A Vocal Technique Exercise for Blending Registers and Mix-Belting // Ep. 314

0:00Hi, welcome back to the Sing confidently live creatively podcast style here. I'm a singer, actor and vocal coach here to help you love confidence in your singing voice. I live a creative life. That's what this show is all about. And today we are going into a new exercise that I would love to share with you that I've been using with my students and working on with my own voice for the last month or month and a half or so. And I've seen that it really is helpful for students with blending registers and also with developing the mix, which helps you in blending your registers, mixing through your registers help you to coordinate that transition from mode one singing or chest voice singing or thick chords, however you want to define it to mode two singing, which is more what we call also head voice or lighter singing, lighter register, thin chords. And so as we are transitioning through that through those different registers,

1:01especially for higher voices, we have multiple, we have two different Pasagios or break points that we have to trans traverse. And for lower voices, you have the one Pasagio for the most part that you have to traverse. And so we need to learn how to do that. How do we go from one register to another without having this big break in our voices and we call that register blending or the technique, one of the techniques to blending your register in the main one is to mix is to really develop that coordination in your muscles and your and your resonance and your vowel shaping all of them work hand in hand to help you to traverse that transition to help you do that without having a crack, unless you are intentionally wanting to make that flip or a break more intentional. And that's great. But this is at least giving you another option that you don't have to and it gives you more autonomy and control as a singer. So I'm going to show you the exercise. We're going to do it together all the way through a few different modulations,

2:05different keys. And then I'm going to break down how you can also work through this episode through this exercise to help you with developing more of that mix and even belting in a mix. I'm getting a little bit more slightly a little bit more compression and stretch to help you to help your muscles to be able to mix while you're also creating the resonance space that's going to help your voice be amplified and sound like a belt if you want to do that. OK, so if you have any questions, you guys know where to find me. You can find me on the Facebook group at creatively by Estelle.com slash community. You can also find me on Instagram at Creatively by Estelle. If you have any questions about any of the anything that I'm talking about today or about this exercise, all right, let's jump into the exercise. So I'm going to be starting on, I'm going to start on a, let's see. Yeah, I'm going to start on the A below middle C and I'll be playing the lower part as

3:06well as the upper register. So the lower register and the upper register for my lower voices as well. But I'm a, I'm a higher voice. So I'll be singing the higher register heads up. All right, let me make sure that you can hear me and then we will go together. We're saying, whoa, whoa, and that's it. And as you get up higher on the top part of that exercise, you can think about releasing your jaw a little bit, creating some space in the back of your mouth as we get up higher. Here we go. Whoa. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

4:06Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow

5:08Very good. If you had any trouble with any of those notes, feel free to go back and do a gentle warm-up. Like any of the episodes that I've had before that are just gentle warm-ups, getting your voice going and then come back to this exercise. If you felt like it was a little bit hard to do the stretching and contracting as you went up and down in our voices. But also feel free to just drop out whenever it gets too high or too low, as always. Okay, now that is a basic exercise. Now if you want to work on this to help you to develop belting in that mixed part of your voice, I'm going to start a little bit higher, I'm going to start on D above middle seam, so D4 right here. And what we're going to do is we're going to think about vowel shaping, creating a resonant space that has more of what we call forward resonance towards the front of your mouth.

6:11This allows for you to get a little bit more of a melody sound. Your voice is going to be amplified a little bit more. And it's kind of like what we call it, we call it like a trumpet shape because your mouth is like wider in the front of your mouth versus the back of your mouth. You have more space in the front of your mouth, which is really important as you get higher because your larynx is going to get higher in your throat. And your pharynx and as your larynx gets higher, you have less space in the back of your mouth or in the back of your throat rather. And so you need, you can create more space by opening up your mouth a little bit wider so you can create that amplification effect. And it's going to just allow you, as you build this and as you work on this technique, it's going to allow you to make sure that you are getting amplification without pushing without having to contract too much and tighten too much and tense up in your vocal folds. We don't really, we need a little bit of compression as you're getting higher but not too much overly compressing and squeezing there around your vocal folds. Instead, we want to take that pressure off of there and direct the sound more towards

