Forum

Post edited 9:45 am – January 8, 2010 by weljoe

dear Sir Ian,

that sound very terrific, i imagine know your studio are very amazing and you can teach us good as well..

keep up the Good work..Sir Ian..

in the half of aussie vocal coach . com
Sir Ian

We love you..

joel

Hi there,

I am happy to listen to your mp3.  You can send it to me at aussievocalcoach@gmail.com

Ian

Hi myworld.

Yes I received it.  I have some spare time tonight to have a listen and give you some feedback. 

Hello, I was wondering what to do about the mixed voice or maybe just extending my chest voice.

On a good day I can reach an Ab4 (I think it's 4, I don't know the numbers well–if it helps I am a tenor), usually my cap is an F#4. This is not without strain, my F# sometimes is accompanied by a tightness and it goes without saying that when my chest voice reaches the Ab it is tight and almost uncomfortable.

The sound I want isn't a classical sound–I want to sing high notes freely and lightly with songs like David Archuleta's, and most definitely NOT like for example the Jonas Brothers who sound like the notes are strangling them. The problem is, I don't think my voice is high enough to do the songs I like (the highest song I can think of that I want to be able to sing in the original key reaches up to a belted D5 by the male vocalist).

I got Brett Manning's CD's in hopes that he could solve this problem but alas after listening to four of the 12 CD's I hear him doing nothing but vocal warm-ups and scales, etc. and saying things like “here's where your mixed voice should come in,” etc. when in reality I can't do mixed voice; he never said how even though his advertisement said he would teach it which is why I got it. Knowing when it should happen isn't enough for me to do it if I don't know how to do it.

My voice has two modes that I am able to do: a chest voice and a falsetto. I can do falsetto from F4 all the way to B5. I can put a lot of power behind my falsetto, but it's still definitely a falsetto and not a head voice even if it sounds a lot like a head voice (unless falsetto and head voice are supposed to feel exactly the same). That of course leaves me not knowing how to do head voice either; “make it lighter” just makes me do my chest voice more unsupported which makes it break on lower notes.

I asked my choir leader for help and she told me to yell “hey” to a note on a piano and that by hitting the note on “hey” I would be able to sing it. Well that didn't work very well, because my “hey” range is the same as the chest voice range I've already established by myself.

What I don't understand is how so many singers can make their chest and mixed voices sound exactly the same to the point where I didn't realize there was a difference until Brett Manning insisted there was (even though in his demonstrations the difference is evident and in actual music I listen to it most certainly is not). I am getting extremely frustrated because I can find no resources AT ALL that teach how men can do head voice and mixed voice, only scales that say “okay when you sing this note it is head voice and when you sing this note it is chest voice.” Well, I can understand that my break isn't in that exact place but what I can't understand is how magically by doing lip trills and humming arpeggios and scales I'm going to suddenly have a head and mixed voice when I've been doing those for six years and nothing is different at all except maybe a LOSS of range. Proper breathing and correcting my jaw-jutting problems are the only things I've taken from Brett Manning's program, and those are from the workbook, not even from the CD's I've spent countless hours listening to. While they help me reach that Ab4 more consistently that alone certainly didn't improve my range.

I just don't know what to do anymore because all these resources are saying the same thing, but it's things I've always been doing and things that have never worked for me; things that don't just magically produce two new registers in my voice and logically shouldn't. There should be something that I should be DOING to sing a note in chest voice, falsetto, mixed, or head voice, but nothing says how to physically differentiate between the two, I've been given no actual technique to produce these different registers despite money and hours being spent, and I'm right where I started.

Hi Mike and T,

Very popular topic and deserves a detailed response.  I will reply in full tomorrow night.  Busy 2 days ahead of me.

Ian

mikec said:

I got Brett Manning's CD's in hopes that he could solve this problem but alas after listening to four of the 12 CD's I hear him doing nothing but vocal warm-ups and scales, etc. and saying things like “here's where your mixed voice should come in,” etc. when in reality I can't do mixed voice; he never said how even though his advertisement said he would teach it which is why I got it. Knowing when it should happen isn't enough for me to do it if I don't know how to do it.

Hi Mikec,

I'm assuming you have Singing Success. The thing with Singing Success is that it teaches you to stay connected throughout your vocal range e.g. the “nay nay nay” exercise but it doesn't teach you how to use the mix. So if you are doing the exercises properly, you probably have a mix, it's just that it's not very powerful. Which happens to be the same thing in my case. I'm guessing that Brett Manning's new product Mastering Mix teaches you how to strengthen the mix to a more chesty sound. Here's a review which has an overview of the all the CDs: http://www.singingsuccessonlin…..amp;t=1081