July 2011 – The Passagio or The Break

Hello Vocademy Singers!

I hope you all enjoyed the end of term shows! I was at the Portsmouth show and it was amazing, so many of you learn so quickly and have progressed so much in just a few short weeks – congratulations to everyone in Pompey Vocademy and to all of you who performed. I was so impressed by the standard of Vocademy singers!

We have been looking at developing vocal technique and learning how to stay healthy and look after our voices as we grow as singers. This month I would like to look at how to work with smoothing the ‘passagio’ – or even just learning to be aware of it, so that as we develop our voice, you can learn how to navigate it with ease and have greater control of your instrument.

As I’ve said before we’re all different and where your friend might have quite a high break between chest and head voice yours might be quite low. The best thing you can do is work with your voice and find out what it feels like before you have to make the switch between head & chest.

« A good way to identify your break is to siren. Have a go at sirening from a mid point in your range. Siren up and down 5 notes and repeat the exercise by moving up in step…You’ll probably feel your passagio very quickly. Make sure you lead up to it and sing above it as well.

Now you know where it is you need to understand what you will need to do to keep a nice clear tone in your different registers.

« Vowel sounds in your head voice often need to be ‘lifted’ to make sure the note doesn’t go out of tune. Ensure you have a nice open mouth shape.

« On tricky vowel sounds like “EE” where the mouth has to be fairly narrow, make sure you lift the sound by ‘smiling’ with your cheekbones.

« You generally need just as much diaphragmatic support for your head voice as you do with your chest voice.

« Ensure you have a strong posture and make sure your head is level (you don’t want to put any strain on your neck in any of your vocal registers)

« Your chest voice might feel louder then your head voice. Have a go at developing a rich tone in both these registers: A great exercise to practice this would be to sing a descending scale (major or minor) to “LA” (an Italian vowel sound, so nice and round and open – LARGH – like a big yawn). By singing down the scale and then going up in step and repeating the exercise will mean that you can feel the differences in your voice between your registers while maintaining tonal quality.

Have a go at these songs – they use aspects of both the head and chest voice and will mean that you will improve the clarity of your tone in both registers….

« HALO/AVE MARIA – Beyonce – these songs use chest, head & mixed voice. Really great song to explore your registers.

« LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE (PT II) – Rihanna – really great song to highlight the difference & control needed to sing well in both the head (chorus/bridge) and chest voice (verses).

« MERCY – Duffy – Mainly in chest, but the “You better believe” part of the chorus is very much in the head voice. Great song to play around with (nice & rhythmic)

« THE A TEAM – Ed Sheernan – because this is a boys song, it’s nicely placed that you’ll probably need to use both registers to sing this one! It’s good for both boys and girls as it will just help to develop control AND tone.

« EMPIRE STATE OF MIND – Alicia Keyes – the ‘ooo’s’ are in the head voice while the verse is sung low in the chest voice and the chorus’ are sung in the mixed voice register.

In next month’s column I want to write about how to build and control your belting voice. It sits in your mixed voice register and needs a huge amount of help from your diaphragm! But this will mean you can bring more volume to your sound and you’ll be able to sing more confidently. You’ll also bring more texture to your voice, which will mean you can use it more instrumentally. I often meet young singers who specifically want to work on this area of their voice… so if you’re the same – this one will be for you!

We’ll specifically look at songs by Rihanna and Lady Gaga, but make sure you keep up with your diaphragm exercises so that we can tackle these big songs confidently!

Have fun with the songs. There’s lots of practice. I hope you all have a fab summer and I know that all the tutors and I are really looking forward to a great new Vocademy Term in September.

Bubsie :0)