“Head” voice is a term used to describe the type of voice that creates a ringing sensation in singer’s head, as opposed to the “chest” voice, which causes the vibrations to be felt mainly in the chest. The difference results from the alteration in the shape and the thickness of the vocal folds, specific to these two voices. Head voice should not be confused with falsetto, the highest register of the male voice. Falsetto is not used in classical singing; it may be used in humorous imitation of the female voice, and in certain range-extension drills.
Head voice occurs over a series of pitches where the vocal folds are stretched and thin. This thinning is a result of the increased activity of the cricothyroid (CT) muscle (vocal fold lengthener) and decreased activity of the thyroarytenoid (TA), or vocalis muscle (vocal fold tightener), which is the muscular body of the vocal folds. Head voice is sometimes referred to as the “lighter mechanism” of the voice because there is less vocal fold mass involved in its production. Head voice is usually described as bright and ringing.
The two muscle groups described above are used by classical singers to vary the pitch of the sound they produce. The singer can tighten/shorten the TA muscle, which raises the pitch; he can also stretch/thin the vocal folds by using the CT muscle, which does so by tilting the thyroid cartilage (the Adam’s apple). Trained singers use both these mechanisms, as well as the mix of the two, in order to access and acoustically equalise and smoothen their entire vocal range.
For various reasons, including social habits, the male voice has a chest-dominant quality to its speaking voice, while the female voice has a head-dominant quality. It stands to reason that over the years, the dominant register of the two voices will be the one that is most developed. As a result, men seldom have a well-developed head voice without having specifically trained it. The consequence is a limited vocal range and no access to high notes.
While the chest voice is resonant, warm and masculine, it can only take the singer up to his 1st passaggio, an important pivotal point in every voice where the switch from “chest” to “head” must begin. Baritones can find it hard to sing above C# or D, and tenors above E or F by using the chest voice only. If they continue to ascend in the chest mode beyond the 1st passaggio they will strain the voice, forcibly raise the larynx and turn the voice into a yell and eventually break into the comedic falsetto. Note that raising the larynx is an alternative (the third) pitch changing mechanism, and undesirable in elite classical singing.
It is worth noting that many female singers, even operatic professionals, can sing their entire range in the head voice. However, while not needing the chest voice that much, sopranos would benefit from having a well-developed chest voice. While the “chest” may not be used directly by a female singer, having it gives depth and fullness to her head voice.
In summary, female singers can live without the chest voice, while male singers must develop the head voice and use it in addition to their obligatory chest voice. When training male singers, the voice teacher must intervene to identify and develop the “unused” head register. Many young male singers attempt to sing classical repertoire using the only voice that they know, the chest voice. Their attempts result in a severely strained, uncontrolled, and spread sound as they ascend.
Male singers must understand how to relax the TA muscle and activate the CT muscles of the larynx as they approach the pivotal point called the 1st passaggio, enabling the voice to “turn”. To some readers this change may be known as “covering” the voice.
It is highly desirable that the head voice is demonstrated to the untrained singer, who may even be unaware of its existence. Many examples are available online. It does not take long to get the hang of the head voice, and it opens up a whole new world to a bass, baritone or tenor.
There are several approaches to teaching the head voice, depending on how developed the voice is – existent but undeveloped, or the student has no access to it at all.

Finding the Head Voice
Without a vocal instructor, finding the head voice requires some vocal exploration. Here are a few ideas.
·         For those males who have no access to it the first step is usually to learn to speak in head voice, imitating storytelling speech practiced by storytellers that use head voice for young characters in the story. 
·         Yawn sighs are the next step between speaking in head voice and singing in it: slur from the very top of the vocal range to the bottom and keep the voice light and airy.
·         Next, try an exaggerated, voiced sigh. Slide as slowly as possible, noting all the variations in the voice. Men have a natural break between their falsetto (highest notes) and head voice (next highest).
The next step is to sing in head voice.
·      Start with a yawn sigh and stop somewhere in the top of the voice and hold the note. If volume is added, the singer should suddenly find himself singing in the head voice. At first the brighter vocal sound may not be favourite to a male singer, but he will soon realise that it leads to greater vocal freedom as the singer learn to mix in the warmer sound of chest voice.
·    Sing “miaouw” in comfortable vocal range. The combination of vowels with encourage a high larynx position; while a high larynx is not a goal itself in classical singing, it facilitates finding the head voice.

