In this short blog, I’ll simplify the definition of chest voice and how it’s produced and expressed in music. Also, you’ll understand, by basic sensations, whether or not you are using a pure chest voice. But before we dive into the blog, check out this video:
What are Vocal Registers, and How Do They Impact Vocal Range?
There are basically three main registers. For a more detailed explanations of vocal registers, check out the blog at the end of the production description of Mastering Mix. At the bottom of the page, you’ll read about the the most coveted part of the voice…. the Mixed Voice. You can click this link for more info.
For Now, I’ll break it down briefly and simply, with a more detailed explanation of chest voice and its crucial importance.
Also, consider this: each register represents the bottom, top, and middle voice. So, merely singing in one register will severely limit your range.
Chest Voice
Chest voice, sometimes called the normal voice, is the darker, richer tone used in speech. However, some women talk in head voice (think of the Muppets’ Miss Piggy….even though a man does these voices). The chest voice resonates externally against the upper chest and sternum.
The resonance is also felt, primarily, in the roof of the mouth. If there’s no resonance against your sternum or to the top of your clavicle, you’re most likely NOT in chest voice. The speaking voice works naturally in men more than women, due to a tendency to talk lighter and higher than most men.
Head Voice
If you’ve ever made a high sound like a siren, a ‘woo, woo, woo’ sound, you’ve probably made a head voice sound. Although, the head voice, in the male voice, tends to have more chest resonance and more depth, due to the longer and thicker vocal cords.
In a female voice, the head voice can be thought of as lighter quality, often present in an opera or choir singer’s voice. Julia Andrew’s famous performance of “The Sound of Music” is an iconic example of head voice.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” features the role of the Evangelist: Es begab sich aber zu der Zeit. (This comes in at the 8:30 mark when Google it.) The sound is far lighter than chest voice, but deeper, richer and more masculine than the female head voice.
Falsetto Voice
Falsetto and head voice singing techniques are often mistaken for being the same coordinations. This is because they both resonate primarily in the head/nasal cavity and there’s very little chest voice quality.
The Higher you sing, the more the stress of chest voice prevents you from singing high notes. Most male singers—although usually unwittingly—will let go the tension of chest voice and flip into falsetto, because it is a default voice.
Head voice, on the other hand, is a more difficult coordination to find. It is less airy and the vocal cords stay far more closed. While falsetto, allows more air flow and far less vocal cord closure.
Singers like Aaron Neville, and Coldplay’s Chris Martin, have made this ‘yodel or disconnect’, into falsetto, a commercially popular quality.
Mariah Carey uses her airy falsetto to great extremes in her early hit ‘Can’t Let Go’ and continued the yodel in the airy quality in much of her singing techniques and style choices.
Male and female singers both can blend from falsetto to head voice, though it’s far more tricky and usually requires a gifted vocal coach who can listen and diagnose then needed vocal exercises to accomplish this task.
Surprisingly, some men have NO falsetto. In the rare occasion of this happening, the voice is usually a bass voice that seems tied to low tones and the singer possesses thick vocal cords, which cannot lighten up or flip into another voice.
Mixed Voice
The mixed voice, also called middle voice or mix voice, is often described as the way to find a smooth transition from chest to head voice, but it’s much more than that. It is a vocal register that is often used to sing entire sections of songs, like the “One Last Cry” by Brian McKnight, or the chorus of “I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston.
Developing proficiency in mixed voice singing, like the two singers referenced above, will enable you to fully express yourself in your higher range. Without it, you’re left with a whispy falsetto or head voice, which can still sound good, but is limited in its expressiveness.
Because mixed voice is literally: a blend of head voice and chest voice, singers will feel some resonance in the head and chest at the same time. Often this can produce a brassy sound, like a human trumpet. Or a french horn, for lower, warmer voices.
The mixed voice is very elusive to find and build, and commercially successful singers will often study with a vocal coach or coaches for months and even years, in order to Master the Mixed voices.
