Hiya ppl!!
Something that my singing teacher said the other day made me think, and now I'm just curious. Is it true that some people are born with naturally 'classical' voices, while some people have always had more 'belter' or 'pop' type voices? I know that every voice is different, but is it true that we all have a specific style that we are best at singing, if you get what I mean?
Luv charl xx

This is not an easy one to answer with much personal knowledge as usually I do not hear many little ones singing until they are aged four or above. I think that much depends on the singing that they hear and copy. I have many children coming for lessons over the years with voices in their low register who have suddenly found plenty of pure higher register notes after a lesson or two. One little lad tried to sound like Bryn Terfel at the age of seven when he came for his first lesson and his mum told me that his voice had started to break already! Now at the age of ten he had a beautiful soprano voice with effotrless top B flats. The vocal quality will differ form voice to voice of course but I think that mostly the difference is one of training. As teachers we work with what we are presented with to a great extent, (apart from would be Bryns at seven years old!) and it depends also on what sort of singing the pupil enjoys but most can be taught to sing easily naturally and with correct diction from the start. Other techniques come much later. I am not sure that this answers your question at all but it may lead to further discussion.
Welcome to the Forum by he way.

Not meaning to be deliberately argumentative petrat, but in the thread about which singers one should listen to, you said:

"Hayley Westanra has a good voice and I used to think that it would have lovely if trained for early music but she has gone down another route now. She wouldn't be on my list."

...which kind of implies that you think she was born with a voice that would work well for a certain genre but maybe not others? I may be mis-interpreting you here - do feel free to point that out if so

I think that most people have a core 'natural' singing voice which are actually very similar; for example, babies mostly all cry in the same way. The trouble is that as they grow up, their voices are affected by what they hear externally, and they often adapt their voices subconciously to match these.

I get far too many teenage girls who have obviously never sung much above the G above milddle C and are growling away trying to sing the latest pop song. Often, this is because they don't believe they have the ability to sing anything else. Within a few weeks, their range has grown, and they find that they can sing lots of other things.

It is true that voice types do seem to be suited to specific genres or styles, but is this something that people are born with, or is it something which develops under the influence of external factors?

David

David is completely right.

The pure natural voice is very similar in each person, just as a violin's sound is recognisable as a violin's sound irrespective of the maker of the instrument.

Classical and pop singing are simply 'set-up's' of the voice production material - nothing more. Classical singers sing with more thyroid tilt, greater use of aryepiglottic constriction and a generally lower larynx than most pop singers, who tend to prefer high larynx, thick fold, belted singing (generalisation, but you get the idea).

The voice is the voice, irrespective of how it sounds it can be dressed up to sound classical, gospel, pop, jazz, metal, musical theatre - whatever you want. You just need to know which bits of the vocal production system are used for which style (I use the terms 'ingredients' and 'recipies' with my students).

Allan

He he, always ready for a good fight. Bewars the duck ended brolly!

Hayley Westenra was trained from a very early age in music theatre. She chooses to sing a lot of folk music and light music and has had help recently from Aled Jones, who used to live on Anglesey and who is very involved in similar music. I think that if she had received classical training she could have been a lovely early opera singer and then perhaps a Mozart soprano but her voice has developed in a different way, I am sure as a result of her training. I didn't imply that she had a natural and untrained voice. If she had pursued a classical training she might have had a heavier voice by the age of thirty-five. Who knows? She might have gone down a gospel route or jazz route if the opportunities had been there. People tend to copy the types of singers that they hear around them and that they enjoy and singing does involve a certain amount of mimicry.

Fair enough - I did say I was happy to be corrected!
(I wouldn't dare start a fight with you )

I am such a gentle person really.

I know - just teasing

I would be interested to hear some more views on this topic from other voice teachers though. Wouldn't it be interesting if twins had been parted at birth and taught to sing in different ways? I wonder if it has happened.

There's nothing to stop this Westenra person from singing classical if she's taught how to set up her larynx to do so - the classical sound is VERY easy to produce once you pull it apart to its base elements.

Learning to sing classical music well, mind you - that's a different thing all together! She'd have a lot of work on her plate interpretation wise, style wise and repertoire wise - but the sound wouldn't take very long to learn.

