category you fit into, this book has some valuable information for you.

Exercising the singing voice is the ticket to improving your technique. The exercises in the book are similar to what you may encounter in a voice lesson or a class about singing. By working on exercises, you give your body a chance to figure out exactly how to make the sounds. After you get the technical details cooking, you can apply that information to your songs and sound even better.

You may not have someone there listening to you as you practice, but you find suggestions throughout the book on how to listen to your voice and critique it for yourself so that you can improve every time you practice.

About This Book

Singing For Dummies, 3rd Edition, is designed as a reference guide, not as a tutorial, and includes exercises to help you improve your singing. Flip through and look for parts that interest you. (For that matter, I recommend that you also go through the parts that don’t interest you — who knows what you may discover about your voice?) What’s important to remember is that you don’t have to read this book from cover to cover to improve your singing; look for the topics you need and use both the exercises and the online tracks to develop your best voice.

The online tracks are an important partner to your book. You can find them at www.dummies.com/go/singingfd3e. The exercises work the technical info that you read about in the book. You hear a pattern played for you on the piano, a singer demonstrates the pattern for you, and the pattern is repeated several times for you to sing along. Just singing songs is cool, but you want to work on technique to get your songs to sound great. If you work on the articulation exercises on the tracks and then apply that information and skill to songs, you can sing with great skill and be understood. If you’ve never had lessons, you may not see the benefit of the exercises in the beginning, or they may seem difficult. Keep trying them during your practice sessions, and you may see how quickly the exercises can help you to sing.

Chapter 10 gives you ideas on developing a practice routine to coordinate all the information that you read in the book with what you hear on the online tracks. After you plot out your practice routine, keep the tracks handy so you can choose which tracks to practice. Sing along during your regular practice sessions or in your car as you drive. That’s cool, as long as you pay attention to your driving.

Because many people respond quickly to imagery, I include ways to use imagery to help you improve your singing. Knowing the mechanics works well for some singers, and others prefer knowing what to think about or visualize as they sing. If you want to know what to listen for, I give you that information as well. I also explain the exercises by having you do something physical. Sometimes just feeling the movement in your body gets the idea across. Whatever way you prefer to use, you can find it in this book.

Here are some conventions that I use throughout this book:

I spell out the vowel sound for you or use symbols found in Webster’s dictionary, because that’s most common to new singers and nonsingers.

Throughout the book you have opportunities to sing specific vowel sounds. One vowel sound may need a little explanation. I use the shape a for the vowel sound in the words cat, hat, or Matt. For the vowel sound in the words father, plaza, or blah, I use "ah." You can practice these sounds in Chapter 8 so you know what to do when you see them in other places in the book.

Musical styles continue to change and the terms used to describe the styles also continue to change. If you read the history of pop or rock music, you’ll see a long list of titles to describe each era. I use the term pop-rock for songs that can cross over into both styles. It’s common to see a great song listed on the hit-song list for different styles of music. In Chapter 14 you can read about the sounds used in different styles, but know that pop-rock refers to a song that could fit in either style.

I use musical examples throughout the book to give you a visual explanation of the exercises on the online tracks. You can read an explanation about musical notation in Chapter 1. There you find information about how the little circles on the page correspond with the notes on the piano and the notes you’ll sing in specific parts of your range.

Foolish Assumptions

Because you’re reading this book, I assume that you have an interest in singing and discovering how to improve your singing. You don’t need any previous knowledge about singing. You can find information for beginners, as well as advanced information for singers who have some experience.

Icons Used in This Book

Playthis This icon tells you that a track on the online tracks at www.dummies.com/go/singingfd3e corresponds to the information in the chapter.

Remember This information is so helpful that you should store it in your memory bank.

Technicalstuff This icon highlights detailed explanations that you may find really interesting or may just want to skip right over.

Tip The Tip icon emphasizes good advice from someone who has already made the mistake and wants to save you the trouble.

Warning To avoid making a blunder or injuring your voice, pay attention to what these paragraphs have to say.

