I believe the year was around 1997 or so. I was living in SLC, Utah. (Go Jazz!)
Speaking of my all time favorite NBA team, the Utah Jazz, I was a super fan of what will go down as one of the greatest sports duos of all time: John Stockton and Karl Malone. This scoring dynamo perfected and mastered the pick and roll play that was nearly unguardable.
Anyhow….I had buddies over to watch the game and afterwards, we watched postgame interviews. John Stockton (white guy) says something like “I thought it was a pretty good game, but we could have executed better,” in the most average, standard voice quality possible. Karl Malone (black guy) says something similar and my friends all commented on how much of lower pitch Malone had.
However…..
They were all wrong. Malone was talking on a higher pitch, but with a deeper or lower larynx. The result? A deeper tone. Even though the note was higher.
I’ll explain.
Different Vocal Types
There are four basic vocal classifications. Though singers can extend the highs and lows of the voice with the right training system. In 2016, I authored, recorded and produced a program called Range Builders that does exactly this.
Soprano
The highest of the female voices (Think Ariana Grande)
Alto
The lowest of the female voices. (Think Shania Twain and Toni Braxton)
Tenor
The highest of the male voices. (Think Bruno Mars)
Bass
The lowest of the male voices. (Think Barry White or James Earl Jones ‘Darth Vader’)
What Makes a Deep Voice?
There are 3 G’s to understanding how and why a voice sounds like it does.
Genetics
What you’re born with is a certain length and thickness of your vocal cords. Thicker vocal cords tend to have more power, but not necessarily true if untrained or improperly trained. Shorter vocal cords have a higher pitch and longer cords have a higher tone.
A deep voice may also be the result of culture. Football players and weight lifters often speak lower as a habit of enforcing a perceived masculinity. This isn’t always the case. Arnold Shwarzanegger has a high voice but his speaking voice sounds deeper because he had to train himself to ‘sound’ low. Though it’s really just his larynx that is low.
Gender
This has become somewhat ‘unnecessarily’ controversial throughout the years. The historical and present fact is that men produce exponentially more testosterone than women. The effects of testosterone are deeper voice, lengthened vocal cords and many other masculine traits.
Estrogen has historically raised the voice. In fact, young male singers two to three hundred years ago, underwent the brutal and cruel practice of castration, in order to maintain the soprano, boy-like vocal quality. These singers were called castratos. And they were often very famous. Sadly, women were banned from some areas in singing.
Today, we have vocal exercises that will help extend range way past genetics and gender. Even a normal voice can transcend limits by maximizing the vocal cords (also called vocal folds), with simple warm up exercises, habitually using better diaphragmatic breathing to achieve voice depth.
Genre
There’s much debate about which genre is the healthiest. In many circles, you’ll hear the classical singing in the only safe genre to sing. However, historically, many of the best singers have been country, R&B, rock, blues, jazz and folk.
But the the limiting beliefs can appear in any single one of the these genres. Typically, in classical voice, many teachers will argue with a speech coach that is recommending the ladies to use more resonance by speaking in a lower tone.
The soprano will be told to avoid speaking in chest voice, lest you ‘ruin your voice’ and are no longer able to hit high notes. The fact of the matter is that chest voice is 100% needed to extend the lower range of your voice. It’s what is considered the speaking voice. Although, many women speak in a soft head voice.
The great diva, Mariah Carey, speaks primarily in a deep chest voice. This speaking quality ensures that the edges of the vocal cords make maximum contact, which gives a singer the maximum use of the their vocal cords.
The deeper voice can be implemented through talking in a chest voice. Talking in a low, deep voice as a habit, will almost always translate to make your singing voice sound deeper. But typically, only when your vocal coach encourages you to use your natural voice in your singing. Often singers, with incredibly rich speaking voices are told to ditch their deep voice and sing light and often airy. This is because they mistakenly presuppose that more air is the solution to all vocal issues.
Why Make Your Voice Deeper?
Diversity of sound is one of the most important goals of a singer. If you lack depth of range on the high or low end of your voice, you’ll be limited in your ability. Flexible cords produce more intrigue and interest.
Speaking monotone is boring, so learn to always inflect up and down when you speak. But be careful not to exaggerate your inflections, because you can sound pretty fake.
Other reasons to make your voice deeper include:
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You’re looking to be a voice actor. Many movie trailers, narrations, and characters, could call upon a deep voice, depending on the type of work. Even though there’s many voice actors who are quirky and may possess a high pitched voice or super breathy voice, you should still desire a low voice quality to get more work.
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A deeper voice is an authoritative voice. If you listen to a lot of public speakers, actors, business men, teachers and politicians, you’ll often hear a deeper voice quality. A football coach will usually bellow out like a human bear to communicate with authority. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger had to learn to speak deeper as an actor. The tough guy typically talks in a deeper voice, even if it’s not his natural voice quality.
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Excitement of quality. A deeper pitch in the beginning of a song or a speech, will make vocal range that much more exciting. This goes back to the tonal diversity argument. Don’t be boring. By the way, this doesn’t mean you need act excited and speak like a hyper child. Liam Neeson would speak slowly and on a slightly lower pitch, with a subtle downward inflection and a little bit gruff, whenever he would deliver a threat to a bad guy.
