A Technical Truth Worth Repeating
I've already written this in a previous article, but it's a message I care deeply about, because it isn't a motivational claim: it's a technical truth.
If You've Always Used Your Voice the Wrong Way, You've Never Truly Heard It
In I’d Love to Take Voice Lessons, But I Cannot Sing…, we saw how this applies to people who believe voice lessons aren't worth taking because they can't sing.
But it applies just as much to people who believe they simply have a "bad" voice.
If your voice sounds bad, it's usually the result of inefficient coordination, unnecessary tension and technical limitations—most often, a combination of all three.*
When those obstacles are present, you're not hearing your real voice.
You're hearing a poorer, distorted version of it, one that has very little to do with what your voice actually sounds like.
It's like listening to a radio station through heavy interference.
The music may sound harsh, weak or unpleasant, but can you honestly say that's what the original recording sounds like? Definitely not.
The sound you're hearing isn't the sound that's actually being produced. It's the result of a sound that has been altered by interference.
If you didn't know about the interference, you'd naturally assume that what you're hearing is the original.
The same thing happens with the singing voice.
When you don't know how to use your voice efficiently, technical limitations alter, trap and distort it.
And yet, in this case, you're assuming that what you hear is exactly what your real voice sounds like.
Until those interferences are removed, you simply don't know what your voice actually sounds like.
So, How Do You Make a "Bad" Voice Sound Better?
By removing the technical obstacles that trap it and make it sound like something it isn't.
The way you use your voice shapes the sound you hear.
Change the coordination, and the sound changes too—sometimes so dramatically that, right now, you probably wouldn't believe it was even possible.
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*This article refers to healthy, non-pathological voices.
