Analysing Taylor Swift’s vocals in ‘Cruel Summer’ (steal her tricks!)

The first part of the verse starts with a melody that doesn’t have too much of a wide range, which creates contrast with other parts of the song.

In the second part of the verse, Taylor makes use of the lower part of her vocal register. This is a resource that she uses in other songs too. This is a resource that is quite hard to master for high voices. Usually expanding the vocal range in the direction of lower notes is quite much harder than expanding the vocal range upward.

(Watch the video to see a demonstration of this vocal skill)

You don’t have to have a very strong voice in the lower notes. It’s enough to be able to reach it. You still have that nice effect that low notes give you. And that is because low notes are associated with lower, calming energy. Higher frequencies, on the other hand, are more ‘energizing’.  So this vocal skill can be used to play with those effects.

 To expand your vocal range downward, you need two things:

First, you need to strengthen your vocal muscle,  and second, you need to improve the way your vocal cords close together.

 If you are interested in expanding your range, I also have a chest voice workout that is going to help you with that. 

But for now, if you would like to sing this song and you are stuck in that part, you can to sing the melody with the vowel ‘UH’. This is a sound that  strengthens your chest voice naturally, so it’s going to give you more powerful lower notes.  Once you got the melody with this sound, try adding the lyrics and it should be easier.