Beyond This Book

In addition to what you’re reading in the print or e-book, you can check out some extra goodies and reference them when you want, check out the Cheat Sheet at www.dummies.com and search for Singing For Dummies Cheat Sheet. You can also find the audio files of the example tracks at http://www.dummies.com/go/singingfd3e.

Where to Go from Here

If you have no singing experience, you may want to start with Chapter 1 and work your way through the chapters in order. However, this book is designed to allow you to jump in anywhere you want and start swimming through information that’s completely understandable. If you have some singing experience, choose whatever chapter appeals to you. You may have to refer to other chapters occasionally if you missed a definition, but otherwise, you’re free to roam the chapters at your own pace and in any order. As you work through the exercises in this book, you want to have the basic technical skills of breathing (see Chapter 4) and tone (see Chapters 5 and 6) readily available. If you find yourself struggling, you may want to go straight to Chapter 3 to make sure that you have proper singing posture.

Part 1

Exploring Singing Basics

IN THIS PART …

Find out about different voice types and figure out which category fits your voice.

Understand that great posture can get your body lined up and ready to sing your best.

Discover the importance of air moving in and out of your body to keep the glorious sounds coming out.

Focus on tone, which allows you to improve on the sounds you’re already making or tweak your tone a little if your engine knocks rather than hums.

Chapter 1

Preparing to Sing

IN THIS CHAPTER

check Thinking about your voice type

check Starting with the basics: Posture, breath, and tone

check Getting familiar with the different parts of your voice

check Starting to apply your vocal technique

So you’re curious about singing. Whatever musical background and experience you have or don’t have, this book has something to offer you. The book contains great exercises and online tracks that allow you to hear the exercise and sing along. If you’re a beginner, welcome aboard. You can find out all kinds of cool info about singing in this book. This chapter provides an overview of all the great stuff you can encounter in the book.

Singing is one of the coolest means of expression out there. Singing well is about knowing how to work the parts that create the sound for singing. The chapters that you encounter in the book outline what you need to know in just the right sequence. You don’t have to read them in the order written to get what you need. Some of the later chapters may be a little difficult if you don’t have any singing experience. The only way to know is to jump right in and start reading on whatever topic interests you.

What You Want to Know Right from the Beginning

Before you choose the date for your first big concert or recital, you want to find out about singing. The first part of this book provides you with the big picture.

Determining your voice type

Singers usually are eager to determine their voice type because they want a category to belong to. You may have heard of the categories of singers:

Soprano: Higher female voice

Mezzo: Lower female voice

Tenor: Higher male voice

Bass: Lower male voice

If you aren’t sure which one applies to your voice, explore Chapter 2. You can find explanations of what makes a soprano differ from a mezzo, or a tenor differ from a bass. You don’t have to figure out your voice type today, but you can explore the chapter so you know what to listen for as you sing.

Locating the notes on the staff

Voice types are probably easier to figure out if you know where to find the notes on a musical staff. (See Figure 1-1 in this chapter.) The names of the notes are A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Those notes repeat across the piano.

The treble clef spaces correspond to the notes F, A, C, and E. Beginning on the bottom of the staff and going up, the notes spell face. You can use sentences to remember the other notes. Again, starting on the bottom line and moving up, the notes on the lines of the staff are E, G, B, D, and F, letters that begin the words of the sentence Every good boy does fine.

For the bass clef, the spaces are A, C, E, and G, the letters that begin the sentences All cows eat grass or All cars eat gas. The lines in the bass clef are G, B, D, F, and A, which correspond to Good boys do fine always. If you prefer animals, then use Great big dogs fight animals.

If I say that a singer’s range is Middle C to High C, I have to use ledger lines to notate those two notes because they’re not within the five-line staff. Ledger lines are extra lines added above or below the staff for notes that are higher or lower than the notes on the staff. When you find Middle C in Figure 1-1, you can see the extra line added below the staff. The easiest way to find Middle C on the piano is to look at the brand name printed on or above the lid covering the keys. If you find that brand name, the C right in the middle of that name, or just to the left, is usually Middle C.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 1-1: Locating notes on the staff.

