This blog will discuss how to learn how to sing, by understanding how to mix into the upper register.
In my previous blog, I concluded by saying that the best and healthiest method of vocal production is the ability to mix registration when ascending in pitch from the chest register to the upper register. In this blog, I want to elaborate on what mix is, and how it functions in the voice.
When I explain mix to my students who want to learn how to sing, I tell them that a well developed mix sounds like chest in the sense that it sounds strong, but it feels easy, like head voice- in other words, there is a sense of release rather than a sense of straining, belting, or pushing for the notes. If the sound is strained, pushed, yelled, pulled, or at the opposite end of the spectrum, airy, breathy, weak, or disconnected, then you are not mixing.
One somewhat simplistic way to look at it is that there is an “overlapping” of registers in the middle area of the range of the entire spectrum notes that a singer is capable of. If we think of chest voice as the color black, and head voice as the color white, then the notes in the middle that are mixed are various shades of gray, transitioning from darker to lighter as the pitch ascends. (In reality, all the notes of the voice are some variant of shades of gray, except the extreme low notes and the extreme high notes, as there is some degree of mixing going on throughout a great deal of the range). To complicate matters further, the bridging process occurs not just once in a singer’s range, but several times. Knowing where these bridges occur, and how to treat them, is the golden key to good vocal production.
The most difficult bridge for most singers is the first bridge- the area where you first transition from the chest voice into the upper register. That is the area of the voice where most singers go astray- that is, they are unable to get the correct blend of upper and lower and they get the notes out either by pushing chest (yelling) or letting go too soon into a weak coordination that does not sound anything like the singers on the radio!
When you are listening to someone sing who sounds like they are singing high notes in their chest voice, the sound you are hearing if they do it correctly, is often in reality a strong mix. It’s hard to learn how to sing with mix, so there aren’t a whole lot of singers out there who are doing it correctly; most just push chest. Singers who I think are mixing well at this writing are: old Aretha Franklin, old recordings of Mariah Carey, Carrie Underwood, Amy Lee of Evanescence, Haley Williams of Paramour, old recordings of Heart.
An example of a singer who is pushing chest and is paying the cost for that, is Adele, who at 23 has already had 2 vocal hemorrhages. Another is Miley Cyrus. Both of these singers sing only in their chest voices and have paid severely in their vocal health as a result. Unfortunately, once you become famous, people expect to hear you do the same thing for the rest of your professional career. It’s very hard to take time out of a busy career to rebalance vocal registration, so the best approach is to have your mix together before your professional career takes off!
In order to learn how to sing with mix, a few things have to happen. The singer must be able to release some vocal weight as they go up, without letting go of the cords completely. This process is like shifting gears in a car- you have to learn to do it smoothly, so no one notices, otherwise the ride is bumpy! The vocal cords must thin out as you ascend in pitch. If you try to hang on to the cord structure of the chest voice, you end up yelling on the higher notes, just to get them out. The result is that your voice will often be hoarse, and you may experience vocal issues such as nodules if you keep doing this very damaging type of singing.
The second thing that has to happen for mix to occur is a resonance shifting phenomenon. To explain how this works: when you sing in your chest voice, the sound waves hit the hard palate, and then are sent directly out of the mouth. As you go higher in your range, what should happen is that the resonance starts to go more and more behind the soft palate. The singer experiences this as being less “edgy” and that is why we try to hang on to chest voice. Inside the singer’s head, as the resonance transfer is happening, the sound starts to feel like it is less intense. However this is an acoustical phenomenon. What feels less “edgy” to us inside our head actually sounds very strong in a well produced mix to the listeners outside our head!
With the mix technique, your voice will last a lifetime, and you will be able to sing, higher, and sing stronger, and have more vocal stamina than you ever could with any other vocal method!
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.
