In a Speech Level Singing™ lesson, you will hear me refer to your MIX voice. You may also hear it referred to as a “blended” voice. So what do we mean by “mix.” The word is short for “mixture,” so in order to define it we have to determine WHAT we are mixing.
We are mixing one resonant area (or register) of our voice into another. The two most important registers to discover are the chest voice and head voice.
So we just keep bringing up more questions: What is “chest” voice? What is “head” voice? Do I have different voices? No, you have one voice, but that voice can resonate in different areas of your body. The lowest point of resonation in your body is your chest…put your hand on your collar bone and grunt a low “UHH!.” You should feel vibration down there.
We could also say that chest voice is the lower register where we speak (unless you are Michael Jackson.) When you speak or sing in your chest voice, it seems like the sound waves travel mostly out the mouth with a sympathetic vibration in the chest.
Now, say “WHEEee” in your highest Mickey Mouse voice. Or pretend you’re at the Calgary Stampede and let out a huge “Yeee-HAWW!” You may feel that the sound vibrations have moved up to your highest point of resonation, your head. And the vibration in your chest may have lessened. The majority of the sound waves are now traveling behind your soft palate in the back of your mouth.
Most people prefer singing in EITHER chest voice or head voice. So they are either comfortable singing low notes in their chest voice, and they strain on the high notes. OR they’re comfortable in the top, but their voice gets light and breathy as they descend into their lower notes. Yet a few others, start in their chest voice for the low notes and then flip or crack into falsetto as they approach the top, rather like modern yodeling.
Now here’s where Speech Level Singing™ comes in. In SLS, we teach our clients to blend or “mix” their head voice into their chest voice so that the transition is seemless as they ascend upward. Using special exercises designed to connect the registers, singers learn to mix from one area to another, rather than break or strain. It’s very important to repeat and practice these exercises often in order to perfect your MIX and gain ease and freedom in your range.
Tips for developing more “Mix”:
Practice at a medium, “speaking” volume. Try to stay away from sudden shifts in volume or tone. If you have to get louder in order to sing higher, you are probably reaching up (“pulling chest”) or at the very least pushing more air to force the vocal cords up to the pitch. This can result in vocal fatigue or worse. You DO NOT have to push more air to sing higher, in fact, the opposite is true.
Narrow your vowels. Sometimes I’m contacted by singers who are only in town for one day on their tour, and they need me to help them fix their troubled voice. While I don’t pretend to do miracles in one day, I can give the singer a short-cut to a better vocal balance by teaching them how to modify or “narrow” their vowels. All we are really trying to do is keep the vowels pure and consistent. Wide or “splatty” vowels are made by spreading the mouth sideways, and it’s a common reaction when the singers gets to a transitional area of their voice. When people fight the mixing process, they spread their vowel in order to push or yell the high notes. Ouch!
Stick your lips out. This is a temporary corrective measure for wide vowels. It’s nearly impossible to sing a wide, horizontal vowel if you have your lips stuck out. Once this “straight-jacket” has removed your need to “splat” high notes, we take away the pucker. Mick Jagger has nothing to worry about…