Incorportating Chest Voice

This is a question for Abram about the last exercise in his Incorporting Chest Voice lesson. In the Wee Y Y Ahh, I'm assuming the intermediate Ys are meant to be mixed or head voice depending on how high up the starting note is? Also, I noticed my voice cracking sometimes when making the transition since it's quick. Specifically going from F#4 to C#4. Does this mean I'm trying to push my chest voice too high?

Hi Leo, I'll forward your question to Abram and update with his response!

Hi Leo,

Yes this is all about transitioning back and forth between Chest and Head voice and the goal is for the intermediate Ys to slip into a mixed voice feeling. An ee is easier for head voice and an Ah is easier for chest voice production. The challenge with mixing is everybody is a little different and depending on where your voice sits, you may find it easier to switch registers in slightly different places than other people.

First, I would encourage you to find out where the break occurs in your voice more consistently and take your time trying to smooth this area out with some gentle sirens. You can try feeling out the sympathetic vibration as well to track this better. All the resonance is produced in your vocal tract, but vibrations in your chest and head can help you figure out if you are singing in one register more than the other sometimes. Chest voice is often going to vibrate more in the chest and the sensation will rise up to your head or the base of the skull. You can put a hand on your chest and behind the back or top of your head to feel for this better. Sometimes head voice is hard to feel and is mainly felt by the absence of vibration in the chest though.

Second, imagine the voice is like a C shape starting from your chest to your head voice.  When we are switching between registers we want the resonance to travel up the back of our throat with a taller vowel. So if your ee vowel is horizontal or super spread, this will get you stuck in chest voice and cause a crack by singing too forward into the mask/face.

Third, a lot of singers oversupport through the transiton between reigisters and the best thing is to relax your support and sing gently as you switch. This doesn't mean you can't sing very full into either register once you feel like you have switched over fully. Imagine it like you are driving a car around a curve and you have to step off the gas as you come into the curve and then back on as you come out of the curve.  

So long story short, yes if you are cracking, then it means you are making a more abrupt transition between Chest and Head voice. This is often caused by pushing too hard into either one while transitioning or not making the vowel tall enough. So I reccomend taking some time to slow down and really feel out whats happening.

While we often want to avoid this, it can be a great stylistic tool. So for those worried about cracking, I sometimes tell them to try yodeling on purpose.. But do it very gently to gain control over this force in a more comfortable way. It should never hurt when you do it correctly and with style!

This is a more challenging technique to get down and it does take some time! However, if you are still having trouble, then I recommend scheduling a lesson with a teacher one-on-one to work through this more.

Hope this helps!

Abram