If fact, my ground-breaking program, “Mastering Mix”, was the first of it’s kind and is our second best seller. And, many singers name it as their all-time favorite program, due to the systematic formulas that locate and coordinate singers into their mixed voices with little effort, concentration or dread.
The Break
Most singers come to work with me with one, common problem. That pesky ‘break’ or disconnect in their voices. Also called cracking, this can frustrate singers, making them choose songs with low notes, so that singing becomes less challenging.
The break, is a sudden slippage in vocal cord vibration, usually resulting in a dramatic shift in vocal tone quality, and can often impede the beauty of a phrase of music.
The blending if these voices can often be referred to ‘connecting’ or ‘bridging’ over the ‘passaggio’ (Italian for passage way) is the area between registers, where the break often occurs.
What’s the Difference Between Chest Voice and Head Voice?
The chest voice is the lowest part of the voice and can even produce a rumbling tone, towards the very bottom of the vocal range. The very lowest part of the chest voice is called vocal fry and I’ve written another blog on this often misunderstood vocal quality.
In chest voice, the quality is far edgier than pure head voice. Although full head voice in male and female singers, often possesses some edgy qualities and begins to naturally mix vocal registers with the additional pressure on the vocal cords.
The top of the head voice is whistle register. Often thought of as an extension above head voice. My blog on whistle register goes in depth as to what it is and how it’s learned.
The shift from dark to light can be clearly heard unless mixed voice is learned.
Quality
The chest voice is really the foundation of the entire voice. It provides the most distinctive quality. A talented, well trained vocal coach, will spend time building a strong chest voice as an extension of your speaking voice. A strong head voice will be required to extend the range, because chest voice is severely limited to about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 octaves for male singers and and about 1 to 1 1/2 octaves for female singers.
The full head voice quality actually employs muscular coordinations in the vocal cords that can sweeten the quality of chest voice, so you’re not always rumbling in chest voice with full on belt qualities. Chest voice, pulled all the way up into head voice range, can actually result in a limited vocal range. So, you should never view it as head voice vs chest voice. They work together.
Range
The top of the chest voice range—of male and female singers—will typically be the place (passaggio or bridge) where a singer has to break into falsetto, yell in chest, or mix head and chest together.
The typical male tenor/baritone will sing in a full chest voice up to E4-F#4 (just above middle C) before putting stress on the vocal cords (also called vocal folds).
The bass singer, singing in his full chest voice will experience the shift in resonance earlier at A3-B3 (just below middle C) before stressing out the vocal folds.
Low notes vary from an octave and a half to 2 1/2 octaves below the bridge area.
The female soprano singer, singing in her full chest voice will top a half octave up at A4-B4.
The alto bridges are the same as the male singer, and the alto can often sing down to C3.
Sensation
As you you sing in the speech like tone, you’ll notice a feeling of reaching or stretching to sing high notes. The vibrations against your chest can be quite profound. Often, audiences can feel a sympathetic vibration in their own chest from the depth of tone.
Breathy quality, whether in higher notes or a breathy chest voice, lacks the substance of sound, but can produce cool stylistic effects. But a breathy quality is a very different sound from a balanced tone.
This is something that be easily felt and heard. Even from an untrained ear.
Also, a balanced tone can produce a very powerful sound, because you are maximizing the efficiency of….
Vocal Cords
Yes, the vocal cords. The fullness of the vocal cords is needed to produce these rich tones. The cords vibrate along their entire length. While head voice—and especially whistle register—require a dampened, or zipped vocal cord. And while it’s hard to feel the cords zipping up, you can hear a change of tone that sounds thinner as you approach a high note.
The shortened vocal cord uses less surface and is a thinned vocal fold. To sing higher into your upper range, without flipping into falsetto, or straining in chest voice, you’ll have to let go of the weight of lower notes. The higher register should not tax your throat. But…. if you sing in a high chest register (one of my biggest nemeses in the coaching world says you should… ugh!), you can risk damage.
Higher registers require thinner, zipped up cords, and shifted resonance from the chest to the top of the head. Realizing the differences between head voice and chest voice can be negotiated by learning to sing with one voice, by mixing and feeling a gradual zipping of the cords.
