Hi!
I am no singer and I'm hoping you can help me!
I don't have singing lessons or anything I just sing for fun with friends and stuff and recently we have started learning some of the songs from phantom of the opera (which are amazingly beautiful!)
Any way, I understand the concepts of head voice and chest voice but I am really struggling when I have to kind of swap into head voice, its sounds weird and obvious.
Please could anyone suggest anything that could help me improve this and kind of make it "blend: more.
Thanks
Surfergal x

Ah! If only it were that simple! You really need a teacher to guide you through this - it doesn't happen overnight and a teacher would be able to give you some exercises to blend the registers, and monitor how well you were doing, giving advice along the way. If it could all happen from advice on a forum, we'd all be out of a job!

I have a big problem with my break from head to chest - even lessons from a teacher and practising exercises couldn't improve it much. I came to the decision that a lot depends on the vocal equipment you are born with. I decided in the end I hadn't got the right vocal physiology to make a vast improvement - certainly not to get it to the standard for solo work - so I saved myself a lot of time and money and gave up solo work and just enjoyed singing in a choir.

Sometimes, disappointing as it is, it is best just to be honest with yourself and accept the fact that no matter how hard you practice or how many lessons you have, if you aren't born with it, you'll never make it as a soloist or professionally. But if you are happy just singing for your own pleasure then that's fine.

However there are exercises which help the break area and a teacher would be able to give you some help and advice. It's worth a try before you give up completely.

Up until about grade 4 I had a very 'pretty' voice. I have now been doing exercises to improve my chest voice for over a year now. It is still now quite there, this is a technique in singing that can take the longest (and can be the most frustrating).

My singing teacher once did nothing but exersises for her chest voice for six whole months - no songs at all! It was well worth it for her as she is now trainging with ENO.

Please do not underestimate what lessons can do for you - any singer can improve with lessons, however I will not deny that some of it is up to talent. I do not doubt that you can reach your goal of having a chest voice, though!!!

Someone like Kathrine Jenkins or Renee Flemming would be born with talent, but neither one of them would have been as successful without lessons.

Renee Flemming is often referred to as the Singers soprano because she manages all her register changes so well... as IMHO does Ms Jenkins. (Love her or loathe her she actually sings well).

To get a smoothe transition between head and chest voice requires work on the exercises that straddle your break and breathing exercises.

I used to have Pilates classes and still do the exercises at home. I advocate the system of exercises like Yoga and Pilates that work on strengthening your core abdominal muscles. These can provide a firm foundation for breathing (although there are subtle differences between breathing for pilates and breathing for singing).

But there is no short cut to getting a teacher and having them cast a critical ear and devise the right regime of exercises for you.

Thanks for your help! I really do want to get lessons but at the moment it is simply not possible with a levels, work and up coming music exams (grade 5 piano and dipABRSM flute) there are not enough days in the week! lol
I am definately going to have some lessons after my A levels, I really like singing and its really fun to do.
In the meantime can you recommend any books to have a look at just to find out more about this and singing in general?
thanks
Surfergal x x

A levels
I don't really know of any books but I'm sure that some other people will

And good luck with your music exams... whenever you're doing them

isnt that yodelling? well if you do it fast anyways

what songs are you doing?
i love POTO to death.

wishing you were somehow... and think of me are great

i must say i sing Music of the... and Wishing you were...
yes im male

haha

We have been looking at everything at the moment, I love all the songs, they are great!
Some of my favourites are Phantom of the Opera, think of me, angel of music so they will probably be the ones we'll sing!

I read this exercise for that called a 'siren' and you basically sing like a police car or something haha right from the lower notes to the top and back down. What is it about singing exercises that they always make you look/sound insane!

do you mean swapping like, for example in The Phantom Of The Opera, when you sing

The (switch here) Phan_______Tom

i think exhaliing a bit will help going from ehad to chest

however i dont really know, im not a singing teacher

No, no, no! All those notes should be in head voice anyway (if I understand you correctly about where it is in the score), but please do not follow this advice about exhaling to go from chest to head or vice versa. Get yourself a singing teacher!

I use sirening a lot, and yodelling it isn't! The aim with sirening is to move fast enough to get a fluidity to the sound, but slow enough to feel the placing of the notes.

As various people have said its best to have this exercise demonstrated by a proper teacher. I learnt it from two teachers one is an experienced lay-clerk and vocal teacher who is highly regarded, the other was trained at the Royal Academy of Music and did some work at Gyndebourne. The moment I was taught it I could see its value and now I use it widely, but if i didn't know the raison d'etre then I would not use it.

i know what i mean, but i cant put it into words lol, i remember our singing teacher at school explaining it in a choir.

what i put is wrong it seems.
id say ask a teacher

Um, its swapping like, in the Phantom of the Opera, when I sing:

And do (switch here) I dream again (1st verse i think)

I think this is changing to head voice, I'm not sure though, is it?