Remember Middle C is called Middle C because it’s in the middle of the keyboard that contains 88 keys. Middle C is also called C4, because it’s the fourth C on the keyboard. If Middle C is C4, then the next C above is C5, and so on. C is the note just to the left of the pair of black keys. The distance between the two Cs is called an octave. If you start counting at the first C and count eight white notes up, you find another C. That means the E just above Middle C (C4) is E4. Easy enough, but not every person you encounter knows this system, so I stick to what works: Middle C.

You also encounter the words flat and sharp in this book. A flat lowers a pitch a half step and a sharp raises the pitch a half step. F-sharp is the black key on the piano between F and G. The same black key between F and G can be called G-flat.

Considering posture, breath, and tone

First, you want to get yourself aligned — that is, line up all your body parts to get ready to sing — and then explore your breathing. Breathing while singing is different from breathing normally, because you have to take in more air and use more air over a longer period of time. When you get the air flowing, you can explore the tone of your voice.

Correcting posture for a better sound: Posture is important in singing well. If all the parts for singing are lined up correctly, you stand a really good chance of getting wonderful sounds to come flying out of your body. Knowing how to stand isn’t rocket science, but it may take a little adjustment on your part. If you aren’t used to standing tall all the time, you may feel a bit awkward at first. Chapter 3 explores posture for singing.

Knowing the keys to proper breathing: The big key to great singing is knowing how to use your breath to make the sounds. You may not know how to get much breath in your body and then make it last throughout a long phrase. If you check out Chapter 4, you can find all kinds of exercises and explanations on how to work on your breath so you can sing those long phrases in your favorite song.

Finding your tone: Vocal tone is important because you want the best sounds to come out of your mouth. By exploring exercises on tone, you can make changes to your sound. People often tell me that they want to change the way they sound. To change your sound, you need to know how you create sound. The two chapters on tone, Chapters 5 and 6, give you quite a bit of information about how to start a note and then what to do to make the note sound a specific way.

Developing Your Singing Voice

When you have the basic information swimming around in your head, you can start to work on your singing voice. Chapters 6 through 9 offer you more specific information about how to create a sound that’s unique to you. Sometimes singers try to imitate their favorite famous singer. A better idea is to sound like yourself. Your voice can be just as fabulous as that famous singer’s. You just have to practice to develop it.

Following are some points to work on:

Filling the auditorium with resonance: Resonance is the echoing of tone. In Chapter 7, you find out how to use resonance to project your voice. Singing loudly makes a lot of sound, but using resonance allows you to project the sound over the orchestra to the back of the concert hall. Find out how your voice can resonate so Uncle Sam can hear you from the back row.

Fine-tuning vowels and consonants: A long time ago in grade school, you had to work with vowels and consonants. Well, you can refresh your memory in Chapters 8 and 9. By making your vowels and consonants specific, you can make yourself easily understood when you’re singing. You’ve probably heard someone sing but couldn’t understand a word they said. It’s even worse when the song is in a language that you speak. By knowing how to articulate vowels and consonants, you can create specific sounds that your audience can follow.

Warming up your voice: Practice makes perfect! After you discover all this great information about singing, you need to develop a plan for practicing it on a regular basis. If practicing seems like a foreign concept to you, check out Chapter 10. The whole chapter is devoted to helping you figure out what to do when you warm up and how to apply the exercises that you read about in the book to your daily practice routine. Because you can explore so much, make a list of what you want to accomplish today, and then add more to that list each time that you practice.

Working the Different Parts of Your Voice

Your goal is to make your singing voice sound like one smooth line from top to bottom. Your voice may have a few bumps and wiggles as you work your way up and down. That’s perfectly normal, but help is right at hand. Chapters 11 and 12 work with specific areas of the voice called registers — chest voice, middle voice, and head voice. In these chapters, you can discover what each part of the voice feels like and what to do with it. When you’re ready, try these tips:

Strengthening your middle, chest, and head voice to get a complete vocal workout: The first step in the workout for the voice is to find the different registers of the voice and then notice what each feels like. After you find them, you want to try to smooth the transition between registers. You may find that your chest voice and head voice feel miles apart. The exercises in Chapters 11 and 12 are designed to help you smooth out the bumps. You may not think the exercises are easy in the beginning, which is good. I don’t want you to be bored. Even if you’ve never explored any vocal sounds, you can figure out these exercises and get your voice in good working order — it just takes some time and patience.