Be sure to pick a song that you can relate to and almost be able to speak every note without straining. Also, when practicing, you have to learn to hear and feel the difference between head voice and falsetto. Also, there’s countless voice types, so choose someone with a relatable singing style.
The falsetto and head voice are very similar, except the falsetto has more of a breathy effect and is sometimes referred to the mickey mouse voice.
Is it Better to Sing in Chest Voice or Head Voice?
My answer is……(drum roll)…. YES!
Sing in both. Make the gradual shift from mouth to head, feeling the split of resonance with a high percentage of tone traveling behind the soft palate as you ascend to your higher register.
The ultimate goal is mixed voice….. from the bottom up. Meaning, percentages change that gradually shift from predominantly out of the mouth (obviously chest voice), and increasing allowing the voice to shift behind the soft palate and into nasal cavity/head as you sing towards higher notes.
To be sure, most pop singing, country singing, blues singing and a fair amount of rock singing will use mostly chest voice. Just be sure your song isn’t overly ambitious. For example, throughout the last 3 decades of coaching, I’ve had certain singers tell he that they wanted to sing a Mariah Carey (old school… with much higher notes) in their very first lesson, even though they were at the very beginning stages. Don’t sing from ego!!! Otherwise, you frustrate yourself and your potential audience. An amazing high note has to be found and made a permanent part of your voice before you test it out on an audience.
If you haven’t learned to sing in mixed voice yet, you’ll thrive off of my Mastering Mix Vocal course. It’s the first of its kind and it rapidly, and easily solves the mystery of mix. You’ll hit higher notes, but hit them in mix, which will give you that rich, amazing tone.
Why You Should Strengthen Your Chest Voice
Whenever you feel like your low voice is weak, too breathy, lacks projection power, or you simply can’t make a clear tone on your low notes, you need to focus on your low notes. If you are head voice dominant (many woman speak primarily in head voice and have to learn to talk in chest voice to find comfort in multiple vocal registers), then it’s time to dig into that deep, profound chest voice. But…. this doesn’t mean quit singing in head voice.
Additionally, speaking in head voice only will weaken the vocal folds and limit your vocal range.
Vocal Exercises
I can give you a 100 different exercises, but I’d strongly recommend hiring a gifted vocal coach who can diagnose and prescribe the perfect vocal exercises to strengthen and coordinate your vocal folds.
For now, you can speak the words “BUB, MUM. NAY, NAAY, and GUH on a 5 tone scale. If you haven’t done scales before, you can place your hand on your chest as say somewhat loudly, “hey, Hey, HAY!!” Just allow yourself to get a little louder each time, but don’t strain.
Lip trills and tongue trills can help, but you have to do them with a strong B sound or D sound and do not be breathy.
Also, each staccatos on the words ‘I’ and ‘OW’. This will insure edgy quality that helps maximize fullness in chest voice. In fact, head voice as well… and throughout your vocal range.
If you hear an airy quality, you might be flipping into falsetto.
Practice
There’s a philosophy I’ve taught for years, “If you’re not learning fast, you’re only practicing your mistakes”.
This is why I created the world’s most popular vocal course “Singing Success”, along with many other best-selling courses that have world-wide acclaim and an unsurpassed track record.
But more importantly, we love to serve singers and rejoice (strong word right??) whenever we can help you on your journey to being a ‘Singing Success’. Our VIP membership gives you access to ALL our courses. But no need to get overwhelmed. When you join there will be a short, simple video on where to start and how long you should practice each lesson.
Finally, our Vocal Coaches are World Class and have been personally certified by myself and my Master Associates. They’re taking people from hobbyists to singing in coffee shops, clubs, churches, school plays and…stadiums. We have more people with record deals than we could begin to count.
Even better…. more people being heard across all platforms. Even the self-made indie style artists are experiencing breakthrough success. And you are next!
Visit us at www.singingsuccess.com
Call, text, email or book online. We can’t wait to hear you sing!