​As I mentioned last week, I think that both poetry and music can have a great effect on our moods.  In fact I believe that music has an even greater effect on our moods than poetry, partly because much of it – and certainly the music that I enjoy most – is made by lots of people working together.
I think that if I had to choose eight discs to take to a desert island (I still think of pieces of music on discs – “Desert Island mp3s” doesn’t have quite the same alliterative ring to it!) many of the pieces of music would be from 100 years ago and further back.  That’s not because I don’t like modern music – I do – but because most pieces of music written these days are short and generally focused on one emotion – love, longing, anger, hope – so to get all those emotions in popular music written since the 1960s I would have to choose four “discs”.  However, if I were to choose “Messiah” (just to take one example of an older work) I would have all those emotions and more on one “disc”. 
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I don’t want this note to be longer than about 10 pages (I’ll bet some of you just skipped to the bottom to see if it IS that long! :-)) so I am only going to write about music that helps me to feel better if I’m fed up.   I won’t include music that might be helpful in other stressful situations – for example, if I had a job interview coming up, or if I had a difficult decision to make; if I were ill or if I needed to focus for the day ahead – though of course some of the music I listen to if I’m fed up can also be helpful in these situations.

​​Dear Friends
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This is the first in a series of three or four linked contributions to the blog from Johnny and me.  In this first one, I have written about how poetry helps me feel better.  In the next two Johnny and I will write about music.  As you read, you may like to think about music that helps you feel better, and please do share that with us if you can.  Problems can make you feel lonely, but sharing ideas helps us to feel connected again. 

Your ideas and suggestions will be drawn together into the fourth (and maybe fifth and sixth) contribution to this blog.  Or, of course, you could just write a contribution to the blog yourself :-)

Either way, please do tell us all about music and poetry that helps you at difficult times!  
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Best wishes,

Tim

A few years ago I was given a delightful book – “The Poetry Pharmacy”.  The author suggested that poetry is a powerful mood influencer and that it can (for example) help us to feel calmer if we are frustrated, happier if we are sad, and more determined if we are unsure.
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I really liked this idea, as it reflected my own experience, both with poetry and with music.  I mentioned this idea to Johnny a little while ago and he suggested that we write this blog.  Please do share your ideas…..are there special “go to” poems or pieces of music that really help you?​

For a budding singer there are several milestone events that mark a break-through in vocal technique and lead to a noticeable improvement in his/her vocalism. There are, of course the essential prerequisites: proper posture, breathing and breath support, and the concept of deep (beginning-of-a-yawn) inhalation, that all singers start from, but for many the really momentous experiences are:

• Realisation that singing is actually prolonged speaking, and adopting that concept.
• Discovery of the “head voice” for male singers
• Having said the above, realisation that the “chest voice” has to be further strengthen, because it will greatly assist the head voice, and the production of a consistently resonant sound throughout the vocal range; in short: finding resonance in voice.
  • Female voices experience a similar kind of step change once they find the way to produce a full, resonant voice in their high middle range and upwards ( from E5 up).

All of the above starts with a proper tone onset.

Tone onset (sometimes called “attack”) designates the beginning of phonation – setting the vocal folds in vibratory motion and thus initiating the sound.

The singing voice can only be as good, as good the tone onset is. In the well-regulated and balanced tone onset lies the germ of all good vocalism, and preparatory to it is the proper, deep inhalation.

Nothing in technical accomplishment in singing is more beneficial to the vocal instrument than the proper positioning of the vocal folds for a clean tone onset. The combination of laryngeal muscle action and exact degree of lung pressure and air flow provides the basis for good singing.
Many singing errors are corrected by going back to and practicing the clean attack.

If you can commit to only a few minutes on vocalising daily, the time best spent may well be to practice the balanced tone onset.

But before we consider the production of proper onset, let us first clarify what kind of voice will we use for that? We can sing a note in several ways, using different vocal positions, resulting in very different timbres.

Most schools of singing agree that teaching proper vocalism has to start from the speaking voice. But then, teaching singing via speaking voice requires to start from a proper tone onset. So, the two topics are inter-related, and I will cover them in a single article, starting with the description of how “singing is prolonged speaking”.

Singing is Prolonged Speaking
“What kind of voice to use when I start singing?” may sound like a funny question, but I cannot emphasise the following strongly enough: to sing by attempting to “sing” will not produce good vocal sound! The brain needs to be retrained to think differently about singing. “Singing” sounds hard, but “prolonged speech” sounds much easier. When you think of singing as “singing” it becomes difficult. This is because as soon as we start to think of singing as anything but prolonged speech, we try to sing, we try to make our voice sound like something it is not. And that is where we go wrong. Instead, we should focus on speaking and just holding the notes for longer. Singing is intensified speaking, elongated and musical, and the same is equally true for a beginner as it is for an international opera star; the latter sing the most demanding arias with conversational smoothness. To achieve it, a singer must have the ear that directs the instrument, and a sensitivity to manage the breath for a prolonged speaking voice. Many pedagogues point this out, but none as succinctly as J.A Cohen in his “Powerhouse Singing” book.