Chapter 12 helps you refine your register transitions and extend your range. Some songs require flexibility, and the exercises in the chapter help you develop agility and even try out your agility in some pop riffs.

Adding belting technique to your list of skills: Your speaking voice needs a workout to get you started on belting. Belting is the sound that you want to make for musical theater or pop-rock songs. The exercises start from the beginning, so you don’t have to know anything about belting to take on the information in Chapter 13.

Applying Your Technique

After you explore your technique through the exercises that I provide, you need to take the next step. Chapters 14 through 18 are about applying your technique. At some point, you want to apply that healthy technique to songs. You also want to maintain your healthy technique and a healthy voice at all times. When your technique is really cooking, you can explore Chapters 19 and 20, about moving your technique into a performance situation. Performances can be big or small. Whatever the size of the audience, you want to look like a pro and feel good about what you’re doing onstage.

To start applying your technique when singing songs for yourself or others, consider the following:

Training for singing: Finding a voice teacher can be tricky. When you find the right teacher, the experience can be rewarding. If you aren’t sure how to go about finding a teacher, explore the tips and suggestions in Chapter 15. Finding the teacher may be the most difficult part. After you answer the questions in Chapter 15, you’ll have a better idea of what you want from voice lessons. Whether or not you hire a voice teacher, you can check out Chapter 14 for information about training to sing different styles of music. Knowing what’s required of your voice allows you to dive right into the right chapters.

Choosing appropriate singing material: Finding new songs to sing can be overwhelming. You have so many choices, but how do you know what works for you? The clues are in Chapter 16. The lists there offer suggestions on what to look for and what to avoid when choosing songs. Whether you want a song to sing for your own pleasure or a song for a specific function, you want a song that accentuates your strengths.

For more suggestions of songs, you can explore Appendix A for a list of suggested songs for enhancing your singing technique. The songs cover different styles of music, from classical to country. After you choose the song you want to sing, check out Chapter 17 for some tips on how to conquer the song in a short amount of time.

Feeling comfortable with the music and text: In Chapter 18, you can explore acting to combine with your singing. Sounding good when you sing is great, but you want to sound good and understand the story behind the music. You don’t have to know anything about acting to explore this chapter; it’s all right there for you.

Overcoming performance anxiety: If your daydreams of singing are clouded with anxiety about singing in front of an audience, Chapter 19 is just for you. By confronting your fear and taking charge, you can make progress and let go of the anxiety. You only add pressure to your performance if you assume that you’re supposed to be totally calm. Many famous performers get nervous before a performance. After exploring Chapter 19, you’ll know that it’s fine to be nervous, but you can still sing while nervous.

Nailing your audition: So many singers dream of auditioning for a Broadway show or entering a singing competition that I wrote a whole chapter about auditioning your song. Chapter 20 has information for you on what to expect at the audition, what you may have to sing or do, and how to prepare for the audition. Because an audition for a musical is different from an audition for an opera, you want to know what’s kosher and what’s not.

Having Fun

Singing is about more than just alignment and technique — although, of course those considerations are important. If you concentrate only on the technical aspect of singing, you may end up singing from your head rather than your heart. Remember to let loose every once in a while and have fun with it!

Some performers are really amazing onstage — obviously having fun — and they also have great technique. Check out Chapter 21 to see whether any of your favorite singers made my list of performers with great technique. And if you want your performance to be spectacular, Chapter 24 has some great tips on performing like a pro. Before your big performance, check out Chapter 22 for answers to the most commonly asked questions about singing, and see Chapter 23 for information on keeping your voice healthy. Maintaining a healthy voice is important. Your vocal cords are really small, and you want to take good care of them. You can also read about medications and other factors that influence your singing voice. A healthy voice and solid technique will keep you singing for years to come.

