How far should I stretch chest voice as a baritone?

mmeixner

Ken recommended in his Volume 1 videos to bring up or stretch the chest voice as high as you can and then hand it off to the head voice. As of right now, I can bring my chest voice up to an F#4/G4, and then it 'breaks' and I move into my head voice. How far should I stretch my chest register as a baritone?

Dan_NZ

@mmeixner I'm about the same upper range as you, however I started barely getting to an Eb4. I'm keen to get to at least A4 as I find having a couple of semitones above the range of the song provides a nice buffer. You could also treat the stretching as just part of your practice routine and see where it goes.

highmtn

There is no fixed limit. You can take it as far as you are willing to do the work to get there. Don't strain. Stretch. Be gentle and be patient. A lot of baritones can make it to C5, but not all, and certainly not without a lot of time and effort. Notes like B4 and C5 are really difficult to get to, initially. Once you figure out all of the things you have to do to get there, it becomes easier to get to those notes. It's just a process of training your muscles and coordinating through all of those factors.

Most baritones are really happy when they make it to a solid G4. You may be there for a good while, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're done. It's kind of like "base camp" on Mt Everest.

mmeixner

Thanks! I'll work on it