""But as far as extending your natural range - that's not possible." "


Hmmmm... I disagree - unless you mean that someone who has not ALREADY met the 'natural limits' can only reach there....

When in form, and having been unable to go out much recently means I am out of practice - I can handle a few octave from fairly low bass to fairly high tenor - higher than a lot of females - and I never have been easily able to handle more a than a few notes of falsetto.

There are differing 'voices' - head, chest, etc - which a well trained good 'classical' singer learns to smooth out the transitions between - and there is also some overlap between these with slightly different tonal properties.

As far as 'extending upper and lower limits' of your total range I picked up a few good pointers (and exercises) from Seth Riggs writings, but don't think of him as some sort of God - and also from the Alexander techniques.

1) you and your throat must be totally relaxed and 'in the middle of upward and downward movement' - if you force your larynx (you can feel your adam's apple move with your fingers) up or down, you are putting strain there. Note than some people can ONLY sing with such (highly visible) larynx movement - they are not recommended to try stretching their range, they will eventually severely damage themselves.

2) you should ensure that your whole body - especially upper body, chest, and shoulders are also relaxed.

3) you breathe FROM THE DIAPHRAGM - from the 'bottom of your lungs' - this gives you capacity (volume - not loudness) and if you also can employ 'intercostal breathing' you can hold an enormous amount of air. Many singers just try to cope with little puffs from the very top of their lungs - once I watched some famous pop singer 'forget to breathe' she was barely able to get out more than a few words at a time while singing the National Anthem on a 'big special' event. That 'game' of trying to see who can hold a note the longest becomes pretty easy of you have the right techniques, and sufficient warning to 'top up', especially 'intercostally' .... :-)

4) use the minimum amount of breath to generate the tones - too much 'wastes' your ability to sing lengthy phrases, and gives you a breathy tone, and may not 'protect' your voice.

5) Warming up - I find that it can take me several songs to 'stretch my range' to its full capacity - alternating higher and lower ranges (with the obvious alternating rests of the alternate range) opens up both my ends eventually (Look, you KNOW what I mean!¹). Once warm, I can easily do octave or greater 'jumps' if desired - but that takes quite some time of practice (first if you don;t ant to hurt yourself, and second if you want to hit correct pitch!)... :-)



¹ I have often wondered why nobody seems to want to sit beside me in sessions, though....