Learn How to Sing by Connecting Vocal Registers

Learn How To Sing by  Connecting Vocal Registers

Once you have experienced the feeling of singing in your chest voice (a theme I discussed in my prior blog), you want to also experience the feeling of singing in the head voice, and then you want to be able to connect the two vocal registers together, with a smooth transitioning from chest to head register.

To experience the feeling of (disconnected) head voice, simply say “hoooooo”, like an owl, on the highest pitch you can.  Men, this might be in your falsetto voice, if you have not spent much time in your upper register. It will feel fairly soft, but it should be produced without strain or discomfort.  A falsetto coordination is not a sound that you will be able to sing with because it can.t be connected to the lower or chest register,  but it does give you the feeling of singing high notes without straining.  Our goal, once we have experienced the feeling of vocalizing on a higher pitch without straining, is to now create a condition of greater vocal cord  adduction in order to have a stronger sound that will connect to the lower register.  I think of falsetto-head-mix as a continuum with mix the final goal. A developed mix will sound to the listener as strong as the chest voice does.

In order to transition from the  chest register (lower register) to the head register (upper register) smoothly, without strain or vocal breaks, two adjustments have to happen as we ascend in pitch:  The first is a change in the shape of vocal cords and the second is a change in what is known as resonance.

When you are in your chest voice, you are singing with the entire mass of the vocal cords, which are shorter, thicker, and  are vibrating along their entire length.  The sound waves travel off the vibrating vocal cords and are amplified in the throat and the mouth, the two resonators of the voice.  These two resonators can be adjusted by changing the shape of the lips, tongue and jaw space.

As you ascend in pitch, the vocal cords lengthen and thin out (kind of like stretching a pair of rubber bands) and the singer may feel the sound travel behind the soft palate, eventually moving out the back of the head for the highest pitches in their range. This is the singer’s subjective experience;  the actual amplification occurs in the throat and mouth only, and sympathetic vibrations are felt in areas such as the chest for lower notes, and the face or head as the pitch goes higher.

When pitch changes from low to high  there is  a corresponding hand-over between the muscle groups that shorten the cords, ( the thyroarytenoid muscles) and the muscle groups that lengthen and tense the cords (the cricothyroid muscles). These two muscle groups have to be taught to coordinate and work together for a smooth transition. The singer may experience this as a feeling of releasing but not letting go completely, as they ascend in pitch.

Most people will tend to be more developed in their chest registers, and be “chest dominant”.  With vocal training they will need to develop the upper register muscles to be as strong as those governing the lower register.  This process might take awhile, since most people have been using their chest voice to speak, laugh, shout and so forth, for their entire lives.

Since singers cannot see or feel their vocal cords, all of this must be taught and built into their vocal behavior with good technique and training, until it becomes an automatic default, or habit.  Most incorrectly trained or self taught singers will not be able to accomplish this coordinated transfer, and they will try to maintain the position of the vocal cords in the chest voice coordination as they attempt to sing higher pitches.  This is called pulling chest, or pushing chest, a condition of hyper-extending the vocal cords by using external muscle (the swallowing muscles) beyond their natural and healthy functioning.  As they sing higher pitches, they start to sound like they are straining and yelling, up till the point where the cords just let go because they cannot hold on any more.  Needless to say, this is very hard on the voice, and will eventually result in vocal problems such as nodules, polyps, and vocal hemorhages, as we have seen with Adele, Keith Urban, John Mayer, and many other singers.

Other incorrectly trained singers don’t necessarily pull chest, but they just “let go” into an airy and breathy vocal sound on the higher notes, so it sounds like yodeling.  The bottom part of the voice and the top part of the voice do not match in volume, intensity or tone quality. This is known as a “flip”.

To learn how to sing correctly, what is needed instead is a smoothly coordinated, connected transfer. The area of the voice where this smoothly coordinated change must occur is called the “bridge”.  Singers actually have more than one bridge, occurring at fairly predictable intervals throughout the range, but the first bridge is usually the most difficult and obvious one because that is where we transition from lower (chest) register to the upper register.  This is the area where singers will get stuck and  jammed up due to using incorrect muscles, hiking up the larynx, squeezing, or just letting go too soon.

That is,  unless they can learn how to “mix” in that area, known as the middle voice.

The singer needs to learn how to connect the registers with  a smoothly coordinated transfer, kind of like shifting gears in a car.  When the car engine starts to labor, or the RPMs are too high in the lower gear, you know it’s time to shift.  In the same way, as we ascend in pitch in the chest voice, we it will start to feel a bit more difficult on each successive higher note, so we will know it’s time to change something.  That change actually needs to occur sooner rather than later; if you wait too long, you may not make the transition.  It’s like driving on the freeway; if you know you have to make an exit, if you don’t start to move over soon enough, you may miss the exit.

So, to recap, in order to learn how to sing, you need increase your skill at  connecting  your lower chest voice to your upper head voice with a coordination that is achieved as a result of good vocal training.

For professional singing lessons in the Atlanta, Marietta and Alpharetta GA  area, or to register for voice training online by skype, facetime, or speakerphone,  please visit the website at www.singlikeastar.com, and click on the GET STARTED tab to register for a professional vocal evaluation and consultation.