Karaoke Forums

I've never heard anyone sing that song and it's a great song!  Good job! (you might want to buy a Dolly wig too )  9 to 5 is another awesome song not sung too often.   A place I went last week a guy I know sang Dowtown by Petula Clark...

Every once in a while, I sing them as is, but most of the time, as is, with a voice an octave below. I sing many female songs, sometimes changing he to she, etc., but sometimes I leave the words alone, and just sing the song with a limp wrist...

Well, all you women out there? Should we break this bubble once and for all, and cop to it?  :hi5:  Nothin' prettier on a long-legged cowboy than a pair of painted on Wranglers and a faded Brushpopper short... and of course, the jeans have to have the mandatory snuffbox circle on them. OOohhhh.... Paint away!

k

Probably easier for women to sing men's songs than the other way around, barring keying upward and dropping down an octave.  Speaking of changing lyrics slightly for gender, I do sing Journey "Separate Ways" and change "if he ever hurts you" to "if she ever hurts you"   As discussed previously, there are fewer women's songs to choose from so inevitably things like Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" quickly becomes "Are You Gonna Be My Guy?"  

Seems there are more male vocalists with higher registers out there now (Maroon 5 for example) that allows not much in the way of key changing to accommodate a female voice pretty well.

k

[glow=darkblue]I live in cowboy country......right down the road is the rodeo grounds...and oooo weee...ain't no other way a cowboy should look. hee, hee[/glow]

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I'm a girl of course so I can only relate by comparing it to if I sang a male singer's song or what I've seen my guy's do at karaoke.

I keep thinking it is the song that is giving you trouble more than the key. You can always change the key, but if you don't like how the music sounds when you do it, I'd say that song is just not going to work or find a different version.

Just like when you pick a male song you pick it because you like the song and know it is close to your range. I think the same goes for picking songs from the opposite sex. Of course you can always change the key, but if you deviate to much from the original key the music sounds bad. I find like others have said sometimes taking the key up and singing the song an octive lower works better that way because you aren't deviating as far from the original key.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

the thing with singing in a lower octave is that it sounds really really dull compare to the original version, I think one of the reason is that by shifting the keys up, the music got brighter, and you're singing an octave lower causing a much darker sounding.

I don't know, I tried shifting it down, the backup vocal sounded weird but much less annoying than shifting it up.

dude of course you could sing it...I sing Uriah Heep's Stealin' even if I am singing I done the ranchers daughter

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

actually the guy calling himself Joe did a bloody good job it worked for me

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"Be who you are and say what you feel... Because those that matter... Don't mind...And those that mind... Don't matter."

I like to sing unisex songs like "Leader of the Pack",  "I am woman", etc

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

To Clockwork and those who are unhappy with songs taken up a few steps then dropped down an octave, please understand that doing so is not a gimmick.  If this approach doesn't work for you, I'm sure you realize that not every song fits every singer.

This suggestion was made to accommodate those who could not sing the song in the original key and for whom the alterantive of dropping the key one (1), (2) or more steps left the song too high.   If you do not like the timbre of the song after raising the key and dropping an octave, then your only alternative is not to sing the song.  There is no other solution.

As to the effect of key changes, the only one who would know you've changed a key is someone with perfect (musical) pitch.  They are few and far between.  They, furthermore, would tell you that, basically, one key is interchangeable with any other and does not change the sound of the music.  It is the voice or the instrument in use as well as the chosen register that alters the sound, not the key.

PS  Professional singers sing in "their" key.  It is not wrong to change the key of a song.  I've heard people say that changing a key is somehow like "cheating".

Very nice.  Do you also bring malt liquor and fried chicken onstage if  you sing songs by black artists?

I agree. In a situation like this, one has to do what one has to do.

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I love being a mom!

This makes total sense to me. I have seen just what your saying happen. Usually it is when I alter the key a lot though.

I change keys often for people. I keep track of their songs and what key they sing them in it happens so often. If I am changing the key slightly by one or two steps it doesn't seem to alter the quality of music, but if it is more than that I agree it is not the best sound. It really depends on the song.

As for raising the key and singing an octive lower - This works, but not for all songs depending on the persons voice. If your voice has a bass tone to it, it doesn't match up.

It sounds like you have a trained ear which most people don't have. All you can do is try changing keys and if that doesn't work try another song.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

Make fun of heteros, which I've seen the Gay community do......I will laugh, and laugh, and so will 99.999999% of heteros....but say just the littlest stereo-type comment about gays, and people like you get all bent out of shape......I'm tired of walking on egg shells....suppose saying what you said about Americans of African heritage made you feel better?.....Some people have huge pitching arms, but very small catchers mitts.....I actually thought you were better than that RI.....

Make fun of heteros, which I've seen the Gay community do......I will laugh, and laugh, and so will 99.999999% of heteros....but say just the littlest stereo-type comment about gays, and people like you get all bent out of shape......I'm tired of walking on egg shells....suppose saying what you said about Americans of African heritage made you feel better?.....Some people have huge pitching arms, but very small catchers mitts.....I actually thought you were better than that RI.....

Oh my.....double post........good!!!!!

If you were making an actual joke that included humor I'd laugh, I can do tasteless humor with the best of them, and that includes gay stuff. However, what you did was more akin to going into a Chinese restaurant and when the waiter leaves your table, pulling your eyes back into slants and saying "so solly". That's not a joke, that's just making fun of someone different than you using the broadest stereotypes possible. It takes a little more than that to become actual humor, the stereotype has to be in the context of something else happening as well.

And cut the PC pandering crap, I wasn't talking about "Americans of African heritage". There are black people who AREN'T Americans you know. I was attempting to make what seemed to me like a pretty obvious point, but somehow you seemed to miss it.

I agree with this. There are a number of songs where I can't sing it as high as the original, especially if it's someone like Sting or Steve Perry. I can sing the song an octave lower and hit all the notes, but it sounds very boring and makes for a very lame vocal performance. It depends somewhat on the feel of the song, but I do a lot of rock music where taking away the edginess of it leaves it lifeless.

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I have a pretty high range, which includes an ear-shattering falsetto wail, so I don't shift the key for any of my own tunes, though I don't think I've ever sung a female song. I take that back, I did an Evanescene song once because the girl doing it asked me to back her up, but she was out of her league and walked off stage mid-song, so I finished it.

It's pretty rare that I have guys tackling female songs, but the opposite happens in abundance.

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hi-voxentertainment

I know what you mean...A lot of songs w/guys singing lead (such as "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls) are in more than one octave--they start in a lower octave and then go to a higher one--and in many cases, if I tried to do 'em all in 1 octave, I'm afraid it would sound static and boring. If I sang something like that in my range (I'm female, remember) and started out in a mid-range and then went up an octave, it would sound too soprano-y and overdone. (Am I making sense?)

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I love being a mom!