A great expressive tool for your singing

Light, delicate, thin. Full-bodied, meaty, strong.

These are words that many of my singing students use to describe the tone quality of different vocal registers if I ask them to try.

And they're spot on.

Most people, singers, non-singers, trained, untrained, recognise these sound textures if you ask them to listen closely.

So, what are the vocal registers anyway, and why are they useful?

What actually are the vocal registers?

Most people know registers as head voice, chest voice, and falsetto. (They actually have nothing to do with the head and chest, but these are just well-known terms.)

Think of them like gears

The vocal registers are like the gears of the voice. We need to be in lower gear for lower notes and higher gear for higher notes, like being in second and third gear in a car or on a bike.

We absolutely do need to change at some point in our range, but there is a zone of notes where we can choose to be in either gear. That zone is approximately B3 to B4 on the keyboard. (pretty much the middle octave on the piano)

PIC

Your 'choice zone'

So-called head voice, (which is technically, officially labelled M2) is what we need for the higher notes, and it has a lighter, more delicate, thinner, tender sound, as I described at the beginning.

So-called chest voice (officially M1) is what we need to use for the lower notes in our range. It has a thicker, meatier, more full-bodied tone.

Since there is a certain range of notes where we have choice about which one to use (and everyone's is slightly different) ... the beauty of controlling your vocal registers is that it gives you a great expressive tool for your singing.

Painting your song with different colours

For example, when you sing an F4 (the F above middle C ) - if that's within your transition zone - you could sing it in head voice or chest voice. So you can give that note a lighter or heavier sound. Do you see now how you can use this to express the lyrics of a song with different nuances?

I do this a lot.

For example, if the chorus of a song consists of or contains notes in my 'choice zone', then I could sing that chorus first time round in chest voice; and second time round in head voice. That gives a different feel, a different mood. So the listener hears a journey, a progression in the song, which gives them a deeper emotional experience.

Or if your verses (or parts of them) are in your transition zone, then you could sing, for example, Verse 1 more in head voice and Verse 2 more in chest voice. The first verse would sound more tender, weak, and vulnerable; the second would sound more assertive, strong and defiant. That might fit perfectly with the actual lyrics and story of the song.

Do you see how fun this can be? YOU choosing what emotional colours to paint your song with, to give it an engaging experience for your audience, and also to express the meaning of the song more authentically.

Explore this for yourself

So play around with your transition zone. Use a keyboard or piano if you have one, or if not, I'm sure you can find an app. Experiment with each of the notes in that range, and see if you can produce these qualities.

A quick word on your natural flip point

Women's natural or default change point / flip point will usually be higher in that range. Mine is typically F to A. And men's switch point tends to be at the lower end. But as we get more control over the registers, we can use them deliberately across a wider range of notes.

Check out my YouTube video where I actually demonstrate these register qualities.

I hope you have fun exploring this!

It's a core part of our voice; we can't avoid it, so we might as well use it as an expressive ingredient, as a hue in our vocal artist's colour palette, rather than have those changes happen unconsciously or by accident.

There is a lot more nuance to this topic, and I'll share it with you sometime soon in another blog post.

If this has got you excited to explore what your own voice can do, I'd love to help you get there.

Maybe you've got an open mic or a gig on the horizon, a choir you want to feel more confident singing in, or songs of your own you're longing to sing better. Maybe you just want your voice to match what you hear in your head. Whatever it is for you, that's exactly what I do with my students.

You can book a free consultation with me here, and we'll have a proper chat about your voice, where you are now, and where you'd love to take it.

Come and follow your musical heart. I'd love to help you step into your full potential. 🎶