Hello Guys, first off, since I'm new to the forum. Hello guys!!!

Anyway...I have a school concert coming up in about a months time and I'm performing the song 'The Man Who Can't Be Moved' by The Script.

I can sing all the notes in the song but the problem is I'm struggling at the bit where he goes high on the 2nd "I'm not moving" at the end of the chorus. I can get the pitch there but my voice sounds very wheezy and nasal (and no, i don't transit into falsetto, I just go further into my head voice) and I don't really want to push too hard as i might damage my voice.
Most times, I can't even get to that pitch at all because I hit my break but on good days where my vocals are in a 'good mood', I can. This just goes to show that "its" there and I can hit that note without going into falsetto so all i need to do is somewhere strengthen it and make sure i hit it EVERY TIME and not on some random days.

Are there any techniques or exercises that can fix this problem? I'm dedicated to try whatever is suggested. I've already tried humming on a scale, doing lip rolls on a scale and even sirens for about 2 week now but I'm not really noticing that much of a difference.

If necessary, I don't mind going into falsetto for that note. But can anyone suggest exercises to bridge my break with my falsetto so i can easily blend from my full voice into falsetto.

Thank you all for your help :-)

P.S If you can, please refrain from using technical terms such as G# because i don't really understand that just yet.

Thanks again! :D

Hi Wolfie and welcome to the forum. I won't attempt to answer your question, as there are a heap of well qualified and experienced voice coaches out here, in particular Rosfrog who I have learnt a stack of info from just by reading his posts!

Must say I'm slightly confused, because you speak with some knowledge about head voice, falsetto, pitch etc, but don't want to talk about technical terms such as G sharp!

Thanks Stetenorve, glad my posts are of use to some people !

Wolfie523 - firstly, welcome to the forums!

It's quite hard to know what the problem is without hearing you do the song. It sounds like you're saying that you'd like a fuller sound up there, without using falsetto (which I think is best avoided) - which should be perfectly possible.

If you can't do it, it could come from several things :

1) you're keeping too much weight in the voice too high - this is often the case when we've been taught that 'chest' and 'head' and 'mix' are 'different voices'.
2) you're not anchoring properly in the back of the neck, the obliques and the back.
3) you're not tilting the larynx as you go up
4) you're constricting the false vocal folds as you rise
5) you're simply trying to use the wrong mechanism to do something it's not designed to do.

If 1) the answer is to learn to thin out the sound as you rise by dropping weight. NG sirens are a good way to learn this. Start very softly and build volume gradually. Alternatively, send all the vowels towards a little dumb 'uh' sound (like the emphatic 'duh' !)

If 2) learn how to anchor the back, neck and obliques (there are other muscles involved, but anchoring the obliques will usually make them come into play) - using lots of voiced fricatives such as 'v' or 'z' on one octave sirens will help with this, but it's best for a teacher to show you.

If 3) Whimper gently as you ascend the scale to encourage tilting and apply the vowel trick from 1.

If 4) sob into the sound as you go up, or imagine that you're going to laugh and can't be seen to laugh, so have to hide it in your throat.

If 5) Try crying hard into the sound as you go up - think major stomach ache, or the end of some terrible hollywood movie where the star kneels on a dirty rooftop in the rain and cries 'nooooooooo' to the heavens (we've all seen THAT film!) - keep that cry working hard in the voice as you go up.

The problem you'll have is that you won't find it easy to identify your problem yourself and an expert ear can be very helpful in these cases. Do you have a teacher? If so, what does (s)he say about it? What strategies have they given you for fixing it?

If you don't have a teacher or feel that you aren't getting the answers you want from your teacher, I'll happily give you a 30 minute slot for free on Skype to work on it together and analyse your problem so you can get some concrete strategies for fixing it.

Good luck!

Allan

Hello Rosfrog, thank you very much for the welcome and the helpful tips.

In fact I do have a vocal teacher (once a week, every friday at school) and quite surprisingly while working on this song, she suggested point 3 and 4 (the cry, the whimper and possibly the sob) at the end of my last sessions to help with my problem.

I will print out your suggestions and show them to her the next time i see her (which will be the 5th June as this week, its a school holiday and i'm sure she will assist me with these problems and in the meantime, I would be very grateful if you could guide me further through the points you have suggested in some form (by maybe reffering me to some videos which already may cover the problem as point 1 and 2 is very new to me.) and i think i should take advantage of the practice time from now to the next time i see my teacher as my performance date is drawing near.

I do have skype, my screen name is: mda.mak

Thank you very much for the helpful tips.

I've sent you a PM, but it sounds like you've got yourself a good teacher there!

Hello, I have had the concert and it went extremely well and brilliantly! I'd like to say a very special thanks to rosfrog who has helped me out a countless amount of times. Thank you very much for all the support, i don't think i could have done it without you. :-)

Thanks again!
Wolfie

P.s - I'm going to upload the video as the concert was filmed. Once I put it up on youtube i will post the link :-)

Thanks for your kind words Wolfie - it was a pleasure to help you out - you have a great voice.

I'm so pleased to hear the concert went well!

Allan