Harder for males to sing?

[Woohoo!]

When I compare the pop music I listen to, it seems like pretty much all male singers belt out B4. It seems B4 is the money note for males, and the definition of being an awesome singer, is being able to belt out B4.

Now I've listened to several performances by Usher, Gavin De Graw and Bono. They all easily go down two octaves below, they have solid B2s. Some have even bigger registers, but the quality of the lower notes are mostly so bad, I don't see them as a part of the register they would use musically.

Now, in classical music, wikipedia lists the standard male baritone range going from F2 - F4. Most normal men have throats and chords fitting into this range. But you will struggle to find male singers in todays pop music in this range.

Now, for the female alto voice in classical music, wikipedia lists a standard range from surprise, F3-F5. An octave above the baritones. But those girls that I can identify that occationally dips down that low, well they hardly get any higher than D5 (Rihanna in California King Bed, e.g).

Now, there are undeniably some amazing singers like Toni Braxton with both amazing range and timbre, singing D3 with ease (unbreak my heart), and I've heard her belt legit F5s. But she seems to me like a total exception, and when I compare her to my own voice, I can make legit E2s, and legit A4s, which makes for a similar range. But it is useless, as male singers need to be flexible in the F-B-land, which requires a lighter voice closer to tenor range.

It seems to me, the sopranos have the same problem. They don't get down low enough, they can sing the high notes with ease, but they sound thin. I mean, Tamyra Gray never had any pitch problems in American Idol, and her melisma is superb, but Kelly (mezzo) knocked the shit outta her. Kelly hits those high notes, but again, they are not high compared to her range, and her songs are generally the most rangy I can find.

Summed up, if you are a bass, bass-baritone, or normal baritone, you can pretty much go fyourself, whereas if you are a female singer, anything goes. Am I right?

[Felipe Carvalho]

No.

Hope it helps.

[Woohoo!]

http://time.com/music-ranking/

This is a list of the artists with the highest score from adding billboard chartings.

As you can see, the top male scorers have all light voices that are statistical exceptions range-wise.

For women, the highest scorers have an exception in Mariah, but LOTS of women with NO impressive ranges at all. Not even impressive voices, e.g Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears.

The only listed male artists with unimpressive vocal abilities on that pop list, are those who shouldn't be on it - cos they are RAPPERS. (Kanye, Jay-Z etc).

And the only ones with a legit baritone range are Lionel Richie and Elton John.

So I ask again, if you take out country music and rap, and talk about pop music. Is it harder for males to go anywhere in pop music? I'd say the numbers say yes.

[JensTP]

Billboards are sales or other kinds of comsumption. Voice is only part of the package there. Faces, hips, shoulder width, shoes, choreography, leaked nude photos all plays a part (now a days anyway). Plus a good portion of the songs are written and/or produced by professional hit makers where the face in front is just a puppet (and a rich one at that).

Looking at that chart we have females like: Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Diana Ross, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Barbra Streisand. That's not a bad bunch...

The males counterparts would be: Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bruno Mars, Elvis Presley, Lionel Richie, Marvin Gaye plus Paul McCartney and John Lennon if you want to include them

I honestly don't see the male line-up as better. Probably not worse either though.

Now I can see what you're going for and I can think of two potential factors with some importance in the matter:

1) The music industry is still a male dominated business. There are more male artists and male singers increasing the competition. This is a postulate based on a hunch. Furthermore sex sells - but men are more susceptible to those cheap tricks than women. That means packaging is more important when selling female artists. Again a postulate based on lies, conjecture and prejudice

2) The human ear (in the popular music era) is generally conditioned to prefer a certain range of pitches - let's say C2-D5. That happens to accommodate all male voice and pretty much the entire range. For females the bottom half is more or less ruled out and the top of their ranges is above that and considered shrieky (when combined with a preference of full voiced timbre/belting). Essentially that means that pop music doesn't allow women to use or encourage them to develope their full ranges. Another undocumented postulate of course.

The money notes in pop are pretty much the same for men and women anway. Sometimes it all just seems so interchangeable and formulaic. But then again most everything is, I just happen to like Iron Maidens formula better :)

[ronws]

I think JensTP is right. Modern pop singing is about looks. Good thing I am an electrician and an operations manager for a company. I will never make it as a pop star unless looking like someone from GWAR becomes a pop phenomenon.

:lol:

[Jens]

I'm pretty damn good looking, still can't sing pop

[MDEW]

I look like ZZtop and Willy Nelson all mixed together......Sound like it too......Is there any hope?

[Owen Korzec]

Basically, being around the tenor/alto/mezzo range is kind of where pop music lies most so you will hear a lot of that. Sopranos and baritones you will still hear topping the charts occasionally or close to it, they just need to be able to cross over into the middle ground so most baritones need to be able to get up to the G4-A4 and most sopranos need to be able to get down to, idk, at least the C3. In other words the voice type doesn't matter as much as their ability to still sing in a very accessible range like that. True basses are extremely rare voice types anyways but especially not much of it in pop.

So it's more like, if your a bass you can go fyourself but basses are like only 2% of the male population anyways

Most male singers I hear are right on that low tenor/high bari line when properly trained or even with a little bit of correct training. It's a shame so many people get misclassified.

[Felipe Carvalho]

Now, in classical music, wikipedia lists the standard male baritone range going from F2 - F4. Most normal men have throats and chords fitting into this range. But you will struggle to find male singers in todays pop music in this range.

Most normal men can not produce a single note/vowel in the way that is necessary to fit that description, let alone 2 octaves of it.

