Ariana is one of the most popular vocal stars in the current pop music era. She has a killer range that spans four octaves; that's right, four whole octaves! Ariana is what we like to call a lyric coloratura soprano.
Coloratura means she has a lot of agility with her vocal runs and trills, while lyric means that her high notes have a lot of power in them.
Some will say that she's on the lighter side of a lyric soprano since she often does a mixed head voice for her high notes and not a full belt.
No matter what she is in classical music or pop music terms, she is a powerful singer that has made her mark in the pop and R&B music world. We can learn a lot from the following seven things that Ariana does when singing in order to try to mimic her beautiful voice.
The first thing that will make or break your ability to sing like Ariana is your vocal range. Ariana can sing from an E3 to E7, so this legend has an alto singer's low notes and a soprano's high notes.
It's okay if you don't fit her range perfectly, but do expect to be limited by which song of hers you can sing.
If you find yourself able to hit her high notes but not her low notes, sing her songs in a higher key than the original. Do the opposite if you find her high notes to be a struggle for you.
Related Post: Do You Fit In The Alto Vocal Range Or Soprano?
Ariana Grande has a killer falsetto voice that she showcases in most of her songs, if not all. She is often very soft with her verses, especially at the beginning of her songs.
Practice singing well, very softly, almost in the volume of a whisper. It's a challenge to be able to sing light and accurately if you're used to singing at normal or loud levels all the time.
Ariana often belts, but most of the time that she's hitting her high notes, she's not doing a full belt, but she's mixing her falsetto and belt into something called her head voice.
You can sing pretty loudly and still be considered doing a head voice mix, which is what Ariana often does on her hooks.
It's very easy to crack when you're singing in this type of voice. Controlling the power dynamics in your voice is a delicate process, especially if you're singing around your vocal break or the point where your vocal cords switch registers naturally as you go up and down the scale.
Singing in a whistle tone is almost like singing extremely high in your head voice, but it's actually a completely different register.
The whistle-tone notes that Ariana Grande hits can be a real challenge for some, but the more you warm your voice up and do scales that help you comfortably stretch to your high notes, the easier it will get for you as you practice singing.
Most of Ariana's songs have sections in the verses or hooks that are really hard to sing with a steady beat.
Sure, you can slow it down if you're singing one of her songs without an instrumental, but if you're looking to slay one of her tracks, karaoke-style, you will need tons of practice with singing fast lyrics.
I love singing Ariana's songs for practice when I'm working on my live singing techniques because the timing and breathing required to get through her lyrics are super tough compared to other pop stars' songs.
Another trademark of Ariana's style of singing is her vocal runs. These are also called riffs or vocal trills, but it all means singing a series of notes fast.
If you're not too good with runs, try practicing her songs slowly and practicing songs in genres that are really big on runs, like gospel music.
Vocal runs take a lot of practice and are not something that you should expect to be able to learn overnight. It took me a couple of years to really be able to master some simple runs.
When you first learn them, it's easy to have something like 50% accuracy with them for a while until you practice tons of runs literally over and over for years. And runs are so hard to do that best singers don't even make it over 80% accuracy.
Related Post: More About Singing Vocal Runs And Riffs
Here's an obvious one, but critical if you want to sing like Ariana. She's very good about singing in tune, which means she has a great ear for music and has practiced for several years to hit the right notes.
Similar to singing runs, singing in tune, in general, can take a long time to master and does not ever hit 100% accuracy.
I will say that singing runs can help you excel in singing in tune overall way faster than if you ignored runs. The same goes in reverse; the more runs you practice intonation, the better your runs will be.
Related Post: Why Can't I Sing? 5 Reasons You May Be Struggling
Ariana's tone is so smooth partially because of her great jaw technique when she sings. She uses long vowels similar to opera singers and similar to the placement that we all have when we yawn.
Thanks to her vertically long vowels, Ariana's tone isn't bright and nasally; it's more luscious and rich.
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