Recognizing Different Voice Timbres

Summary

Mix and match activities to create a fun lesson on recognizing different voice timbres. Integrate solfeg.io in teaching your students to learn about timbre, pitch, range, to describe vocal qualities, to listen and analyze them in a song.

🎲 What’s included in the activities:

• Creating a Voice Map for describing various vocal qualities;
• Learning about timbre;
• Learning about pitch;
• Describing and analyzing pitches in a song;
• Learning about range;
• Describing and comparing songs with different ranges;
• Learning about unique vocal styles (e.g. forced vocals, rapping)
• Analyzing the vocal part of a song;
• Singing a song by using a specific vocal style.

💻 Materials:

• Solfeg.io web app best used with Chrome browser
• Projector or computer and access to Wi-Fi

Voice Map

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Learn to describe vocal qualities

🎲 Activity:

• Divide students in small groups (each containing around 5 students).
• Each group should have a sheet of paper (A3 or bigger) and a pen or pencil.
• In the form of mind map, create a 'Voice Map': write down words that can be used to describe vocal qualities. (Some keywords: soft, loud, high, low, thick, thin, breathy, grating, gravelly, gruff, hoarse, coarse, husky, monotonous, nasal, orotund, raucous, ringing, rough, shrill, small, big, smoky, strident, throaty, tight, wobbly, mellow...)
• Ask students to think about such questions:

How would you describe your voice? What about the voices of your friends or your teacher?

How would you describe the voice of your favourite singer?

What kind of voices you don't like?

Try using objective descriptive adjectives instead of subjective evaluations (for example, soft instead of beautiful) - focus on perception, not evaluation.

What do different voices remind you of?

How does singing feel to you?

What other things can you do with your voice? (Talk, whisper, scream, roar, rap, breathe, beatbox…)

• Each group shortly presents their 'Voice Map'.
• Discuss the similarities and differences between the 'Voice Maps' of the class.

Timbre & Pitch

🕐 Time: 15 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Learn about timbre and pitch
• Listen and differentiate between various pitches

🎶 Recommended Songs:

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🎲 Activity:

-Shortly explain what timbre is. (A term describing the tonal quality of a sound. Timbre is a more complex attribute than pitch or loudness, which can each be represented by a one-dimensional scale (high–low for pitch, loud–soft for loudness); the perception of timbre is a synthesis of several factors. - Grove Music Online)

-You can mention that timbre is a unique set of characteristics that makes the voice distinctive. The timbre can be described, using adjectives from students' 'Voice Maps'.

-Talk about the pitch. Female voices are usually higher than male voices. Both can be high-pitched or low-pitched.

-Follow the notation of the song excerpts.

• High female voice: 'Bleeding Love' by Leona Lewis (Bridge)
• Low female voice: 'No Money' by Galantis (Verse)
• High male voice: 'Feel It Still' by Portugal. The Man (Chorus 1)
• Low male voice: 'The Git Up' by Blanco Brown (Chorus 1)

-Ask your students:

• Can they identify the highest note sung?
• What's the lowest note sung?
• Can they sing those notes? (Optional)

Range

🕐 Time: 15 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Learn about range
• Compare ranges in different songs

🎶 Recommended Songs:

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🎲 Activity:

-Shortly explain what range is. (The extent of an instrument or voice, from the lowest to the highest note; the interval between those notes. - Grove Music Online) The vocal range can be wide/big or narrow/small.

-Follow the notation of the song excerpts.

• An example of small range is 'One-Note-Melody', often used in pop music: 'Bad Liar' by Selena Gomez (Chorus 1)
• Big range: 'No Money' by Galantis (Verse 1 - low, Pre-Chorus 1 - high)

-Ask your students:

• What's the highest note sung?
• What's the lowest note sung?
• Can they sing those notes? (Optional)

Vocal Techniques

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Learn about range
• Compare ranges in different songs

🎶 Recommended Songs:

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🎲 Activity:

-Shortly talk about vocal characteristics of different musical styles or genres. For example, vocals in rock music can sound 'crunchy', 'forced' etc.

-Follow the notation of the song excerpt.

• 'Sweet Child of Mine' by Guns 'N' Roses (Chorus 3)

-Ask your students:

• How would you describe the pitch and the range of this voice?
• What other adjectives would you use to describe this voice?

-Besides singing, other vocal techniques and effects can be used in songs, for example, indeterminate pitch, rapping, speech, screams, grunts etc.

-Follow the notation of the song excerpt.

• The Git Up' by Blanco Brown (Intro);
• Explain that the cross-shaped notes represent lyrics that must be spoken rather than sung, retaining the marked rhythm but having indeterminate pitch.

Radio-analyze

🕐 Time: 15 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Analyze the vocal parts of a song

🎶 Recommended Songs:

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🎲 Activity:

• Play students 'Radioactive' by Imagine Dragons (Intro, Verse 1, Pre-Chorus 1 and Chorus 1).
• Ask students to listen, follow the notation and analyze the vocal part of the song.
• They can focus on these questions and write down their answers:

Is it a man or a woman singing?

Is there just one person singing or more?

Is the voice high or low?

What's the highest and the lowest note sung?

How would you describe the range of the melody?

Are there any other vocal effects used besides singing?

What is the style of this song?

What adjectives would you use to describe the vocal part?

What did you like about singing in this song? What did you not like?

Students practice for 30 seconds. (Optional)

Radio-active!

🕐 Time: 5 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Sing a song in a specific vocal style

🎶 Recommended Songs:

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🎲 Activity:

• Play the song once again.
• Ask students to sing along. (Optional)
• They should try to imitate the singing style of the song.

Reflection

🕐 Time: 5 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Consolidate the knowledge on different voice timbres.
• Describe the characteristics of different voice timbres.

🎲 Activity:

• What new things have students learned about voice?
• What sort of voices do they like to listen to?
• What other interesting vocal effects do they know?

Beyond the Lesson

🕐 Time: 5 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Test students' knowledge on recognizing different voice timbres.
• Recap the topics, as needed for each individual student.

🎲 Activity:

Challenge students to go beyond the lesson by...

• Exploring different song categories and trying to imitate different voice timbres.

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