And since you are basing your whole idea on "range", you will not reach anywhere, the premise that using a greater range is harder or that you need a "light" voice to do so is wrong to begin with.

So, simply no.

[Asim]

Nick Drake and Lou Reed had a low baritone range - rarely went over an F in full voice. There are obviously dozens of examples, but those are the critically most acclaimed ones. The era for popular baritones with a low range sort of faded out in the late 1950s. You just need a more eclectic taste in music, a broader perspective other than merely chart-pop.

Billboards are sales or other kinds of comsumption. Voice is only part of the package there. Faces, hips, shoulder width, shoes, choreography, leaked nude photos all plays a part (now a days anyway). Plus a good portion of the songs are written and/or produced by professional hit makers where the face in front is just a puppet (and a rich one at that).

Now I can see what you're going for and I can think of two potential factors with some importance in the matter:

1) The music industry is still a male dominated business. There are more male artists and male singers increasing the competition. This is a postulate based on a hunch. Furthermore sex sells - but men are more susceptible to those cheap tricks than women. That means packaging is more important when selling female artists. Again a postulate based on lies, conjecture and prejudice

This isn't true for the mainstream pop music the OP is talking about. From a New Yorker article, "Today’s pop world is female, African-American, and Latino, dance-pop and hip-hop and R&B." Rihanna, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, and Taylor Swift have been far more recognizable than anyone else in the past several years. Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber are probably the only men who come close. They're also a high-range tenors, which must drive the OP insane.

I don't think men are anywhere near as susceptible to looks as women are when it comes to music. Anything else - sure. But as for music... how many of you studs have bought a Rihanna, Taylor Swift or Beyonce single lately? For women, these are beauty-aspirational singers. For men, we just don't mind looking at them. Hearing them, however, is another issue.

[VideoHere]

this may sound strange to you woo, (oh, that rhymes..lol) but if you're a singer who really loves the act of singing, where you'd do it for nothing you love it so much, fame and the acquisition of it becomes secondary.

there are all levels of fame. but most of the folks who end up getting it, ironically really didn't place that goal first.

[ronws]

According to bios that I have read, a number of guys got into rock and roll to attract women. A significant number of singers did not start out as "singers." They were playing another instrument and the band needed someone who could sing or at least had the 'nads to get up there and sing. Also a significant number of singers did not get lessons or study how to properly sing until later in their careers. And it's funny in a macabre way to watch the evolution.

Singer starts out, singing incorrectly and damaging his voice but creating a sound. At some point follows the advice we constantly give others here to find a teacher or coach. This teacher or coach does good things for them to conserve their voices which tends to clean up their voices and the "singing experts" talk about how the singer has lost his special tone or sound.

Yeah, hilarious ...

[Remylebeau]

You're operating on the assumption that the female passaggio lays an octave above the male one, because of these classical voice ranges you've pulled from Wikipedia. The reality is that it lays more like a third to a fifth above the male passaggio, depending on the singer of course.

A fully connected D5 for most woman is roughly a fully connected G4-A4 for men and an F5 is roughly a B4-C5.

[Remylebeau]

I'd add that this forum is filled with baritones (myself included) who have learned to belt out B4's (and higher). As Dan regularly says, having a big voice is a flimsy excuse. If you want to sing pop music, then train your voice to sing in that range. It's that simple.

[VideoHere]

remy,

and if you go towards the other (lighter) way i believe you risk the same imbalance you had when all you had was heavy.

if you can take m1 up really high and mentally will the required vowel i say work that.

[Remylebeau]

remy,

and if you go towards the other (lighter) way i believe you risk the same imbalance you had when all you had was heavy.

if you can take m1 up really high and mentally will the required vowel i say work that.

Bob, I'm a little confused. It did indeed take me longer to get comfortable with lighter phonations than with heavier ones, but I don't believe that's what we're talking about here.

[benny82]

I think there was some research a while ago that found out that singing within the tenor tessitura is most plesant to the ear of the average listener. And indeed most pop music lies in that tessitura range-wise.

However, as range and tessitura is far less restrictive in pop compared to classical singing you also find baritones singing in tenor tessitura there. But low-timbred voices are indeed rare in pop music nowadays. It wasn't always like that though. Around 50 years ago it was basically vice-versa and tenors were singing in baritone tessitura, even imitating baritone timbres. Has a lot to do with fashion.

And the difference between males and females is of course that females tend to need far less training to sing with some quality within the desired tessitura, while males need more training to do that.

But as already said, this is not so much about range itself, more about the type of timbre that is "hip" at the moment. And yeah, Peter Steele could belt out a B4, too.

[VideoHere]

Bob, I'm a little confused. It did indeed take me longer to get comfortable with lighter phonations than with heavier ones, but I don't believe that's what we're talking about here.

i just felt compelled to defend the fact that a bigger voice does have a harder time with it. steve fraser and i were chatting about this yesterday. i don't believe as dan was saying, it's just an excuse. i believe it's pretty much true..

that's all..

[Seth]

Owen and Jenstp nailed it. It's not about range. It's about the range that is marketable and/or pleasing. This just happens to fall in the higher range of men and lower range of women. Also classical classifications for men and different are vastly different, as Sopranos sing in a headier way which is easier get to higher pitches with.

[ChumelsVanCogle]

It's not about the range for sure, It's about the actually quality of the adduction. Anyone can have good adduction if they have the right technique, and you'll also hear a lot of singers who only have 'feasible' adduction, meaning they use a limited range that's just enough to work right. Poor adduction can happen to literally anyone but by no means does it mean they can't fix it and learn to sing.

I'll send you an email with an audio reply to your first post.