Voice Lesson From World Record Holder

[Guest]

Here's a video of World Record holder for the worlds highest note. Some good advice and interesting use of vowels! Please discuss! This guy is great His belty high notes sound very tvs like lol!

What I REALLY like about this video is the fact that he had to WORK for his voice. That's exactly why I posted this. Let's get to it folks!

Let me just mention that for his LOW notes he goes more with "AW" and for high notes he goes more with "oo." Using these concepts to help with early bridging may yield similar gains! I am currently testing this myself. Muhaha.

Also... here is Mr.Lopez breaking the record

Enjoy!

[ronws]

Maybe we should post our highest notes. You first, Jay.

[Jens]

I actualy mailedhim some years ago, he replied humble dude range can be expanded like crazy, only your dedication sets the limits.

Dont do the mistake i and countless others did/do focus on quality first before range else youll end up with 5 octaves of noise. Then you realise you have to stqrt over from scratch

Also hitting notes way above soprano c is squeks anyway

[ronws]

You are the only one, Jens, in this forum that has gotten into Adam's range. And that is because you once shared a phone video of you doing the note and allowing us to hear it. I don't know if you still have that video.

Others claiming to sing that high, I would certainly like to hear it or see it, if possible. I know that I cannot sing that high, whether due to physical limits, lack of training, lack of desire, take your pick. And I don't go to even C6 every day. In the past year or so, it has been more important to me to worry about the passaggio and iron that out and make others jealous than to worry about the top note or even the lowest note.

It also depends on what you want to call usable. Acoustically, not all of Adam's notes are usable. His lowest notes are almost inaudible with the vid cam that he used. And the highest notes, well, you could only hear them because the studio audience were quieter than a mouse in church. Which is not to take away from the validity of being able to do that.

It could just be the experience of my life. I have always needed to sing over an acoustic instrument, like a piano or guitar, usually without amplification for the voice, so, it needs to project. And that might be why my range is limited, as it is.

[Guest]

Ron no one expects you to sing a song at C6. However I just thought it would inspire some "lower" singers to not be afraid of the higher range lol.

[gno]

Great post Jay. This guy sure has achieved a lot and it is inspiring to hear what he has to say. He can sing very low too. You don't have to sing in the whistle register if you don't want too, but this guy basically shows what is possible. He wasn't born with a freakishly large range - in fact his range was very limited. It takes work and persistence. Focus on the possibilities not the limitations.

[D.Starr]

Inspirational.

I don't want a whistle voice but like he said, he was only able to get a D4 and worked his falsetto a lot more.

Top down I guess is the way it's just getting the right coordination to stop grinding and doing damage.

I reckon if you dedicated 30 minutes, 2 15 minute sessions every day for 2 week you start seeing a lot of development. Might be something I look into and I'll report back.

I just want to float those As and Bs that's all.

DEDICATION.

[ronws]

Great post Jay. This guy sure has achieved a lot and it is inspiring to hear what he has to say. He can sing very low too. You don't have to sing in the whistle register if you don't want too, but this guy basically shows what is possible. He wasn't born with a freakishly large range - in fact his range was very limited. It takes work and persistence. Focus on the possibilities not the limitations.

And I really do agree with you, Geno. At least in the sense of defining your focus. I know that Jens and others certainly believe that any voice can make any sound. others have said that baritone and tenor are not that far apart.

I would like to add to that, define the focus of your singing. Is it going to be all high, all the time, all low, all the time. a mix of that, or just the pop and rock region, which seems to encompass the standard tenor range of approx C3 to C5 or so?

Most of the songs that all of us here like and cover quite often are essentially in the 4th octave with that dreaded passaggio, which is there for all voice types.

I think most everyone here, even just goofing around, has managed a note or two in the 5th octave. Just about everyone without exception can manage the 3rd octave. But parts of that 4th octave seem to be the bane of every singer.

So, I don't go to C6 every day, rarely don't venture below C3. But my secret sin, I occasionally sing along with someone's cover of "Silent Lucidity." And still can't get the low notes. Suffer a fit of jealousy, then move on.

