If you, like so many popular genre singers, have trouble straining in your upper chest
My contemporary (non-classical) students have found astounding vocal improvement by using exercises I give them to strengthen their head voice. That’s because of the need to balance the muscle groups that work the head and chest voices… and if one set is significantly weaker than the other, they won’t balance well. It would be like a high schooler and an elementary schooler being on the same team in a relay race. The baton is going to get dropped at handoff (that represents the vocal break). So:
- If you tend to strain at the upper end of your chest voice:
…. practice singing in your head voice. Do exercises that take you up far higher that you’d sing songs, but be sure you’re not leaning or pushing to do so. (Yes, you can even make the pushing mistake in head voice!) Just go as high as you are able to without strain. Keep doing this on a regular basis and you will strengthen the muscles that control your upper register. I believe you’ll find that your head voice will begin to influence your chest voice and you will be able to reach notes that were previously difficult to sing without pushing.
- If you have been classically trained and find it hard to keep from bringing your head voice too low when doing contemporary (non-classical) songs,
…. then you have the opposite problem: your head register is stronger than your chest register. Practice singing in your chest voice. Sing songs and do exercises that take you up into middle voice, but keep it “talking” voice. Important… while using this voice, DON’T PUSH. This should help, over time, strengthen the lower voice muscle set. If you’re not sure what voice you’re in, find a good voice teacher who can help you.
If you are a student of my “Power, Path & Performance” method, and have the full course, check out the exercises I call “Blending Steps”. If you know what voice you are singing in, and can change the voice, you should find great benefit from doing this. Also remember the difference between what I call “pushing” and “pulling” words. One of the best things you can do for your voice is to learn to pull it out of your resonation spaces instead of push it in any way, with any muscles you want to name!
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