Can anybody reach the 220 hz / A3 range and maintain a decent quality?

[A]

Still, quality is really bad, but my voice has never been very good or melodical to start with, even for a man. Sinuses x-rays and allergies test next week. My throat is almost always filled with mucosity constantly, at all times.

Welcome to the club. :x I don't want to be pessimistic, but they haven't been finding anything with me either. And despite my passing voice, I can't speak softly or shout... and I can't even sing properly anymore.

If you have something similar to me, adding to your difficulty in passing, I would suggest looking for voice therapy if possible.

[Apples Mk.II]

I plan to do voice therapy on a future (on my own language), but as for now, I can only hope that they will find something.

So far now, I've been on something for decreasing the mucosity (not a lot of results), and after the tests next week I have to start with nasonex, hoping it will do something.

The other tricky part, and this needs to be fixed, is the jaw. It is misaligned and slightly slanted due to teeth differences and TMJ disorder, so it opens diagonally, causing me a few issues with tongue positioning and maybe lateral lisp. No wonder my twisted mouth and face side differences... I need to do an extra effort to be understood clearly.

Age is another thing, I'll be 30 on 6 days, and the more you wait, the worse voice gets... And therapy is going to take a long time, so I don't know how I will pull this out.

[Stephe]

I was 50 when I started working on my voice. I don't think age past puberty has much effect on this.

As far as people being obsessed with pitch, listen to this womens voice. She has a VERY low pitch but still sounds female.

https://www.youtube.com/user/marlothomas?feature=results_main

[A]

Two things I want to point out:

-Women can -manage- with a lower pitch. It does not necessarily mean a lower pitch is a good thing. They can pull it off and still sound completely female, but it doesn't mean it's part of sounding female. A parallel I could do would be short hair, or tight small braids on the whole head. Some women pull it off just fine, and can look even cute with it. But those are still not regarded as female traits. I'm not saying pitch is the number one component of a good voice. But it's not unimportant either. It helps, certainly. Now there's falsetto and princess-high voices to be wary of, but that's another issue.

-In general, it's older women who sound lower. In average, that is. That, and smokers. People don't generally want to aim for that. People usually like to sound their age or younger.

So on one hand, it's not good to force yourself higher so much as to make it difficult to sound natural, but on the other hand, staying low just because "some other women are that low" is forfeiting some voice feminity bonus points. You might not need them, but they sure can't hurt.

Edit~ Hadn't seen Apple Seed's message.

Heh, I've been prescribed that same Nasonex without results. I don't want to discourage you, but...

The one thing I find that helps immensely (for a day or two) with that issue is to choke with water in the shower. Hard to do consciously, but the water to rinse the vocal cords and the coughing allowed me to clear my throat wonderfully and have a perfect (well, not perfect, but not diminished, let's say) voice for a while twice. Once by accident, and once willingly because I'd been annoyed by it for too long.

But really, I wish I had a permanent solution. To keep an okay voice, the only method I know (recently discovered) is to cough even when I don't feel the need to, once in a while, before too much builds up. But seriously, that's unhealthy. It's bad to cough. I'll end up actually damaging my voice with that.

If you learn anything, let me know. My doctor just isn't taking this seriously.

[Stephe]

Two things I want to point out:

-Women can -manage- with a lower pitch. It does not necessarily mean a lower pitch is a good thing.

Oh I agree and yes she is an extreme example of a woman with a low pitch. I just don't think people need to feel like "I can't reach -blank- Hz so I'll never sound female" and give up either.

[Apples Mk.II]

Heh, I've been prescribed that same Nasonex without results. I don't want to discourage you, but...

Dunno, in my case it is like this:

- Right nasal orifice does not work. Gets little to nothing on terms of Air flow
- Excess of air on the left causes it close. If I try take a quick nasalinspiration it makes a vaccum and the left part of the nose compresses itself, closing it. I need to make a weird gesture with the left side of my face to keep it open.
- Minimum level of mucosity alergy will block the left orifice, so it's back to using the mouth.

- bent nasal septum, which makes the left orifice smaller.

On monday I'll have a x'ray of the nasal sinuses to see if there's is something blocking them. If I can get that operation where they remove the hyperthropiated area and can use all of my nose, things should improve. The nose's part... I'll do it with the FFS.



