How to Sing Low Notes – Get 9! Different Ways to Sing Low!

In this post I’m going to go teach you how to hit the low notes that you want to. As well as this, I’m going to get you to discover what your range is, what your reasonable expectation should be, and give you the tools to really show what you can do. Ready, Set, GO!

What Exactly Does Singing Low Notes Actually Mean

Before we even start discussing how to sing low it’s important to know what singing low actually means. Everyone’s voice is different. Not just between men and women but also every single person has a different voice. No two people are alike, and no two voices are alike. Everyone has their “normal” range where they find it easy to sing notes. This is known as the tessitura. Improving your range, whether singing high or low doesn’t change the fact that your tessitura is the same.

Now, I have a huge range (about five octaves) but my tessitura is that of a tenor. Extending my range was fun and exciting and required a lot of work. Yet, I much prefer to sing where my voice feels at its most comfortable. Not only is this better for me, but it also produces the best sounding music. This is an inescapable fact and there is nothing I can do to change it.

My low notes may not be what your low notes are. They are probably higher than your low notes by virtue of the fact that I am a tenor and you probably aren’t (especially if you are a woman!)

The same is true for high notes where my high notes are going to be higher than yours. This is just a fact.

Singing low notes is going to be different for everyone and even if you feel that you haven’t got anywhere yet the fact that you are trying makes you a better singer! Don’t give up because this is hard.

The first thing you need to know is your tessitura and then extend from there.

The meaning of low notes is purely subjective. For some people the notes are low and others they aren’t. Once you get to the bottom of your range, those notes are low. Period!

Is Singing Low Notes Difficult?

The truth is that singing low notes is hard. However, it is so in a different sort of way. In order to be able to sing low you must relax as much as you can. Whilst you may think that this is easy, it unfortunately just isn’t’ the case. The more you try the relax the tighter you will get. More than this, you have to feel a sense of opening, giving up to your body. The lack of control is what you are aiming for which actually acts in opposition to what you feel you should be feeling. Relaxing is one of the most difficult things to do in singing. When you are able to control that, you can control almost all aspects of the voice.

What Are the Different Low Notes to Sing?

As you are probably aware, there are a few different positions for singing. They, in general terms are called the different registers. The chest voice, head voice, and some others in between.
However, when it comes to singing low notes, there are actually different ones as well. They will sound different and we’ll go through each of them.

I must stress though that whilst you may be able to get some sound from the stranger methods here, they are just for playing with. If you are a rock singer, you may find some a bit more useful but, in my opinion,, these methods are not used because simply they sound fake. You may as well run your voice through a distorter to get the same effect. What I propose is the beautiful notes that are full of tone.

What I mean by this is that there are different stages of singing low notes. There is normal singing low notes and then there are more specialist ways. We are going to go through both of them, so you’ll know what to do and which method suits you best.

It’s also important to bear in mind that extending your range and adding lower notes is time consuming. You will not be able to hit the low notes overnight, or after just one practice session. Perseverance is the key to success here. Just keep trying and eventually you will hear and see the success you want to achieve.

How to Sing Low Notes- the Step by Step Guide

After that long introduction I’m sure that you are getting impatient. So, let’s get on with it then!

Choose the method you want to try out and just go for it!

Step 1: Relax

I can’t stress this enough. It is the only way that you’ll be able to sing low notes properly. Check out the warm up to learn the steps needed to start off on the right foot.

1. Move your jaw in and out and side to side. This is just to try and get you to relax your jaw ever so slightly.
2. Stand up straight and then imagine that there is string attached to the back of your head pulling it forwards to ensure that your face completely straight. What you are aiming for is for your voice to hit the wall in front of you, bounce back and hit you straight in the mouth where it came from. In other words, perfectly straight.
3. Let yourself relax, soften your shoulders and neck.
4. Sigh. Just let out a big sigh and feel all the stress in life fall out of your body with the sigh.

Step 2: Lower Your Larynx

What you have to do here is to ensure that your larynx is in the lowest position possible for you. In order to do so put your finger gently on your neck and feel where it is. Start singing a scale. You should notice that as you go up the scale your larynx moves.

DON’T TRY AND MANIPULATE IT! Seriously dangerous to yourself.

The goal here is just to feel it. Once you are confident that it’s moving and working, try to put it in its lowest position without trying to do in manually. Once your larynx is in the lowest position you will be able to sing the bottom notes of your voice.