The online tracks at www.dummies.com/go/singingfd3e that come with the book are a great tool to help you keep polishing your technique. The singers on the files have two things in common with you:

They all love singing.

They all have a group of exercises they use to keep their technique in tip-top shape.

You may think that only classical singers have a vocal workout routine, but that’s not true. Some famous singers even post videos of themselves practicing before they walk out on stage and sing their pop-rock tunes. Check out the different singers on the tracks that range from a rapper, belters, pop singers, musical theater performers, classical singers, and different voice types of all shapes and sizes to see if you can tell what style of music they perform.

You may be surprised that the type of singer isn’t always obvious just by listening to them warm up. Before and after recording the tracks, each singer laughed a lot and experienced the challenge of demonstrating a specific sound just for you.

Chapter 2

Determining Your Voice Type

IN THIS CHAPTER

check Understanding the highs and lows of voice types

check Discovering the voice type categories

check Finding out where you fit in

Finding your voice type is a challenge because several ingredients combine to create a voice type. You don’t have to know your voice type if you’re singing for your own enjoyment, but you may be curious to find out. If you aspire to sing professionally or do some professional auditions, you definitely want to know your voice type. You’ll be asked at the audition, so you want to know that answer before someone asks. Chapter 20 has more info about auditions.

Determining your voice type — soprano or mezzo-soprano for women, tenor or bass for men — enables you to choose songs that are most appropriate for you. After you figure out what category you fit into, check out Appendix A for a list of songs suitable for your voice type. Read on to explore how each voice type sounds and how to determine where your voice fits.

Sifting through the Ingredients to Figure Out Your Voice Type

Think of a voice type as a series of ingredients mixed together to create a unique-tasting dessert. For singing, the ingredients combine to create a unique-sounding voice. The four common voice types are soprano, mezzo-soprano (often called mezzo), tenor, and bass (the next section, "Identifying the Fab Four," tells you all about these four voice types). These five ingredients determine a voice type:

Age: Many singers are assigned a voice type as young singers, but voices change with age. The muscles in the larynx continue growing and developing into the early 20s. Think about the last time you made a phone call and heard the sound of a stranger’s voice. Even if you didn’t know the person on the other end, you could guess their age by listening to their speaking voice. Because speaking voices and singing voices change with age, wait until your body is finished growing to determine your voice type.

Range:Range is all the notes a singer can hit — including the highest note, the lowest note, and all the notes between. Beginning singers usually have a shorter range than more advanced singers, because the high notes or low notes get stronger with practice. As you practice the exercises with this book and accompanying online tracks, your range can expand whether you’re a beginner or an advanced singer. Knowing your range helps you figure out your voice type, because a bass can sing lower than a tenor, and a soprano can sing higher than a contralto. The factors that most affect how you determine your voice type are range, in which part of your range you’re most comfortable singing, and register transitions.

Register:Register refers to a series of adjacent notes that sound similar, are produced in a similar fashion, and have a similar tonal quality. The notes sound similar because the same muscles produce them and they often vibrate in a similar location in a singer’s body. The transitions between the registers can help you determine your voice type. Keep reading this chapter to find out where each voice type feels transitions to help you decide whether your voice does something similar. The transitions in your voice may change as your voice develops. (Chapter 11 has more on registers.)

Technicalstuff The range of the voice where a singer is most comfortable is called tessitura. If you hear the word tessitura used in a discussion about a song, in that case, it refers to the area where most of the notes lie in the song. The tessitura of a Stevie Wonder song is quite high, because he’s comfortable singing a lot of high notes. The tessitura for God Bless America and most folk songs is lower. Knowing where your voice is most comfortable, as well as where it’s uncomfortable, is a determining factor when it comes to voice type.

