Hello! I am a little worried
dk_
Member Posts: 32
To be quick to the point,
As I was doing scales after a year break then a lesson with Ken,
I started the exercises again with corrections of my bad habits.
I noticed when I get to the "bridge" in my voice. my voice becomes VERY airy and I can't get good chord closure when im CROSSING UNLESS I stay in my upper mid chest voice and push my chest voice up a little more.
Is this normal or is my voice damaged?
Thank you
Comments
It's normal if you have stretched the range of your chest voice higher than it used to be, which is normally a good thing. So don't get airy, and stay in chest voice to the higher range you can now reach and cross over to head voice at a higher note.
I bridge much higher than I used to. After you get stabilized from your long break, should be able to bridge where you want to, but higher is a good thing. It means you have more chest voice to work with now.
Bob
As you are stretching the chest voice you will reach a point where you can't keep your throat relaxed and open as you try to go higher. That's just part of the process of stretching. I means we can't just keep on going up until our voice catches up, which may be a while. Focus on trying to relax the whole back of the throat area. That whole area, including the palate, can feel tense when you don't know how to relax it.
I recommend focusing on support any time you are feeling a lot of tension. You can't benefit from tension in the throat, but you can relieve tension in the throat by instead tensing the support muscles. Those are the only muscles that are OK to put tension in, so have at it. Transfer your tension from your chest, neck, and throat down to your abdominal muscles and to pressing downward on the diaphragm. That's OK and will help you in many ways.
If all we had to do was stretch and "Boom!" the voice could hit all the notes, then everybody would instantly have a six-octave range. Instead, we take the voice as high as we can and stop when we run out of notes that we can clearly hit. We are waiting for our voice to grow. By stretching it, we are telling it we want more range, and it will gradually grow in that direction, but not immediately.
It's probably a good idea to do the scales lightly in the area that does not yet have much strength. Then, as you are able, begin to lean into those notes a little more, and they will begin to grow. Don't be in too much of a hurry. Growth takes time, and trying to rush it can create setbacks.
Work on trying to gently get a little more cord closure and throat relaxation in the bridge.
Give that a try and see if working that way helps you to build your bridge to a more consistent sound.
Bob
@dk_
Yes, when Ken says to do the workouts lightly, that means at a lower volume, or "softly".
If you are using too much air pressure, your voice may break at the passagio. You have to train yourself to connect at lighter volumes and very gradually add a little more volume until you train your voice to smoothly connect at higher notes and higher air pressures (volume).
Your bridge should eventually get easier to connect as you continue to train as described above.
Both of the vocalists in the videos are using head voice in their highest notes. At times they are in a mix. At other times they are in extended chest voice.
These guys are pretty good.
Bob