When you sing connected versus singing breathy or airy, your vocal cords connect in the chest register and all the way up through the middle notes and then the head voice or head registers. When singing non-connected or breathy or airy, your vocal cords are not connecting to the best of their ability so that when you go up the scale to higher notes you could be singing falsetto instead.

It is valued among kids, preteens and even teens to sing more breathy in the chest area, since that’s the sound some of their favorite recording artists are making, especially pop artists. Michael Jackson made a good living off of singing and speaking breathy, even though it is proven that he did not have to sing that way, but did so for style and effect.

There are voice teachers whose students are encouraged to take their voices as low on a descending scale (from high notes to low notes) as possible in head voice and ignore the chest voice entirely. Others inform their students that the chest voice will come naturally in time when the voice is ready. It’s important for all you singers and future singers to know it really is not magical.

There are exercises that I know how to teach to encourage the vocal cords to touch, connect and stay connected so that your voice can beautifully mix the chest to the head voice. And people will think you are still singing higher notes in your chest voice merely because your vocal cords connected so well and consistently from the chest on up that your voice still conveys strength.

Some students catch on to these exercises very quickly and it hardly takes any time for them to change, and some students take longer. But it’s important to teach children through adults and not act like it doesn’t exist. The chest voice is the root of the voice and of singing. It is said that the difference between being a singer and those who sing is that the singer is able to sing from chest on up and down again with the vocal chords connected so as to produce a consistent sound.

Next blog will be a continuation of the Female Chest Voice subject.

Thanks, for reading.

Jane Jenkins, A Vibrant Voice

It’s always good to know what to expect for your money before those well earned and valued dollars are spent. In the first lesson with me I will conduct a voice evaluation.  I will ask you a few questions and then see what is going on with your voice.  The evaluation isn’t a big challenge, but it tells me a lot about any vocal issues you may have going on.

After the evaluation, I will ask you how it felt to get through the vocal transitions and tell you what I’m noticing.  Then I’ll let you know what we need to do to fix these issues, and proceed to do just that.  I am not saying everyone’s vocal issue gets fixed the very 1st lesson, but there are some people where that does happen.

Expect to learn a lot about your voice and why it does what it does in making adjustments to get to the higher notes and sometimes the adjustments you make to get to lower notes.  I involve you every step of the way to understand what’s  going  on in your body so that you will be able to sing correctly.   Voice anatomy is interesting and it’s good for me as the instructor to know what’s going on at all times so I can use a tailored Vocal Ease Training tool for you so you can adjust and fix the problems.

Typical vocal issues encountered in the 1st lesson:

The Flip: some singers sing fine in chest voice and as they move on up the range they “flip” into a falsetto. You can feel and hear when that happens.  The voice cracks and you widen the vowel as you feel the awkwardness of this bridge or transition and then it flips and an inconsistent sound is made while singing higher notes, much lighter without depth.

Pull Chest: Some singers sing fine in the chest and as they move up the range they feel that “bridge or break” or transition beginning to occur, don’t want to feel it or let it happen, so sing louder and put more pressure on the note while widening the mouth a lot.

They will feel the voice getting stuck and not be able to go further without singing forced and loud and then the voice just stops.

No Chest: Some singers sing so breathy in the chest register that there is no basis for which to go up the range without just staying breathy.  Unless the teacher knows the correct exercises to fix this problem, they will remain breathy or airy in the bottom notes while going up and also when coming back down in a song or when singing scales.

Mixed: Some singers find it easy to mix. When you sing in the chest and you let yourself go into the head voice easily with no cracks , no pull chest, no flips and no breathyness, you are Mixing. You mix when your chest resonation easily gives way into the head voice (very limited definition provided here).

These conditions must exist for singing to be called Mixed:  The larynx needs to be stable (at speech level), as it is when conversing in a moderate tone.  The vocal cords or folds, as they are sometimes called, need to be closing/vibrating. And you need to sing in a relaxed posture without trying to help the note in any way.

Seth Riggs, who started Speech Level Singing International, says that we should, “absolutely refuse to help the pitch in any way” (going higher or on low notes).

When we try to help the note we the note we either raise the larynx and thus stress the voice or try to lower the notes too hard and then slam into the chest voice and again stress the voice. As your instructor, I will watch for this habit that most of you have developed and point it out so you can redirect your singing in the correct way and sing your notes with ease.

In Summary, the purpose of VEM training for all students is to induce and maintain a healthy, naturally produced and relaxed vocal production through the use of “Tools” which create:

* Balanced registration and connection between chest, mid and upper registers,
* Seamless negotiation of the bridges of the voice,
* Appropriate vocal cord closure (not over compressed or under-compressed), and
* A relaxed, low and stable larynx.

The VEM instructor goes through years of specialized learning and long hours studying so we can teach other singers how to sing the best without wasting time making mistakes.

Meanwhile, email me for a lesson so you can get your vocal evaluation.

Thanks for reading my blogs, Jane.