having trouble with moving from chest voice to head voice

Posted in Category Technique and Style
  • R
    Ron 3 years ago

    Hello, i've done all the 30 days beginner exercise.

    Yet my voice always cracks when moving to head voice from chest voice.

    Can anyone smoothly go to head voice? and there is a specipic tutorial for this issue?

  • C
    Camille van Niekerk 3 years ago

    Hi, Ron!

    That's extremely common. The "crack", "break", or "flip" happens at your passaggio: the point in your range at which your chest voice function (the TA muscles) need to "hand over" to your head voice function (CT muscles) to avoid strain + injury. It's a protective measure! But it's annoying - I'm with you. 

    You'll never eliminate your passaggio. But singers learn to "disguise" it by developing mixed coordination, in which there's a balance of chest and head function. Here are two things to work on:

    1. Gradually "lighten" and/or "nasalize" the sound in your high chest voice. I like to use the syllable "NOHN" or "NAY" on a 1358531 pattern. Mix coming from chest voice (low to high) will feel like chest voice, but you should feel more vibration in your nose and face, rather than just your chest. 
    2. Train your head voice function lower than you normally would: start above your passaggio in head voice, and maintain head voice function as you gradually sing lower, over your passaggio, and into your chest voice range. This is just to lay some groundwork for a balance of chest and head function, since you're currently using only chest voice in that high chest range. 

    You can tell you’re getting more head voice function (in chest voice, aka a "chest mix" if the sound is slightly lighter/brighter than full, heavy chest voice; if you’re not getting significantly louder as you sing higher; and if you’re feeling some vibration in your “mask” (not just in your chest). Use narrow vowels and initial consonants like M or N to help. 

    We plan to focus on mix in a dedicated tutorial once we're back to weekly video shoots!

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