I wanted to talk about this type of voice, because the configuration to get it isn’t what most people think.

When I have a student trying to sing in this style, I quite often hear a lot pf chest register being yelled at a high pitch that usually sounds dull, painful and, to say the least, quite unpleasant.

It isn’t uncommon for singers to try and duplicate this type of sound with their chest voice…it is however, the wrong approach.

Instead, the singer needs the practise “twang” in the head register. (Try quacking like a duck, or sounding nasty like a witch). You should be able to do this easily without any constriction or tightening in the throat. What usually happens is the head voice is not able to twang easily, and the student will over-compensate with throat muscles. Sometimes the singer will “flip” into falcetto mode.

Both Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood have a superb ability to twang in their head register. This gives the listener the illusion of a powerful chest register volume, when in fact, they are not using much chest register at all. They are, in fact, in a middle voice/head register configuration with a lot of twang.

Secondly, the vocal cords are under a great deal of breath pressure. In other words, the singer is able to hold back a lot of breath without flipping to falcetto.  This ability allows for great mouth and head resonance and again gives the listener the illusion of great power and volume.

Two singers that come to mind that do sing too high in their chest register at times are Adele and Christine Aguilera. Even though they both sing very differently, they both sing very loud and very high in their low register. Christine Aguilera has only had trouble with this as she has gotten older. Her ability to sing in a loud chest, middle and head voice mode through her entire range when she was younger made her a superstar.  She is still a superb singer, but as she gets older her cords have probably thickened from singing so hard in her chest register. Thick folds can make it hard for a singer to ascend into their head register and keep control of their voice.

Do you have any questions or comments? Please leave them here.