I reckon I could teach her to make a good, healthy convincing classical sound in not more than a few hours.

Then she'd just have to spend years learning all the music properly!

I think that Hayley Westenra has a lovely pure sound but the thing that gets me (and is surprising to me if she has done a lot of musical theatre) is that it all sounds like a kind of melisma- I never hear her singing with any consonants! Lack of diction is a real bugbear of mine; people write songs for a reason, and if a song has words then the composer and lyricist intended for them to be heard and understood, in general...

I was told I was a 'top soprano' at school; when I went to uni I started singing alto in a couple of things. I CAN sing very low and pretty high (top E at last count but I've never needed to go higher so I've never tried?) but I definitely feel that singing in my lower register too much doesn't do me any favours.

Wow! Some great responses guys! Thanks - you guys really answered my question!

Just a thought Rosfrog. If you were presented with a new student who was a good musician already and perhaps a professional accompanist, familiar with repertoire and performing styles but not a trained singer could you turn them into a classical singer in just a few hours?

If that person already knew how to sing properly (and by sing, I'm speaking only of technique - producing a sound, on pitch in a healthy way) I could certainly teach them to make the classical sound in a few hours, yes.

Their musical knowledge would then help them to achieve the kind of sensitivity required for singing the rep in a shorter time than someone coming from no previous knowledge.

I separate style and technique, my students first learn how to sing in a style free manner - larynx balancing, torso and neck support, lower back support, cartilage control, vocal fold configurations, soft palate and tongue use, lips and larynx height for brillance / darkness etc. Then we address style - any given style is just configuration of the elements used in phonation so, for me, classical singing is simply a style - something you put on a voice that knows how to work already.

It can be taught in very little time if the voice is balanced. A good pop singer came to me last month and wanted to learn how to sing in a convincing style for bel canto repertoire. He has had five lessons and can make an extremely convincing bel canto sound.

Of course, now he's realising that in order to sing the stuff in front of people, he has to learn about interpretation, ornamentation, learn all the rep etc... now begins the fun !

So I think you need to rethink your question - I didn't say I could turn Westenra into a classical singer in a few hours, but that I could make her sound perfectly plausible in a few hours with no technique errors. That, however, doesn't make her a classical singer - only a singer who sounds classical. The classical singer requires in depth knowledge of the rep, historical info for interpretation and ornamentation etc.

The accomplished musician you're speaking of certainly knows the rep and interpretation stuff, but lacks Westenra's technique, so unless their voice was also balanced (and by balanced I don't mean classical...) then that would have to be addressed first.

I could, however, (and have, as I pointed out) - take any singer and give them a classical voice in very little time. They would then need to work at becoming a classical singer.

Hmmmm ...

What I believe and know is that you are neither a classical pianist after 5 lessons nor a classical singer - it is probably one of the hardest instruments to learn if you want to do it properly. To use the voice in a healthy way again can be taught much faster.
The problem only is that so many people abuse their voices over years, and it is very hard to get them back to normal. This is sometimes not so much a physiological problem, but merely a mental one.

Anyway, the same applies to natural born belters and classical singers: I do believe that every individual has personal strengths and weaknesses. Physiologically, everyone MIGHT be able to sing everything (although there are people who have thicker, more robust folds by nature as well as differently shaped resonators - this makes them sound better or worse in one or the other style). But it is not as simple as that. Preferences, upbringing etc. play a massive role in how someone shapes their voice from childhood, and I experience on a daily basis that there are voices that naturally have more talent in one or the other style - also, but not exclusively, meaning that their physiology makes them more prone to one or the other.

But I am completely with Allan that you can learn to sing in both ways. But for myself, it was much harder to learn contemporary than classical, because my vocal set-up is naturally much more "classical-friendly"
Today, I can do both equally well I would say, but one was more work than the other. And I also decided to work in a field for years that was vocally much harder for me (Musical Theatre) because I enjoyed it more ...

I started life at 19 singing country music in the clubs around Liverpool. BUT I wanted to sing classically which I did. I ended up singing as a heroic tenor. I am very lucky in that my voice matched my musical preferences for it.