I've been doing the last bits of Marc Gunn's recording project -- my backing vocals.

Now, I like singing. I LOVE singing, actually -- probably as much as I love playing my guitar. But fond of my own voice, I am not. I hear/read that many other singers feel the same way -- like John Lennon.

Anyway, these days I focus on singing low because I think I sound better that way. But Marc's a baritone and has a thicker voice than mine, so naturally I need to sing on top of him to harmonize. Well, I sound really thin on top. I was grimacing as I was listening to the rough mix. Granted, when you're singing backing vocals, it's better to sing light and thin -- float on top. It blends better. Marc's satisfied with my vocal contribution, so I'm thinking that I'm being over-critical of my own performance. Which is also typical of all performers.

But on a whim the other day I tried singing differently. You see, there are four different resonances to a voice -- head, nose, mouth and chest. Head is the air and clarity, nose is the brightness, mouth the focus/forwardness, and chest heaviness. A mature singer can employ various amounts of different resonances to create a variety of vocal tone. When I sing high, I mainly try to use head resonance and sing lightly (though it sounds wimpier than I'd like). But this time I focused more on nose and mouth. Which takes some courage, because a bright and focused voice sticks out more, you see. As a backing vocalist I'm not incorrect to go lightly on those resonances, to blend better -- but when I added nose and mouth, I was singing so much better. High notes seem to be a lot less of a struggle. Wow!

Now I'd love to test this more bold way of singing to see if it will produce better tone while still meeting minimum blending requirements, but alas time is running out for my current project. But this new way of singing (which employs knowledge I gained back in my college days -- all those years of voice lessons was good for something!) will definitely be handy for my future projects.

So, the moral of the story -- if the door is closed, don't try to knock it down. Find a different window.