How to Improve Your Vocal Tonality in Singing [Answered]

(Last Updated On: June 28, 2023)
Improve Singing Voice Tonality

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If you want to improve your vocal tonality in singing, you should understand the components of a good tone and a bad tone. The term tone refers to the vocal or musical sound that focuses on the pitch, strength, and quality. Tone or timbre refers to the quality of a musical sound, note, or tone that involves the different kinds of sound production. Here, we are focusing on the sound of your voice in singing.

Every person has a kind of singing voice that is unique. However, everyone can control and develop a singing tone through regular practice. The tone in singing is the sound quality that you create, commonly described as pure, clear, mellow or husky. In this aspect, several factors are concerned; namely, the size and shape of your vocal cords, nose, throat, and mouth.

Importance of Singing Tone To Your Voice Quality

When you enroll in a vocal lesson, you’ll learn how to make a good tone in singing. You’ll realize its importance whatever is the gender of the singer or whatever genre is performed. If you want to know what a good tone is and how a singer can get it, continue reading below.

The truth is that it’s difficult to answer what a good tone is. But if you try to imagine it in its purest form, a good tone is produced by a good technique. If you align the power of your voice, you’ll have a more consistent and pleasing tone.  Once you have established that, you can be sure to do it better than before. You can try this process by messing with it and making new changes to create a more amazing result. Even your growl can become a cooler sound.

The components of a good technique that creates a great tone include well-balanced registers and a breathing technique that can do the job well. They also include good knowledge of the source of your resonance and sufficient compression on the vocal cords.

Tone Color = Vocal Resonance?

The term tone color refers to the ability to determine the difference between one voice to the other, or from one instrument to another. Tone color is best described by the words – warm, buzzy, bright or dark.

For example, the difference between a violin and a piano is that playing them produces the same volume and pitch, but at different tones. While a piano makes a warm tone, a violin creates a bright tone. However, don’t confuse a tone with loudness and pitch.

Even if two different singers are singing a song with similar pitch and loudness, you can still distinguish each one through their tone.

The words that can best describe the color of your voice are warm, bright, shrill, ringing or dark.

But remember that the emotions or moods that you’re trying to express change the tone of your voice. In this process, resonance creates your tone. Read More About Vocal Resonance in Singing.


How Resonance Affects Your Vocal Tonality?

It involves the vibrations that make the tone by using your mouth, nose and throat.

If you attempt to make a certain sound, think first about the type of parts that you want to use to make that sound.

On the other hand, if you want to imitate a country singer, you should distinguish the difference when you sing like Barry White.

Feel how your brain controls your breath, and how you use different muscle shapes to get those different tones.

You can get a good tone by connecting your voice to your breath by using energy and effort.

You make strong vibrations through clear tones that you can feel on your head and all over your face depending on the type of the note’s pitch, whether high or low.


Sweeten Your Singing Tone Through Vocal Tonality Exercises

You can learn professional tone quality through vocal tonality exercises.

But how to get a good vocal tone?

The two main parts of your voice projection in tone.

  1. The source of your tone
  2. Your vocal cords: It involves the spaces where your tone resonates produced: in the throat, head, or mouth.

To make a rich and good tone, you should…

1) Balancing your Tone

Produce a clear, high-quality singing tone through your vocal cords.

Try to balance and stable your vocal resonance in your throat, head, and mouth.

Remember that you can produce a great tone by practicing a number of specific exercises that can perform them automatically.

The way to balance up your tone is by practicing the right vocal tonality exercises designed to build up a stable vocal tone projection.

When it comes to your larynx’s position, and if it moves up / down, then, you are not singing correctly.

If you produce your sound at the vocal cords, and the voice will move upward in your head, mouth, and throat. Thus, tone quality changes depending on the balance of each cavity.

So to create a rich, creamy tone, you should …

And then, balance the vocal resonance… the amount of your sound that resonates in your head, mouth, and throat.

Some vocal tonality exercises can teach you how to differentiate these proportions. They can change the quality of your tone as you want.

You can sing in different vocal tones and colors.

Furthermore, you can balance up the vocal resonance while singing, by practicing proper vocal exercises. If you learn this, you’ll have a rich and balanced voice that has a good tone quality through every note you sing.

Balance your tone by focusing on the vibrations and sensations that every note creates.

While you sing your range, there will be some changes in the balance of vocal resonance. The lowest notes have more mouth and throat sensations, while higher notes have an effect on the head, and a bit of sensation in your mouth.

2) Exercises on Controlling Singing Tone

You can control your singing tone by standing up straight. Then, fill your lungs with air in a very deep manner that you have to push out your ribs while pushing down your diaphragm. Maintain your ribs in an outward position, while your shoulders and diaphragm are in a downward position, and letting the airflow out in a slow manner.

In controlling your singing tone, you should relax your larynx and throat, and keep up your breath support. A lot of singers feel easy going to a range between 16 to 20 notes, beginning G beneath middle C for soprano and mezzo-soprano singers. For alto and tenor vocal singers, they go in C beneath middle C, while for baritones, it’s the next A below, and for basses, they use the next F below.

