Singers will always put themselves into a box when they first start. As vocalists, we limit ourselves to what we can do by keeping ourselves from exploring our instrument. The most important place to start your singing is from a place of joy. What music gets you excited to sing? What are the songs you sing along to in the car? When you broaden the scope of your musical world, you can begin to find a place you fit.
When your musical ear grows, you can start to pull pieces from all the singers you gravitate towards. There are many biological and environmental factors at play that will affect your voice body type, hormones, musical exposure. Understanding your range helps you learn what colors you have in your musical palette to express yourself. Through practice, persistence and technique, you can expand your range into higher or lower territory.
Find out how to determine your vocal range here. Vocal style on the other hand is made up of more nuanced categories. These can consist of tone and texture more formally known as timbre and the means of production where is the sound resonating in your body? If we think about our range being our palette or colors, or vocal style is the brush and how we express them.
Your range is part of what makes your instrument unique. The more trained your voice becomes, you may even begin to find yourself going in and out of these styles in just one song. Some styles may be used for pops of color or expression, while other styles may be omnipresent in your sound.
Before we delve any deeper, the number one rule of singing is if it hurts, STOP! Be sure to work with a teacher before pushing your boundaries too far. A gritty sound is synonymous with rock music. You can hear it in a lot of different styles: hair metal, blues, rock and roll.