:D

[benny82]

Just for the record:

Here is an awesome vid of what he can do with his voice, also quite good display of range:

What is most impressive to me is not how high he can get, but the control he has over that whistle notes.

[Remylebeau]

I think most everyone here, even just goofing around, has managed a note or two in the 5th octave. Just about everyone without exception can manage the 3rd octave. But parts of that 4th octave seem to be the bane of every singer.

Mastering the 4th octave is, IMO, the most important part of developing a strong male voice. If the 4th octave were as easy for me to sing in as the 3rd octave (I realize this is impossible), I could tackle nearly every song I wanted to.

On the other hand, if it were easy there would be less satisfaction in singing a crystal clear high note.

[ronws]

And we've had similar discussions on the heroic quality of notes in this region. People are just drawn to them, for whatever reason. If it's an effect of our parasympathetic nervous system or something else, who knows.

And the audience may think, "wow, that must have been hard to get that high note." But if the singer is trained, then the note is doable, yet still heroic.

Let me equate it to america football. Jay Novacek was one of the most underrated receivers in the game. I have watched him bounce off a hit from a guy twice his size, do his little chicken dance to regain his stride, and then shoot like a bullet toward the end zone. Heroic, indeed. And a result of decades of playing since little league. It was another "day at the office" for Jay.

What gets missed is the offensive linemen creating an opening for Jay or any of the other receivers to get through and run like a prison inmate for freedom. All you see is the glory run and not the other work it took to get there.

[Remylebeau]

All you see is the glory run and not the other work it took to get there.

I actually have the harder time explaining this to a lot of untrained singers than I do to people who don't sing at all. Those who had never heard me sing back when I could only go up to Eb4 are kind of bewildered when I explain to them that I wasn't born with a "high voice" (I was born with a rather low one, actually), and my range is 100% due to good teaching and practice.

Again, though, this goes back to my repeated frustration about ignorant teachers who don't really know how to teach singing. My choir performed at a retirement community one time and I met this woman in her 80's who told me that as a child she was told by her choir teacher "just lip synch, you're tone deaf and you can't sing". So, this woman who had wanted to sing went basically her entire life believing that she couldn't. I don't really cry, but I almost burst into tears right there.

The silver lining is that she said she had found someone at her church who told her that he could teach her how to sing even if she had been deemed "tone deaf" and I told her to go for it. I also gave her a couple of things to look up on the internet about how the voice works and such.

Now, it's hard to fault this woman's teacher too much, because this happened sometime in the 1930's when we almost no vocal science, no internet, and hell certain parts of the country were just getting electricity.

But this stuff still continues today when there's an abundance of knowledge at our fingertips. There's really no good excuse for it.

[Guest]

The fact that Mr.Lopez admitted he lost his entire "head voice" range after puberty... I think that phrase itself is enough to inspire all of us to work a little harder ;)

[eggplantbren]

Cool video. He loses his whistle notes during the full moon? Lol.

[Jens]

He's a wereman, during fullmoon he loses all gay ;)

[ronws]

But this stuff still continues today when there's an abundance of knowledge at our fingertips. There's really no good excuse for it.

Certainement, mon Ami.

I am an amateur, I like to sing. I am not a singing teacher, though I have been a teacher of electrical work. When I call myself a redneck (a rube, an uneducated layman in the southern US,) it is to remind myself and others that I am not by any means, an expert. However, I like to help others. Like the movie, "Pay it Forward," with Kevin Spacey. Help others when you can.

Like you would with the elderly lady. Sometimes, all a person needs is for just one person to believe in them. Just one. One of my most precious moments was in helping a student at a government funded program where I was teaching electrical trade. I had a student who had been told most of his life that he was stupid. And he was starting to believe it, even though he was only 17. All I had to do was recognize that his mind was actually quicker, not slower, than most people around him. Dude took off like a shot. Turned out he was genius at math, too.

I didn't cry but it still gives me chills to realize the effect that one human can have on another.

But I digress. Back the mundane world of who can sing the highest note...