“Chest Voice”
Chest voice is not a sound that you make. It is not a tone quality or a timbre.
Chest voice is a vocal range and when you sing in that range, the sound waves are of the size which cause vibrations to be felt in the chest. That is how chest voice originally got that name. People felt vibrations in the chest.
Through the years, “full voice”, or tone production with adducted vocal folds and no excess of air escaping, has been misnamed chest voice.
We are mostly in the chest voice range when we speak. Sometimes the pitch is higher when we get excited and the frequency goes beyond the chest voice range at that point.
“Head Voice”
Head voice is a range and not a sound, per se. It is not a tone quality or a timbre.
Head voice is a vocal range and when you sing in that range, the sound waves are of the size which cause vibrations to be felt in the head. That is how head voice originally got that name. People felt vibrations in the head.
Head voice is not necessarily a weak and wimpy breathy sound. Some people sing that way on the higher notes. You can sing in full voice in the head voice range and if you do it correctly, there is no pain, no irritation, and no harm in singing there.
“Middle Voices”
Between chest voice range and head voice range are “low middle voice” and “high middle voice”. Areas of register transition have been called “bridges”.
Middle voice has also been called “mix” or “mixed voice”.
The fact is that there is no mixing actually going on. In the middle voices range, we do not have magic food processors, blenders or electronic mixing boards stuck in our throats.
Middle voice, when absent, uncontrollable, or weak in loudness, can feel to the singer as if more strength is needed. The reality is that habits must be overcome, to have coordination and control in the ranges of “middle voice”. Some teachers say there is simply “middle voice” and don’t divide it into two ranges. It doesn’t matter what it is called as much as it matters to a singer that it is present and under control.
Muscles used for swallowing are use even when we are not eating. Those are in great shape.
Most of us don’t yawn all day and those are colloquially called “low larynx muscles”. There are three sets of those: sterno-hyoid, sterno-thyroid, and omo-hyoid. These nay be controlled with practice.
“One Voice”
A singer shouldn’t feel as if gears are being shifted, when going from one range to another. Ideally, there should be no thought or attention of technique when performing because artistic expression, artistic imagination, and entertaining and impacting the audience through the aesthetics of music and the message of the lyrics reaching the audience is where the focus should be.
Despite there being notes to be used and their falling in specific ranges, the singer would prefer to have fluidity and control being done without thought and having a single voice with the capability of having the entire range of it available and controllable for expression as an artist, rather than a technician.
Some lucky people are born with the ability to just sing in a broad range, at any dynamic level, and with no impediments, cracks (register transition issues), or endurance problems.
Most of us have had to work long and hard to attain what we were not born with. Having the right exercises for the voice and doing them in the right order, the right way, and for the right amount of time, will result in the freedom of having one voice.
We may jump through the hoops of separated ranges and a multitude of cracks (Janet Jackson said she had five! How frustrating that must have been!). We should have the goal of just singing without problems or effort and not get caught up in the mechanics of it to the extent that we lose sight of the goal, get lost in the obstacles to it, and never to escape that maze.
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