Tone of voice: Each voice has a specific tonal quality or timbre. Words that describe tone include strident, dark, bright, metallic, ringing, and shrill. When determining a voice type, the voice tone helps you further determine your category. The tone of voice for a tenor is often much brighter than the tone of voice for a bass.

Voice strength: Knowing your voice strength also helps you determine your voice type. Sopranos and tenors have a stronger head voice than mezzos and basses. Likewise, mezzos and basses have a stronger, meatier middle voice than sopranos and tenors. (Chapter 11 gives you details on head voice and middle voice.)

Remember Don’t classify yourself too quickly based on the preceding factors. For the general purposes of singing, focus on building great technique and see how your voice responds. Your voice tells you what voice type it really is; you just have to know how to look and listen.

Identifying the Fab Four

The four voice types are soprano, mezzo, tenor, and bass. Even though these names sound like characters in a mob movie, I promise you that they’re nothing to be afraid of. In the upcoming sections, you discover specific traits about each voice type: the range, register transitions, voice tone, and any subdivisions of that voice type, as well as the names of a few famous singers to help you put a sound with the voice type.

Remember Note that when I talk about register transitions, they don’t occur on just one note. That’s because not all sopranos (or mezzos, tenors, or basses) are the same.

If you’re confused after reading about all the voice types, remember that naming your voice type today isn’t absolutely necessary. After you read the descriptions of the voice types in this chapter, you may be ready to vote soprano over mezzo or bass over tenor for now. Try that range for a while and see whether it fits well. The takeaway from this chapter is to figure out your voice type if you want. If you’re singing most styles of music, your voice type won’t matter as much as figuring out if your voice can sing all the notes in the song you like.

Developing your technique helps you sing more advanced music in any style. Figuring out your voice type can be fun, but it can also take a while to know which category suits you. Remember that your voice will tell you what it can do physically today and then those skills will improve over time and you may end up choosing a different voice type later. It’s much harder to tell if a singer on the radio is a specific voice type. They may have refined their chest voice but not spent time developing their head voice. A singer may sound like a mezzo, but they might be a soprano who just doesn’t perform songs that have higher notes.

Tip Listen to recordings of singers and read about what they’ve sung during their careers. If you know of singers who have voices similar to yours, look at the songs they sang.

What’s the timbre of your voice? Is the tone more steely than chocolaty? Steely isn’t a negative adjective; it’s merely fact. Very often the steely voice is the character audiences love, but they don’t want to rush up and put their arms around them and rescue them.

Is your voice light and flutelike? Is your voice loud and heavy even when you’re lightly singing? Heavy means the sound that you’re making is loud even when you’re singing comfortably. Voices that are a little heavy are full and heavy voices are called dramatic.

What’s your singing range and tessitura? The difference between a mezzo and a soprano often is tessitura. The mezzo can sing the high notes but doesn’t want to live up there, and the soprano wants to sing one high note after another. If you’re new to singing, you may not be able to tell the difference between a soprano and a mezzo or a baritone and a tenor. No worries. Keep listening to the sounds, and you’ll eventually be able to tell the difference between the voice types.

Are you able to move your voice easily? Do you enjoy the fast passages in the song and think of them as fun? If the fast notes are easy for you, you can add coloratura to your vocal description. The coloraturas demonstrate some spectacular fast moves with their voices.

What do you consider the general or overall strengths of your voice — strong middle voice or head voice, perhaps? Your vocal strengths change as you practice. Notice the differences in the voices in the naming names lists that follow. Compare and contrast the sounds you hear between voice types to hear their strengths.

Remember If you’re new to singing, determining your voice type by yourself may take a few months. Your voice changes with practice. So have fun listening and sorting through all the different types.

Highest range of the dames: Soprano

The soprano has the highest range of the female voice types. The following aspects are characteristic of her voice type:

Range: Often Middle C to High C, although some sopranos can vocalize way beyond High C and much lower than Middle C (see Figure 2-1).

A soprano is expected to have a High C, and many sopranos can sing up to the G or A above High C. Choral directors or musical directors listen for the singer’s comfort zone when determining whether the singer is a soprano. Although a mezzo can reach some of these higher notes, a soprano is comfortable singing high notes more frequently than a mezzo.