If it is what I believe, It would look like this. It looks like it may also be caused by a deviated septum. Today it's not being a nice day, it huts on nose, eye and forehead. I think I'm stating to know how sinusitis feels.

[MeghanAndrews]

I use Spectrogram but it does the same thing. I think you really want to focus on range vs. hitting a level and staying there. If you are like 180-200 but maintain decent quality and get the peaks and valleys sounding decent, it'll be fine. I think the mistake a lot of people make with voice is they try to get to this kind of artificial place and maintain it. If you could, with the physical challenges you face, kind of get to that wide range with the top end of the scale maybe not sounding awesome but being a place you visit when you talk and not live there, you'll be fine This is what the spectrogram I use looks like. The red range is what you set your target too and then you measure where it is. The solid line is the quality. If it's bad quality then it's a broken line. I have the range on the red lines set to 190 on the lower and 220 on the higher and then I was doing Harvard Sentences to practice. I think this was in June of this year. I still use my spectrogram a few times a year and just check and see where I am.



I think you can zoom in here:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x153/meghanandrews/new051710.jpg

[Apples Mk.II]

Wow. I can't even use the nasonex. THere must be some big hyperthropy there. It's so blocked it won't go up and the liquid just falls. There is not even enough air flow to pull it up.

Let's see what they tell me in a few hours, but I don't like this at all. I'll have to keep working on voice with a limited air flow. The pectox envelopes also have not worked on reducing my throat mucosity. Which comes directly from the nose and does not go the trachea or esophagus...

[Apples Mk.II]

This may be interesting for A.

Looks like I have a real issue of oversized nasal conchas, which would explain the pressure I feel in my sinuses, low air flow to my nose and only half of it working. It is not functional enough for diapraghmal breathing through the nose.

For the next three months I will be on antihistamines and Nasonex, to see if there is improvement. Depending on how it evolves, they will consider surgery for reducing the nasal conchas.

I don't know, but having a functional nose has to be be helpful on developing a decent voice...

[sandrauk]

I've had sinus problems all my life, one nostril always blocked. Shopping for some reason was always the worst and would produce total blockage. If you are at your screen for a long time you head will be held at a similar angle and the mucus collects.

It used to be so bad it would feel as if I had toothache and it felt as if the sinus exit hole was blocked.

Sinus medication did nothing for me.

I worked out my own solution. At least twice a day I angle my head back (as if looking up) and breathe in slowly through my nose. I find myself swallowing. For me it takes about twenty minutes of this to relieve the  pressure and clear the mucus.

Hope this helps

[A]

For clearing your sinuses, try some sinus rinse. It's a pouch of powder that you dissolve in water that you heat to body temperature. Then you squeeze the liquid into your nostril, blocking the other, leaving the water no choice but to exit through your mouth. Push very gradually since the path is narrow and blocked, but since it's a liquid lighter than mucus, it should clean your air ways nicely. Okay, it's seriously gross to do, but it's so helpful when you're having trouble with your sinuses. And as a bonus, no medication to take. The pouch is only salts to make the water's pH comfortable and to help dissolve the "stuff".

A pack with the special bottle and quite a few pouches is less than 20 $.

Of course, if you have a "hardware" problem, it won't fix it, but it should help you breathe at least decently since mucus won't be participating so much in the blocking party.

[Stephe]

For clearing your sinuses, try some sinus rinse.

I use this bottle filled with pre-mixed saline solution and it's great for sinus problems. It works good when you have a cold or even the start of a sinus infection. People say it really helps during allergy season too.

I use a bottle thing that looks sorta like this one http://www.nasopure.com/ You gently push water up one side till it runs out the other, then do the other side. It loosens everything up and also cleans out any dust or allergens. A neti pot does the same thing.

[Apples Mk.II]

Be it placebo effect or not, but boy, my nose feels a bit better after using the spray.

Again, I'm using a training disc set... For singing. There is a cd dedicated only to correct breathing, that is going to be far more interesting than. It goes like this:

1- Posture and breathing
2- Vocal Warm-Up
3- Expanding Range

I hope I can do it...

I've had sinus problems all my life, one nostril always blocked. Shopping for some reason was always the worst and would produce total blockage. If you are at your screen for a long time you head will be held at a similar angle and the mucus collects.

Have you used Workrave? It's a reminder program I use. Gives me warnings to change my posture from time to time, relx my eyesight, do some exercises...