How To Get Your Voice Deeper
Here are some simple exercises and daily discipline exercise that can train your vocal cords to let go and make your voice deeper and more intriguing.
<https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/how-to-make-your-voice-deeper-75521/ and https://www.wikihow.com/Talk-With-a-Deeper-Voice?amp=1>
Do Deeper Voice Exercises
Here are few simple exercises that will trick you into the lower depths of your voice immediately.
Humming on a five-tone scale. In nearly every one of my dozen or more vocal programs I’ve authored and produced, there are simple five tone scales. Also, you can take a deep dive into my YouTube videos and sing along with some of the singers in our live training videos. Humming is the first step to relaxing while maximizing tone production. *If you sing breathy as you go lower, your vocal cords will pull apart and your low notes will dissipate. Also, the humming voice is the foundation of easy singing!
Lip rolls and/or tongue trills. These have the effect of relaxing the voice, which is needed for flexibility. This may or may not increase your vocal low notes, but it will de-stress the voice and bring some circulation to all the muscles inside your larynx or voice box. This is more of a prep exercise to extend your range.
Vocal fry. This is that groggy voice that the Kardashians made famous, by talking in a creaky sounding low voice. Because this is the initial vibration of the vocal cords, you can go quite a bit deeper without hardly noticing any pressure on your voice. In fact, the less pressure you put on your voice, the easier it is to make your voice deeper.
Sleep in. Often a longer sleep time can create thicker vocal cords, because they are less stretched out. In fact, I have all my artists record their low songs in the morning with only a minimal warm up. This is a great hack, because if you sing high for any period of time, you’ll immediately notice difficulty getting back low. Because stretching high can thin out even the deepest sounding voices.
Alternated between an ‘Oh’ vowel and and ‘Ay’ vowel. Because everybody is different and every day the voice feels different, we have to sneak up on the voice to cause it to adapt. This is how I teach. The singer often has no idea what I’m doing next. These surprises are often what allows the voice to let go and adapt quickly.
Project Your Voice???
Many times, we hear the deep rumble of a voice of authority. Projecting the voice (not merely shouting clumsily) is one way to till out the overall quality of the voice.
So why the question marks?? Simple, there are low voices that get deeper when NOT projecting. Soft and deep is a definitive quality of many low voices like Neil Diamond, Sean Connery and Josh Turner.
Projecting your voice for more tone or better control, can sometimes be desirable. However, most times, projecting leads to upward inflection and a higher pitched voice. But the pitch won’t necessarily have effortless tone attached.
Find similar sounding voices to your own so that you don’t feel the need to compete with bigger voices. The pitch of your voice can be wobbly or strained if your throat begins to feel achy. Your throat should NOT hurt when you sing, and you shouldn’t have to open your mouth really wide to improve the pitch of your voice. Your mouth should, in fact, stay closer to speech level.
However….high notes can be limited by allowing too much pressure on the voice. A great voice coach can aid you in discernment of when to sing louder to make your voice lower.
Control Your Breathing
Speaking of projecting, an important principle in adding to voice quality is finding a crisp sound. In other words, most people seem to think more breathy or airy is how to sing lower. Instead, breathing should be relaxed and comfortably deep.
If you breathe in shallow manner, this can make the voice sound paltry and choppy. Also, there’s a loss of authority and an addition of neck muscles that do nothing to aid in voice development. So, even voice actors will use a vocal coach or a speech coach to regulate air flow.
Too much air weakens tonal clarity. Not enough air increases vocal difficulty, messes with pitch and can cause you to produce an undesirable sound.
Loosen Your Vocal Cords
Doing scales through every vocal register—head, chest and mixed voice—not only presents you with more sound or tone, but makes keeping on pitch easier. Deep voice stretches should NOT be painful. These will keep the vocal cords loose and relaxed. But be sure to exercise great patience and warm up in your own time. Don’t allow the chest to abnormally stick out or allow your shoulders to rise. Each simple exercise done for short periods of time will relax your throat.
Mobile applications, like the ones my company Singing Success uses, gives you instant access to scales that will take unwanted tension out of your throat, rapidly increase your vocal range, giving you the confidence to hit the higher note, WITHOUT a tight throat. And you’ll find your pitch much easier.
But….don’t forget to breathe!! Breathe easy, breathe naturally deep, and breathe to get rid of stress. Remember this as well… your vocal cords are in your throat. Not your mouth. So stay loose… but also stay energetic.
Get a Coach or a Course
In my 35+ year coaching career, I’ve had several actors and singers come to me in an emergency situations because they needed to find their deeper voices fast. One on one sessions with a qualified and reputable coach, is ALWAYS going to be faster than guessing at it alone.
Nearly as fast as a private coach, or even faster (if the funds are limited and/or your desire is to start doing range extension exercises immediately) is to sign up for my online course titled ‘Range Builder‘ and get immediate, streaming access. You may, however, be an ‘all-in’ singer looking to train every part of your voice. In this case, you can become a VIP member and train your whole voice to increase your vocal prowess.
To get started, visit our website at…
or call us
615-866-1099