Register transitions: The transitions usually occur as the soprano shifts out of chest voice around the E-flat just above Middle C and into her head voice around F-sharp (fifth line on top of the staff) in the octave above Middle C.

Strength: A soprano’s strength is a strong head voice.

Voice tone: The soprano voice is usually bright and ringing.

Weakness: Sopranos have a hard time projecting in middle voice.

Technicalstuff Soprano subdivisions in the classical world include light lyric, full lyric, light lyric coloratura, full lyric coloratura, light dramatic coloratura, full dramatic coloratura, light dramatic (or spinto), and full dramatic. See the information in the nearby sidebar about subdivisions.

Soprano belter: A soprano belter has an easier time managing her chest voice for belting and usually belts higher than a mezzo. Check out these names to hear some soprano belters: Morissette Amon, Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson, Pattie LaBelle, Cyndi Lauper, Olivia Newton-John, and Kellie Pickler.

Common performance roles: The soprano is usually the lead in the show, such as Ariel in The Little Mermaid, Marian the Librarian in The Music Man, Tosca in Tosca, Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance, and Mimi in La Bohème.

Naming names: Famous sopranos you may know include Julie Andrews, Martina Arroyo, Kristen Bell, Monserrat Caballé, Sumi Jo, Leontyne Price, Audra McDonald, Dolly Parton, and Diana Ross.

© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

FIGURE 2-1: Soprano range.

How low can she go: Mezzo

The difference between a mezzo (mezzo is the abbreviated term for mezzo-soprano) and a soprano is often tessitura. (Tessitura refers to where most of the notes lie in a song — the notes that a voice feels most comfortable singing.) Many mezzos can sing as high as a soprano, but they can’t stay as high as a soprano. For example, some roles in operatic literature require the mezzo to sing as high as the soprano lead, but the mezzo usually doesn’t have to sing as many high notes as a soprano does — thank goodness — because the mezzo comfort zone is usually different than the soprano; mezzos prefer to live in their middle voices. On the other hand, a soprano hates to live in her middle voice, preferring to sing high notes and soar above the orchestra.

To further confuse you, many sopranos sing mezzo repertoire. How dare they! That’s not fair, but it’s a fact. As in other aspects of life, after the soprano becomes famous, she sings repertoire that she enjoys and that may be music written for somebody else, such as mezzos. So just because a soprano sings a song doesn’t mean that it’s a soprano song. You have to look at the details, such as the range of the song, and decide whether that range fits your voice. Keep the following in mind:

Range: The mezzo range is usually G below Middle C to a High B or High C. Many mezzos vocalize as high as a soprano but can’t handle the repetition of the upper notes (see Figure 2-2).

Register: The register transitions for the mezzo usually occur at E or F (first space) just above Middle C, and the E or F (fifth line) one octave above that.

Strength: Mezzos have a strong middle voice.

Voice tone: The mezzo voice is usually darker or deeper than her soprano counterpart.

Weakness: A mezzo’s head voice is often her weakness.

Subdivisions: One subdivision of mezzo is contralto. Singers often mistakenly say that they’re altos. Alto is the part listed in choral music, but the voice type is either mezzo or contralto. Less common than mezzos, contraltos can usually sing from F below Middle C to about an F (fifth line) below High C. A contralto has a darker, richer tone and is more at home in the lower part of her voice. Sometimes singers darken their voices intentionally to make themselves sound like contraltos. The contralto may take her chest voice–dominated sound up to a G (second line) above Middle C and shift into head voice around the D (fourth line), an octave above Middle C. Examples of contraltos include Marian Anderson and Maureen Forrester.

Technicalstuff Mezzo subdivisions in the classical world include light lyric coloratura, full lyric coloratura, light lyric, full lyric, and dramatic. The dramatic mezzo is similar to the dramatic soprano. To be fair to the sopranos, I confess that dramatic mezzos sometimes sing roles written for the dramatic soprano. You go, girls!

Mezzo belter: A mezzo