Will Your Age Affect Your Voice and Range?
Posted by Jeannie Deva at July 1, 2007 7:15 PM
If you've been told your age will effect your voice; that you have a limit to the length of your career, here's the information that just might help you maintain your voice for many years to come.
Will Your Age Affect Your Voice and Range? By Jeannie Deva
“Jeannie, I have been wondering for a long time how age (and other factors like weight), affect vocal range, tone, etc. I have been reading your email tips for a few months and have held off exploring my voice with professional instruction because I am already in my early 40s. I wonder how age affects the voice and singing. For example: Elton John sings much lower now. Is it because of age, vocal burnout, both? Steve Perry: Listening to albums in the mid 80s his voice, same as others, changed. Was this age, over-use . . .? Thanks! David B”
Dear David and all of my readers:
I think that many people fear that as they grow older their voice will deteriorate. So this is a good topic for discussion. From my research and personal experience, I cannot say that age alone is the reason for the decline of the singing voice.
First let me give you my personal experience. You may have difficulty believing what I am about to tell you because it is not what you generally observe as singers age. Through my more than forty years as a performing singer, my voice has actually continued to improve.
Within the first year of completing my basic research on the voice (1977) and applying to myself the fundamentals of my evolving voice training method, my range expanded to over four solid and continuous octaves. (And yes, this includes the disappearance of any “break” or weak upper register.)
Since that time (now for over 30 years) it has remained full, flexible, powerful and versatile. I am able to sing for hours with no fatigue or blow-out. In fact the more I sing the better my voice becomes. I am still surprised at the development of new colors and variations within it. With each passing year it is more expressive than it ever was.
Treated correctly and exercised properly, the voice remains a living, growing instrument. Obviously and unfortunately, this is not the experience of most singers.
To keep your instrument performing at its best, year after year, you need to know what influences it negatively and positively. This is why getting educated about your voice and what influences it is so vital. Knowledge is power. Only with true data can you make correct decisions and take actions that will foster continued vocal growth.
The Causes of Vocal Deterioration
As a person goes through life there are many influences on the body and mind. If we enumerate and investigate the many facets of this complex process, you can begin to gain some control over your vocal destiny.
There are various factors to vocal deterioration.
· Singing with poor or no vocal technique
· No or inadequate vocal warm-up or vocal cool-down
· Drugs (legal and illegal)
· Regular and excessive alcohol consumption
· The accumulated effect of cigarette smoking
· Performing with deficient or no monitors
· The wrong microphone
· Shouting over your instrumentalists’ stage volume
· Emotional stress
· Physical deterioration from poor nutrition or sleep
· Psychosomatic illness occasioned by emotional hardships, losses and upsets
In this several part Vocal Tip article, we will investigate each of the above in turn.
Singing with Poor or No Vocal Technique
I have written much on this already in my book “The Contemporary Vocalist” Volume One and in various other vocal tip articles and free online voice lessons found on my web site archive which is available to “Deva Club” members.
However, for the purposes of this article let me start out by saying …. I do not believe that vocal technique should be something that makes you conform to a certain sound and style. I believe that vocal technique should accomplish two purposes: to help you develop the full functionality of your instrument in such a way that it then allows you to be the creative, expressive artist and playing an instrument that instantly responds to everything you want to say, the way you want to say it. It should develop stamina so that you can play your instrument as long as you want. If you want to sing rough, you should be able to do so without vocal blow-out. If you sing loud and powerfully, you should not have to cancel gigs because you can’t sing for a week or more afterwards. You get the point?
So if someone has been singing without this kind of vocal technique, then chances are their instrument will, at some point, start showing signs of wearing out. It will affect tone, range and freedom of their expression. It will take more effort to produce what they may have been able to do with ease in their earlier years.
How Do You Know If A Vocal Technique Is Correct?
Most artists in any field know that to have an ever expanding career, their art ability must also continually expand. They know they must continue to grow in their capability and surpass what they’ve already created. This inevitably means finding and working with a mentor or coach. However, fear of possible bad effects has often held back many singers from acting on taking voice lessons. Whether you are a singer who already has a developed style or one still looking for it, sounding like yourself and developing your own uniqueness is vital.
If this is important to you, then hearing some of the different singers who study with the same vocal coach could be enlightening: do they sound the same or does each person have their own unique attributes?
However, this is only one of the factors to look at. The other is finding out if the teacher and the method taught include educating you right from the start on the facts of your instrument. You need to know the simple and precise facts about your instrument; what are its parts and how they affect each other in their natural sound-making functions. If you don’t have this knowledge, you most certainly can be led astray.
How do you know if the techniques you are being told to employ are right without understanding your instrument? Perhaps you’d rather not know. If this is true, then you are asking to be a victim and you may not like the result. The thing is, it really is not complicated. Only those who wish to shut you out of the loop and keep themselves the high authority make the facts seem complicated. They fling around terms without ever defining them, tell you to fill your belly with air or other nonsense directions which are not factually based and tie you to their apron string.
I have met so many singers through the years who, when first speaking with me, say that their voice has deteriorated because they have not had lessons in whatever amount of time. Whether or not your voice stays in good shape should not have to do with continuing voice lessons as a life long process.
If you have a well structured voice technique that has been built from the physical facts of your body instrument, if it educated you on the real basics of its design so that you understand what you need to do as well as what you don’t need to do and why, if the method is one that really makes sense to you, is not directing you into a style but rather helps you develop your instrument and frees you to have your own style, then this is a correct vocal technique. For further assistance and some exercises, check out my free lessons on this web site, particularly the ones entitled:
To end off this month’s article, here is something I wrote in 1977 heralding the launch of my method:
We are learning to let ourselves BE.
To be ourselves without fear,
To release our blocked and rigid places,
To be and feel alive and celebrate in openly expressing who we are.
As artists, it is our responsibility to cultivate and open our total selves,
To allow our creativity to flow – fresh and free
Powerful in our directness,
Not restricted by fear. . . but
Sculpted by artistry.
All the Best,
Jeannie Deva
International celebrity vocal coach and recording studio vocal specialist Jeannie Deva has appeared on national TV in the US, Venezuela and England and her cutting edge voice technique is used by Grammy award winners, Idol finalists and singers on major labels. Jeannie Deva is the author of "The Contemporary Vocalist" series and "The Deva Method®" with a growing national network of Jeannie Deva® Voice Studios certified in her approach. More information about her products and
Comments
I have found that my voice hasn't changed over the past 26 years i've been singing infact my range has improved but what i have noticed is that how i get to the high notes has changed like my voice needs more support than it did when i was 22 plus if i use a scerton vowel sound i can slide straight into a very high falceto so live i just hold the Mic away until the vowel sound has passed and i'm sliding my way up.
I think it's not that your voice changes it's more you have to listen to what your body is telling you and respond to that i am now at 45 and i have young bands asking me how is it i can sing Dreamtheater and Queensrych songs and not be straining my voice or going blood red in the face .... i must be doing something right!
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