From what you have said I've tried it and exhaling a bit does help

Thanks!

The additional problem of singing from head to chest is intonation - it is not just about a smooth transition from head to chest. Often intonation is good in the chest voice, but once a singer goes up to head voice the intonation can become poor (often sharp of flat, or the notes aren't supported and they sound weak). Again this is a gift people are born with I think - I'm not saying lessons aren't essential; even gifted people need to learn about breath control and support and to do exercises as these trun their very fine voices into absolutely brilliant voices. But to sing with perfect intonation 100% of the time is something which can't be taught IMHO.

Most intonation problems are caused through lack of proper support and incorrect placement. I believe that imperfect intonation isn't always to do with a good ear - of course that's important, but all these things can be taught. Just don't expect it to happen in five minutes.

Well of course singing teachers are there to nurture - not to torture - their pupils - and I doubt any singing teacher would ever be honest and brutal enough to tell their pupils that their intoniation is rubbish and it'll never be really good if they had a million lessons! Yes, I agree these things can be improved upon with lessons, but gifted people can sing in tune already - they're obviously do something naturally which us lesser mortals coudln't grasp if we lived to be a thousand years old! Even when I gave everything I had to sing every note with commitment and in tune, when I heard it played back ona tape I sounded horrible (to my trained ears anyhow - ears used to the sweet tones of Emma Kirkby and such like!). I decided at that point to give up singing solo - to face the fact i hadn't got what it takes - and stick to choral stuff and enjoy it.

Sorry, but if the intonation really was bad and not responding to technical guidance, I WOULD be honest and suggest that they were wasting their money. But you can usually tell this within a few lessons. I have only done this a couple of times. It's very rare that bad intonation can't be cured with time, practice and hard work. Believe me, there's nothing more frustrating and tiring, both mentally and to the voice, than to work with someone like this. There's more to singing teaching than just taking the money! I don't believe in ripping people off. However, I have got someone from not being able to get remotely near a single note in the first couple of lessons, to grade 5, and singing well - every note perfectly in tune. So I don't agree it can't be taught.

It depends on what people want out of their singing. Like Ann, I've taught people with intonation problems to sing in tune. Unlike Ann, I will take money from those who initially appear to be no-hopers because eventually the penny drops, and that might be the main thing that they want to achieve out of lessons. Their objective might be to sing along to the radio without boyfriends cringing! (In which case they want to continue until they can, and I have had a high success rate after patient treatment of my pupils)

But I agree with Ann that most register change problems and intonation issues come down to poor placing.

It is important to as a teacher, work with your pupils to get a mutually acceptable response. But as a pupil it is equally important to take in what your singing teacher says. At least one response on this thread started "I know what I mean" I'm sorry, but that isn't good enough. I had just posted a response explaining a useful technique to ise to join head and chest registers, if a pupil came back with "I know what I mean" they'd be chewed out. I frequently in the middle of work on songs use sirening to find the right placement for large interval drops. This is something I use personally and something I teach.

There are charlatans out there, but remember, the chances are your teacher knows an awful lot more about singing than you do... that's why your paying them.

Ann, I know, from her contributions here and the professional bodies of which she is a member knows what she is talking about. Younger singers here would do well to heed her advice.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jo. I don't think I explained myself very well - if people are making some progress, albeit at a snails pace, then I WILL keep teaching them. But if there is absolutely NO improvement in a few lessons, then I let them go. These people usually find it easier to relate to pitch in the human voice rather than from a piano, and the constant demonstration of the note is very wearing on the voice. I owe it to myself as a professional singer (and my audiences!) to keep my voice tip top, and my other students as well.

Thanks Ann, that clarifies thing a bit, that's what meant too!

And like you if some one is singing out of tune its up to me to tell them, I don't normally say "your intonation is awful", but the same infor can be broken to the pupils by saying, "you're under the note" or "that's not quite the note I was singing/playing". If I don't tell singers when they are singing out of tune how are they going to develop their ear or placement?

I agree. I usually ask, "where do you think your note was compared with mine - higher or lower?".
For more advanced students I sometimes stop in the middle of a song and ask, "Were you happy with how you sung that? If not, why not?" Self-evaluation is good - "What did you achieve with that piece? What were you happy with? How do you think you could improve it?" And then let them tell me. Works wonders. Most of the time they are not paying attention to what they are doing. When they know I'm going to stop them with these questions, guess what? The singing, beit support, placement, intonation, diction, whatever, suddenly improves!

With both Ann and jod on the intonation matter. There is an awful lot that CAN be done, even for students with poor intonation. But the thing ist: It requires patience from both student AND teacher. Sadly, some teachers don't have it, and even more students don't have it either.

