So what are head voice and chest voice? How can you identify these registers in your voice to improve your singing? In this article, we’ll help you to identify these registers in your voice and get started navigating. When you hear someone sing perfectly and effortlessly from a high to a low register or vice versa, it’s not because they were born without registers. It’s because they worked very hard at navigating them and changing them.
The chest voice and the head voice have different characteristics. The chest voice, also called the m1 register, has a fuller tone, and it is where most people speak. The word “chest” arises from the fact that you can feel the vibration in your chest when you put your hand in your chest and sing in a chest voice, especially if you sing anything very low.
The head voice is also known as a register m2. The tone of the head voice is less powerful than the chest voice. If you place your hand in your chest and engage the head voice, you will no longer feel any vibration. Many of you will experience a pinging sensation in your brain when singing in head voice. Many people may feel vibrations at the back of their neck if they put their hands there. It’s not as powerful as the chest voice, so don’t be disappointed if you can’t hear it. If you’re unsure how to do the head voice, make a siren or a Mickey Mouse cartoon sound. Here are three steps to help you identify your chest voice and head voice, as well as navigate your registers:
Step one is to get used to your head voice.
Most of us have a very powerful chest voice, which we use every day, but for the head voice, if it’s not very strong, you don’t use it very often and practice that head voice.
Create a voice map
Find your vocal and sing along with it step by step until your chest voice stops and your head voice begins. Then write down the progress.
Sing a song with both chest and head voices.
Listen to the song and notice when the singer uses their chest voice vs their head voice. Have fun with your singing.
See also How To Create Healthy Voice For Singer
After we’ve talked about it, you’re probably asking if you can simply engage the whole vocal fold as high as you want or if you can just sing in chest voice with this full vocal fold as high as you want. Well, no. Because there is a muscle inside each of your two vocal folds, it’s this muscle inside called the ta muscle, the thyroarytenoid muscle. This muscle is responsible for shortening your vocal folds to generate lower tones. Another muscle involved in creating higher pitches in your voice is the CT, or cricket thyroid muscle, which is in charge of expanding your vocal folds.
There is a point at which the two vocal folds may learn to work together, and when they do, you get that smooth break, right? Rather than making these two muscle groups work against each other, you should learn to make them work together, which you can do through practice.
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