Ah stretch/bridging, what do I do physically to stay in chest?

KirKe

Hello,

this is my first video. I hope I am doing this correct.
Above the B4 I am always not sure, if I am in chest- or mix voice. And I do not know exactly know what to do physically, to stay in chest above the C5. Is it to use the vowel modifacions later? Is it something with the support or the mouth shape? And I also don't know where my transition from mix into head voice is. Or how to hear the difference.
I post two videos one where I am bridging and one where I try to stretch.
And can you tell from the exercise wether I am an alto or a mezzo? I know it is not that important.

And aside from that: are the exercises done ok?
Thank you very much.



https://youtu.be/Jpyxbj0ZwK8

Klaus_T

hi, to stay in chest you can shout a bit more at the top note (it is a crutch to learn the feeling, in the long run you want he notes to have even volume across the board). imagine the "hey stop stealing the car" across the street thing that Ken talks about. you would not say that in a "speaking to a baby"-voice. this is your chest register, and if you over-pronounce this at the top, it helps you to stay there. be aware that you want to eventually get back to even-volume notes. but for the time being it is a good trick to be sure to stay in chest and actually get some stretch work happening. there is a limit where your voice cannot be in chest up top anymore, this is why we stretch. i am not so good with the note values, but maybe you hit your current ceiling there? in order to learn the difference between head and chest, i suggest doing the better pitch exercises, Ken has some pointers in there that are helpful to many students. you can also feel where the voice resonates, it is a bit tricky in the beginning but with resonance building it will become more clear. as for the exercise you posted, the scales you sit out, you could also just skip the highest notes and do the rest to maximize training time, i.e. just skip the peak of each scale as opposed to the whole scale. you are bringing down the mods, listen to the first and last note in each scale. they should ideally sound identical. try to use the same mod on the way up and down.

good work in general. being patient and persistent, and posting scales for feedback, is the way to go

KirKe

Thank you very much.