Kind of following on from a different recent thread...

I've been having singing lessons for a few months now, and I find them very valuable.

However, I have one issue that I'm undecided on. My singing teacher is frequently getting me to pitch my songs decidedly higher than I used to sing them. Frequently a good 3 or 4 tones.

I understand why she does this. Singing the songs at a higher pitch in many ways feels more physically comfortable, particularly once I've warmed up. You can feel your mouth and chest and diaphragm really opening up.

The trouble is, when I listen back to recordings, I simply don't like the sound of my voice in that range. It sounds a bit too choirboy for my liking.

I was in a recording studio the other day and I was struck, listening to the playback by how different my speaking voice sounded on the recording, counting off a take, to my singing voice.

My speaking voice was quite a full-sounding baritone, while my singing voice sounded light, thin and reedy.

It made me wonder whether there is a lesson to be learned there: is the pitch-area I tend to speak in ultimately more naturally "my voice" than a singing voice which extends a good octave and a half above that?