Chest voice exercises

ISHMAEL

Hello everyone, i have some confusion like how do i know if i have a strong chest voice or not? Or at least how do I know i'm building it correctly?
Secondly, i'm currently doing exercises on an Ah vowel, and i'm not sure how long i should be doing them, they take around 15 min, can you guys help me?

Klaus_T

good question. in the course, the exercises are laid out so that it builds a strong chest voice first (among other things), so we don't really have to think about it. to give you a general idea, it takes several years for someone who starts from scratch to get to the point where they start the part of the course that focuses on head voice (you might have heard Ken say that you can atrophy chest if you start to sing in head voice too much without chest being strong enough). it depends on a few factors (like age and how strong your voice is naturally), but I don't think i will start this head voice segment until i have done the course for about at least 3-3,5 years (i am about 2,5 years into the course now). i am not sure if it is typical, and i am also not so much in a hurry, i like punk vocals which are more chest-heavy and distorted. this is on about 1 hour 5x a week (not all the training time is in full chest though).

15 minutes is a good starting point and will get your voice stronger for sure. as I think i will have mentioned to you in another thread earlier, the ideal way is of course to do Ken's course, it removes the guess work on your end, and Ken wasted a lot of time researching and practicing all of this, so we don't have to

another thing, when i started the course, i had sung for about 4 years without any guidance (or talent), and i thought i didn't know how to flip into head voice at first and only knew how to stay in chest. turned out, it was more a matter of being confused about the terminology. i was releasing into head voice all the time, and not in a good way now that i learned to stay in chest, i am so much closer to the singers i am trying to copy, and before, i just knew it sounded wrong, but i didn't know why (obviously, that wasn't the only problem, but one of them).

why do i say this? there is a thing that Ken likes to talk about, unconscious incompetence. it means that you are "unaware of being unaware" of what you are meant to do. i.e., be careful, you might think you are doing one thing, but you are really doing something else. a lot of the things related to singing only become clear after months (or even years) of practice (they cannot be explained but have to be experienced; you can be guided there, but ultimately there is no other way than going there yourself). so especially if you don't have the course, you should read on these forums as much as possible, and also ask as much as possible, to fill as many gaps as you can, and to make sure you are as close to Ken's concepts as possible. because they do work!

ISHMAEL

I know what ken teaches is true, because they make sense and he clearly demonstrate what he's teaching his students to attain with his own voice, you can't ask for more clarity than this.
I'm 29 yo now, i can sing in chest voice and belt, but what i'm trying to do is increasing my chest voice range so that i can belt in higher notes with a chesty mixed voice without having to tin out the sound if you get what i'm saying, and that's why i'm doing those exercises.
Unfortunately i can't afford to get ken's course right now cuz i'm not in the best financial situation lol, and obviously i'm not gonna stop trying to learn how to improve my singing.
Thanks for the reply, i'll do my best to keep my eye on forum and ken's videos.

codeowl

@ISHMAEL,

Out of the following, which are all important:
- Keep my larynx in a slightly lowered position.
- Raise my soft palate.
- Using mask (helps raise soft palate and get that bright ping)
- Open the back of my jaw, (this helps with the larynx position)
- Applying support and breath control

I found that the combination of the first 2 make the biggest difference in moving my chest voice up in pitch. It really bought the resonance up into the space created by lifting the soft palate, and moving up in pitch, while staying in chest voice became so much more efficient. I no longer needed to push it up there, I could keep my throat open and there was no strain. It was like night and day when worked this out in regards to the difference it made to singing higher in chest voice.

Regards,

Scotty