When I think back to the voice training I have had (6 different teachers in the past 20 years), speech level singing was the eye-opening experience for me. That is not to say that the classical training I had wasn’t useful….because it was….in many ways….but in other ways, it was detrimental.
It wasn’t until I took speech level singing lessons that I found a teacher who understood the actual bridging of my voice (and taught me to understand it)! I was vocalizing through three passagi in the first lesson and over 2 and a half octaves. I had never experienced that in all the previous lessons I had taken.
The blending of the registers is key, in my opinion, to developing a strong and healthy voice in all registers. Here are three favourite links to teachers who teach “mixing” and blending registers (formerly called speech level singing).
http://www.singingsuccess.com/
http://www.vocaladvancement.com/