Building strength and support in the E4-A4 area

dThomas

Hello, I am a tenor (16 years old as of today) and I am trying to build good cord closure, resonanse, and strength from the areas around E4-A4. This is what I know so far: I should not belt out all my air which would dry out my vocals cords, I should choose the right vowel, good support of course, compress a little, and resonance is king in this area. I was wondering if anyone has any exercises to build this segundo passagio/chesty mix/belt/TA dominant mix area. I'm pretty sure I need to build strength to my TA muscle to allow for this to happen. I've heard many coaches talk about glottal stop, stop and go, and glottal "attack" exercises, but I'm not sure how valid these exercises are. I can sing with good cord closure, support, and compression above A4 to around E5, it's just this passagio area that's tripping me up because my voice gets weak, droppy, and dopey. If anyone has any exercises or tips to build my TA muscle and the E4-A4 area, it would be greatly appreciated!

sjonrokz4u

If your not taking kens course go to you tube and look through his free videos. Lots of stuff there

Wigs

Have a look at @Klaus_T Page where he has listed a bunch of Kens videos to create a workout from. I often suspect that most people have enough regular strength in their TA for singing, its the proper application of it that needs training and time to grow. Glottal compression is a more advanced technique that you shouldn't worry about until you have a very nice bright ping. This ping alone means you are already starting to use the fundamental techniques effectively. If you are Pinging brightly now, then try to incorporate it.

By the sounds of it, you need to start trying to bring your chest voice up through E4-A4. Do your best to stay in chest through here, if you cant make it, its ok, stop and come back down. Take note of where you stopped to try again the next day. Also do the same scale but bridge into head voice around the top of the exercise for starters, to warm up your voice and practice a smooth transition from chest to head.

dThomas

When I try to stay in chest voice, where should I place the sound, where should the sound resonate?

bentk

Did you watch all the free content on youtube yet? Maybe even some of the webinars? You'll be surprised how much information is given. Of course, it's not as complete as the course itself (and not ordered as nice). Also the other way round: some of the youtube videos are even a good addition to the course. Especially the webinars and 'how to sing like' videos.