7:14the front of your mouth, allowing yourself to get that resonant and that amplification of your pitch. Okay, so the way we're going to do that is as we get up from, as you go from, whoa, that's me doing it in just general mix, I'm just mixing through my restures, whoa, you can hear there's no break there really, there's a little bit but it's like very, very minimal. Now if I want to make it a little bit more powerful at the top, I'm going to change my vowel to more from, whoa, to, whoa, a little bit more of an, uh, as I get to the middle, uh, and then as I get higher as we go up to higher keys, I'm going to change that top note to more of an A or an A placement, really an A, I would say A is best, whoa, whoa, whoa, and you can hear, sorry my piano, you can hear that as I got up higher, I was

8:15a little bit louder at that time, this time I'm going to, and you can adjust for yourself. I'm going to make sure that I'm even more distinct in my at the top and really create it, lifting my top lip to create like that apple bite, like I'm biting an apple, that kind of shape as well, whoa, you also can tell that I slowed it down intentionally, that allowed myself to really get that stretch to help my voice coordinate in that, um, and get used to the rest in space that I was giving in, and it also helps me in my, um, breath support, making sure that I'm really allowing the correct amount of breath pressure versus a flow foundation versus flow of my air, so taking that slowly is a great way to do this as well. All right, let's try it on a couple different keys together, and again, you want to go from whoa, whoa, two more than, uh, and then stretch it up to an A, relax, releasing

9:19the jaw open, lifting the top lip a bit, and really directing that sound right to the, uh, from your mouth, right behind your teeth, and behind your lips, as you go up, again, it's going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, and then you transition right back to the O as you come back lower. Let's do it. Here we go. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that is the exercise, it's really simple, it's just whoa, you're saying whoa, however the way that you are directing your sound, the way that you are choosing your placement, your vowel shaping of your mouth, your tip, your teeth, your tongue, I didn't even talk

10:20about the tongue, but making sure your tongue is right behind your teeth, and it's not too tight in the back, all of that can change the sound, you're, we're making the exact same sounds that we were making at the beginning, however, when we did it this time, we were doing it with a different intention, our sound was different because our vowel shaping was different, and because our vowel shaping was different, that then affects the volume, your amplification, your resonance, and that also affects how your vocal folds are acting and how they are coordinating, and that affects how your air flow is coordinating too, how much air is flowing versus how much air is still creating a little bit of pressure as they compress, and so it's all happening so quickly. You know, your vocal folds are vibrating so, so, so many times a second, and so it's, it's so much that it's going on, however, as you continue to do this exercise, as you practice it, as you review it, you try it again and again, in different ways, in different vowel shapes, and you try it for yourself, you're going to see, you're going to notice how

11:24your voice is able to coordinate, how your muscles are able to work together to help you to transition from one register, mode one, to the other register, mode two, and then back down to mode one, and so as you work on this, try it for yourself, see how it goes for you, and let me know if you have any questions, if there's something that isn't quite working, I would love to know, I want, I want you to DM me on Instagram, comment in the Facebook group, feel free to email me, if you don't want to do either of those, all my information is in the show notes below every single time and on my website, and you can also just grab a lesson with me, if you're like, I really just need to work this out with you real quick, you can grab a lesson with me for 30 minutes or an hour, or you can do a free 15-minute consultation, and that's all at my website at creativelybyastyle.com slash studio, so just go and, I'm stumbling on my words, you guys, it is early, okay, just go and check it out, and let me know if you have any questions I would love to help you, all right, that's

12:26all I have for you today, have an amazing day, and I'll talk to you later. Thank you so, so much for listening to today's episode, and to this show, I'm so in awe of you for being here and showing up for your creative gifts, that takes courage. Don't forget to join the Performing Arts Community on Facebook for support and inspiration as you continue on your journey, if this episode helped or inspired you in any way, please leave a review on Apple Podcast and share it with someone, it means so, so much. Thank you again, and don't forget to keep singing, acting, dancing, performing, and living creatively. Talk to you next time.