Up to this point we have just spoken and are aiming to get to the normal level of low singing. That was just the preliminary stage.

Improving and Lowering Your Range

Exercise 1: Glottal Stop

In technical terms this is where your vocal cords come together and stop the breath escaping. After closure, they suddenly open and give you a release. It’s like when you are pushing a door with your strength and then someone suddenly opens the door behind you. You fall through the door. This is what a glottal stop is.

To Do a Glottal Stop: Simply close your cords but try to get the voice out as well. In other words, say uh-oh with a pause. This will give you a glottal stop. If you are British it sounds like a cockney accent where they drop some consonants such as instead of saying HOT with a “t”, you are dropping it so it sounds like HO!

Exercise 2: Speaking Quietly

Exercise 3: Downward Scales

Here I want you to just go down the scale to where you think your lowest note is. Do this on a five-note scale. Start where you feel comfortable and just move downwards from there. As you go lower try to see if you can hit the lowest note you have in a normal voice.

The above three exercises will allow you to just see where you voice is at. This is going to be your normal range. However, we are now going to extend this range by using another register that is rarely spoken about – the vocal fry.

What is the Vocal Fry?

This is a pretty funny type of register because you aren’t really using your voice in the way you typically would. What I mean by this is that whether you are using your chest voice or your head voice you can speak in it as well. In fact, most of the time you are going to be speaking in either your head or chest voice, (mostly chest to be completely honest).

The vocal fry, however, is where you slow your vocal cords down almost to a stop and you can hear (almost) every single vibration that you are doing.

Remember, notes are just frequencies and what you are doing in the vocal fry is just vibrating at a low frequency.
I’m pretty sure that you know what a vocal fry sounds like. It’s the noise you make when you are sick and just moaning about it softly. The notes are really low. You may think that you can only make one single note in that place but the truth isn’t so. You can sing a whole lot down there; you just have to practice it!

How to Access the Vocal Fry

The easiest way to tap into the vocal fry is by using scales

I want you to go down the scale and as you are doing so when you hit the lower notes try to switch to get to the vocal fry. As you go down you will need to hit more and more of the notes with the fry.

At first it may sound like the same note again and again. However, that is normal, just relax. You may very well be hitting the same note time after time. Don’t worry about it. The more you practice the more you will grow into it and eventually you will be able to hear that you are singing different notes.

Some Other Techniques to Increase your Lower Range

Here you will find some of the more extreme methods in extending your range. Try them, play with them, and hopefully you’ll get better and improve. Good luck!

Growling

For this exercise you have to think about how you would clear your throat. At some point during this you are actually growling. If you aren’t sure what I mean, just pretend that you are growling like a lion. But not a fake growl, a real one where you are trying to sound as close as possible to a real low growl.

This isn’t an easy method and the first few times that you do it isn’t going to sound pretty and it is going to hurt. The vocal fry doesn’t do this and it can often feel like a clear up of the throat as opposed to this where it’s all on the throat.

Sub Harmonic Singing

In this method you are going to sing a normal note and then relax and slip into the vocal fry. This will turn into singing in your sub-harmonic register. What is actually happening here is that you are singing a perfect octave lower that the original note.

This is a really hard method and it will take you a long time to practice. I don’t want to talk too much about it because it is so hard to do. Personally, I have never really spent a huge amount of time messing around with this. My range is large enough that I just concentrate on getting everything perfect instead of trying to improve it the whole time.

The Really Weird Method – Breathing In

Breathe in and let out a noise when you are doing so. What you have to do hear is to almost gasp and whilst doing so a note comes out. If you try to do this long enough you will be able to sing some really low notes. I’m not going to go into this in detail because I can’t recommend it. If you want to know more about it though, you are more than welcome to research it.

Is Singing Low Dangerous to Your Voice?

There are a bunch of methods that you can use to sing low. Some of them are great and will extend your range beyond recognition. However, apart from the vocal fry and the relaxation technique they should be treated with caution. They are difficult and really take a lot of time and practice to get right. If you don’t do it correctly and slowly without building up your stamina in these areas you will end up hurting yourself.

So, go ahead, fry as much as you want. But the rest please treat with utmost caution. I don’t want you to hurt yourself!

In Closing

We have seen many different methods to extend your lower range. There really are a lot to try. I would recommend using the vocal fry before anything else though. I hope you have enjoyed this post. Let me know what you think below!