The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Anyone got tips on singing up and down the gap between chest and head voice?

I've been reading up on it and practicing:
- humming, 'lip-rolling', and ah-ing short scales up and down
- singing songs that bridge the (for me) problem zone
- concentrating on breathing from diaphragm, relaxing neck muscles etc.

I can roughly sing from the bass E on a guitar to the treble E, but the G to B in the middle give trouble. Voice breaks or falls away or yodels involuntarily; it seems to change in character when switching to head voice (as if a different person started singing); and I find it hard to keep my throat from constricting at these notes, even though I can sing high C to E/F in head voice pretty relaxed.

Do you guys have other tips, other than "practice and be patient" (which is a good one for sure)? Cheers -PS

Practice talking/singing in fake accents (French for head, Russian/Portuguese for chest, maybe?). Not that I've tried this, but it sounds like the sort of physical mnemonic that might have a chance of working. For me, that is.

Take a voice lesson or two and tell them you want to focus on this issue.

I suspect that point changes as your voice strengthens or weakens. I would practice those notes in both places and find which way things are least stressful on your voice.

Ken

Well, it changes in that as your vocal strength increases you can sing higher without switching to falsetto. I believe the point where your voice naturally "wants" to flip is physiological and doesn't change much. At least, it hasn't for me.

I like to do sirens at various speeds, concentrating on feeling the flip occur and changing the musculature in my throat to smooth out the change. In my head, I liken it to smoothing out a bump when riding a bicycle-- kind of lifting up on the bike a bit to make my body act as a sort of shock absorber. If you can find some kind of visualization like that it may help.

JB

I find it helps both pitch and bridging the chest/head thing to picture each note you sing as moving further and further out in front of you INSTEAD of as moving up or down. This advice has helped me a lot.

EDIT: I think this works because when your mind thinks you're going up or down to a higher or lower note, it triggers certain unwanted physiological responses. This method tries to avoid those triggers.

I needed some audio to get a better idea of the two. Hello youtube. For those, like me, that don't know this stuff, here are some vids. For those that already know everything, make us a vid.
What is head vs chest voice
Head voice
I "think" this is a good example, but I'm no expert, lol.
Of course as usual, just click the vids to the right for all of the lessons in one minute chunks.

Transpose every song you play into E. Getting better at singing is for fags.

yea what he said! i thought i was the only one with voices in my head...

Thanks for the ideas. The 'picture higher notes farther away' in particular rings true but I reckon it varies from person to person.

Sticking to the same ol' key was my old strategy, but you're screwed when you want to sing along in a jam or to the radio, and sometimes it forces you to play wicked chord positions rather than the smooth ones that would match a higher key.

YouTube indeed sports a bunch of vocal teachers, found the following helpful:
http://www.youtube.com/user/kieferton
http://www.youtube.com/user/francotenelli
http://www.youtube.com/user/EricArceneaux
Not tried yet:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Aaron08832

cheers -PS