3) Exercises on Developing Singing Tone

It would help if you practiced this activity daily before you perform singing to strengthen your diaphragm and build-up your lung capacity. Then, try to identify your voice range by accompanying yourself with a piano, guitar or a keyboard. Start playing while singing a middle C note on a piano. Now, you can perform singing downwards in a note by note process, going to the lowest note that your voice can reach and hold.

You will notice how it sounds whenever you sing a resonant, full tone at different pitches. In identifying resonance, try to visualize the air spinning in your throat, nose and mouth chambers that are resonating. Keep on practicing until you can hit this tone. Using the piano as a guide, try to sing scales to train yourself in singing to the right tune.

4) Developing Better Singing Tone in High Notes

In singing high notes, using your singing tone, you can utilize your diaphragm in pushing the air up to your head. In doing this, you should open your throat regularly because the moment you squeeze your breath with your larynx, it will create a sound that seems to be forced. When you feel like there is a gathering of tone in your chest, it could be used effectively in stabilizing high notes.

You can overcome breathiness by practicing how to shape up clear vowel sounds, and building up controlled, deep breathing. You can encounter the problem of restricting the spaces used for breathing to resonate, that is why it is important that you open your throat constantly, and relax your tongue to produce an excellent singing tone.


Techniques To Develop & Improve Your Singing Tone

1) Develop & Use Your Chest Voice & Head Voice Properly

Singers commonly pursue a good mix of chest and head voice to obtain a good singing tone. The topic of developing singing voice has already been tackled in past articles, but you will notice that today, it still seems to be misunderstood by some people such as the balancing of tonal brilliance and depth of resonance.

In performing this process, singers usually combine the use of their head voice and chest to produce a great singing tone.

However, this combination of chest voice and the head voice causes confusion and frustration for both amateur and professional singers. But once you can do it without any difficulty through constant practice, you’ll be amazed to find out that it’s possible to make it automatic just like in ordinary speech with expression.

However, you can control your voice in a relaxed and open manner that your throat is reacting to. Also involved in this process in which part of your head or throat your voice resonates, and how you can control your breath well. Controlling your breath enables you to render a rich, full tone in the broadest range possible.

The process of developing a singing voice using the combination of your chest and head voice is a great way of singing and producing the best singing tone. So, if you’re aiming to achieve an excellent singing tone, you can attain it by getting the most appropriate vocal exercises that will train you on how to sing properly using your chest and head voice.

2) Using Mixed Voice in Developing Singing Voice

Keep in mind that the ability of your resonators is of great importance to your singing voice. If you listen to different singers having high singing voices, you will notice that each of them delivers a unique vocal quality.

In performing this procedure, you can try experimenting on this simple exercise so that you can realize the resonating power of your head that comes from its different parts. But in performing this exercise, you should look for a quiet place. Now, you can start it by having your finger tap gently the bone, which is located between your upper lip and nose.

At this point, you can hear the light sound of thump, which is being produced. After that, use the same finger in tapping your nose bridge. Next is tapping your forehead that is beneath your hairline while you listen to the sound of thumping that is being produced.


Additional Tips & Important Points To Recap

A healthy singing voice can make the hearts to dance. You can discover the singer inside you. The commonly thought question that strikes the minds of many is how to have a distinct singing voice. Numerous ways have been introduced to help the people in improving the tone or pitch of their voices. The below-mentioned facts can help you to increase the quality of your vocal tonality.

  • Understand how the sound comes from your voice.
  • The vocal cords vibrate while singing.
  • Your vocal cords are like a stringed instrument.
  • The mandolin is smaller than the cello.
  • The sound of the instrument is based on the shape of your body.
  • Hence, your shape will certainly affect your sound.
  • The tongue, sinuses, and nasal cavity dictate how your voice sounds.

Become singers also has the detailed article on correct nasal singing voice.

Now, the question arises, what is meant by creating a unique and distinct singing voice style? Every person is in a continuous effort to develop a singing voice that is capable of bringing the overall best qualities in a voice. But the question is how to achieve that? How to possess the best vocal qualities? How to develop them in a completely different way from others? How to have a style that is pleasing and engaging to the listeners? This can be clearly understood by going through the following mentioned points.

  • Understand the fundamentals of a vocal technique.
  • Try to learn as to from where the tone is being produced.
  • It is important to understand how the tone is being transformed into a particular sound.
  • The produced sound further radiates from the point a singer is projecting his or her voice and then reaches the point where it smooths down or softens. Then it eventually fades out on the whole.
  • This is termed as resonance.
  • Resonance is caused when the air travels through your vocal cords and produces the required tone and pitch.
  • Further, it is carried outward on the sound waves.
  • Rather, resonance refers to what you hear while singing, by using proper vocal coordination.
  • It is beneficial to understand the way how sound travels and can be heard by a human ear.
  • A sound produces a sonic vibration, no matter if it is created from an instrument or a motor car.
  • This kind of vibration vibrates the air in actuality.
  • It translates the produced wave into an actual sound.
  • It is important to know that every vibration that is produced includes a timbre.
  • Timbre is used to differentiate a sound from the others.
  • Timbre makes a particular instrument unique and helps to develop a distinct singing voice.

So, continue with your work as a singer and try to enhance the quality of your voice through singing exercises. It will help you to get creating a unique singing voice. Try to learn how to create a distinct singing voice and be a better singer.

I hope you will find ways of developing a singing tone efficiently from this article.

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