But I am completely with Ann: The students who need the permanent demonstration of the human voice and can't take pitch from a piano are a real problem for the teacher. Even worse if they are opposite ###. If I sing to a male student who has severe intonation problems, the "octave problem" always appears. Means, they cannot abstract from the female to the male voice, so I have to sing to them in the male range, which is a real problem if I have to do it too often.
That's the reason why I encourage students to practice at home with an instrument like a small keyboard (you don't have to play it, you just have to hit a key) and record themselves as well. Mostly, the problem gets better. If not and they still constantly need me to sing to them, I have to take care of myself at some point. I cannot afford to ruin my own voice for my student's sake. Sadly, these students have to go at some point. But they are VERY few ...

I'm always having to demonstrate on the voice, but don't normally find it too much of a problem. But then I do spend time doing warm-ups most days so my voice is fairly warm by the time I have to sing in lessons.

Demonstrating on the voice to the opposite gender ### is harder, but using a combination of voice and piano its not impossible.

However like Ann and Mezzo my own vocal health is important too.

Of course it is not a problem to sing to the male voice, and of course every singing teacher warms up before the first students come in. It is strictly those ones who can't take a note from the piano.
Example from my own teaching practice: Man with fairly low voice, I had to sing a phrase again and again that was situated between c below middle c and f below middle c (some women, and not only high sopranos, can't even sing that low!). He couldn't sing it with the piano, he always needed vocal demonstration. That put quite a strain on my voice (I am not a bass ). When I sang it an octave up, the man immediately started to sing it an octave up, too

It is really only those students who cause problems to the own voice, and if no improvement can be achieved after a while, I have to pass them on for my own sake. These rare cases are better off with a same ### teacher ...

All of my singing pupils are female - for those of you who have not seen my photograph on the Ugly Agency website it is NOT because I am an object of beauty I make Paul Potts look like that Johnny Depp fellow

I have one pupil who is 16 and was informed by her school "music " teacher that she was tone deaf and would never be able to sing properly. In my view this was sheer cruelty and the girl now has a small but serviceable soprano voice and sings and enjoys jazz. The so called music teacher had not bothered to check out whether the girl in question had any head voice. Needless to say she had and she now has 6 extra notes on her range

The reason for her intonation problems were lack of singing technique and shyness. Some pupils can be quite inhibited about singing with full volume from either reticence or shyness It is very rare to find someone who is actually tone deaf and cannot be taught to sing in tune even if the resulting sounds are not the most grateful

In my area the provision of school singing tuition is non existent - classical singing and related techniques are regarded as "elitist " and the focus is on hip hop and rap I alway feel that the C is silent in rap but that's just my age showing

From my experiences of going from baritone to tenor I would tend to support the top down approach to head voice. Most tenors start to go into head voice just below the passagio - or they do if they want to keep their voice - taking weight up too high is very dangerous and voice wrecking IMO

Nice one!

I began lessons with my teacher with an octave of chest voice, then 3/4 non-existent notes and then some very small head voice notes above that. To join my voice back together I had to do exercises (for 10 years but I don't think it always takes that long!), I had to learn to let go of my chest voice very early on in the range and bring my head voice down much lower to bridge the gap. My teacher kept telling me not to push in the middle area and it took a long while for me to believe that less effort would make more voice, in the end I got it and now I don't have any gaps in my range or loss of power (unless i'm having a bad day ).

I have this exact same problem!!

My music teacher has told me to begin singing scales, starting in my chest voice and then working upwards. She said to really focus on the notes, and to allow my voice to change into the higher resgister, but to try to keep the sound as controlled as possible, so that the break isn't too big. At first this is quite hard, but keep doing this and it'll become easier. Also do it the other way around - start higher, and sing scales downwards. It's often easier to sing from low to high as opposed to high to low.

Also, this may sound obvious, but make sure you stand properly. Legs shoulder width apart, arms by your side with your head facing straight forwards. When you breathe, make sure you're shoulders don't rise, and breathe right down to the bottom of your lungs. You should feel (and see) your diaphragm moving.

Another tip which might sound odd, but for me it has been by far the best advice and a complete god-send!! As you sing higher, THINK lower. And when you sing lower THINK high. Some people see pictures in their head making them think high or low, or some might look up or down. At first this idea may sound pointless and ineffective, but trust me, soon it'll become automatic - you'll be focusing on each and every note, which will make your voice more controlled, and will help prevent your voice from 'breaking' as you go into each register. Many a time has my voice 'broken' (thank God it was only really in rehearsal!), but since I've been applying this technique it is much much better.

Getting a singing teacher is obviously a wise move, but in saying that, I've been having singing lessons for 18 months (but haven't done much as my lessons are combined with piano and I've mostly been doing that), it hasn't been my singing teacher which has given me the advice to improve my voice. It has been my music teachers - it sounds like you're still at school, so maybe you can ask your music teachers there for some advice?

Hope you find things improving soon - don't give up!!

Laura