Let us illustrate the speaking-to-singing conversion. Say the word “no”, as if saying no to an unacceptable proposal. Then again so, but holding the “no” a bit longer. Now again but holding it for about 3 seconds; the sound may seem dull to you, but that is absolutely fine, the listener hears it differently. Finally, you say “no” as if calling it out to someone across the street who is about to fall in a ditch. Really give it a go and, while supporting the sound, hold the “no” for 5 seconds and let the voice ring. The two “no” sounds illustrate the kind of voice that you ought to produce when you sing notes in the low and the high registers. In vocal terminology, they roughly correspond to the “chest” and “head” voices. Lower notes are like a conversation with a friend, the high notes are like calling out to a friend across the street.

Starting with the speaking voice leads to mastering the free singing voice - one of the pillars of good singing. In the higher echelons of vocal mastery, freedom of voice ranks above the beauty of voice, because the latter can be fully developed only after the former has been perfected. The freedom must be nurtured from the beginning of vocal training: the singing voice must be taught to be free and unconstrained, and the throat, neck and jaw have to be relaxed at all times, irrespective of the vowel or the pitch sung. – Something hardly conceivable by an amateur singer.

How do we achieve a free voice?
It is essential to remove all constrictions. It is a constriction in the throat what causes the voice to sound poorly, and to feel that the voice is not free. This constriction problem is so important, that it merits an explanation in slightly more technical terms: The bulk of vocal folds consists of the vocalis muscle; it can tighten and loosen the folds, thus changing the pitch of the sung note (one of the three available pitch adjustment mechanisms in singing). However, sitting on top of the vocalis is another muscle whose function is solely to close the glottis when swallowing. We call it “false” vocal folds. We instinctively tend to tighten that muscle, and this creates a constricted larynx. To pass air through a constricted larynx requires an increase in lung air pressure. The true vocal folds consequently face high lung air pressure and must close tightly to control the air flow – causing constriction and the tension in the sound produced. The singer must be trained to retract the false vocal folds at all times. False folds naturally retract during sobbing and laughing. Use laughing to practice retraction; the feeling in the throat is one of width.

Exercise 1: Laugh silently and with energy for 10 seconds and observe and memorise the accompanying muscular activity. Next, voice the laugh, and then turn the laugh into a sung note on a vowel of choice.

Now you need to do this at higher pitches as well; it is trickier and needs practice.
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Note that even with the false vocal folds retracted, the true vocal folds can still act as constrictors: if you use them to control the air flow while vibrating, the voice will sound squeezed and not free. For the voice to sound free, it is essential that the outward flow of air is controlled by the muscles of breath support system and not by the vocal folds. You may wish to revisit the blog on breath control here.

Singer’s Breathing and Breath Support

Written for Walton Voices by Zoran Milosevic
[email protected]
01932 246 635

Choir rehearsals and singing lessons will often start with a breathing exercise, usually a variation of “inhale for 5, hold for 5, exhale for 15 seconds”. It appears to be a quite simple and straight forward drill, except … that it is not! Each of the three steps have their peculiarities that are not intuitive.
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Taking a Breath
Let us start with breathing in. We breath subconsciously, but at any level higher than casual or bathroom singing, breathing should be done in a particular manner. Breathing is accomplished by altering the size of the chest cavity, sucking the air in when the cavity is expanded (creating vacuum inside the lungs), and expelling it when the cavity is contracted. These actions are initiated automatically by nerve signals that the brain sends to the relevant muscles, be it the inspiratory (inhaling) or the expiratory (exhaling) muscles.
We can change the size of the chest cavity by following muscle actions:

• Using the ribs and their (intercostal) muscles to expand the upper chest
• Contracting the diaphragm, a dome-like muscle inside the abdomen, which flattens when contracted and so extends the lower chest cavity downwards. When the ribs open, the diaphragm simultaneously contracts. The diaphragm contraction is also assisted by relaxation of the abdominal muscles.

What is “Good Singing”?
Written for Walton Voices by Zoran Milosevic
[email protected]
01932 246 635


Most people would agree that the underlying principles of all good singing are:

• Singing in tune
• Singing with a voice that feels free
• The voice is clear and resonant
• High notes are reached without strain
• The words are distinct, and both the meaning and emotion of the song are communicated.

It takes a lot of technical and artistic development to achieve the above. The three grand technical pillars upon which all singing techniques rest are usually quoted as:

• Singer’s breathing
• Breath (and voice) support
• Transition to singing from the speaking voice

At a higher level, however, elite singing involves many additional elements, much of which are encapsulated in the broad term of Italian Bel Canto - literally “beautiful singing”, but loosely translated as “a lyrical style of operatic singing using a full rich broad tone and smooth phrasing”. It is the 19th century vocal tradition passed down mainly from mouth to mouth. While some vocal pedagogues claim that they have a direct link to “the old Italians”, there is in fact no specific codified system or a delineated method of Bel Canto to simply follow. Bel Canto is based on beautiful voice function associated with beautiful artistic imagination, with many technical and artistic elements included that enable its execution. The advanced elements of good technical singing that are paramount to Bel Canto are:

• agility (moving the voice),
• sostenuto (sustaining the voice and the breath energy throughout a musical phrase),
• legato (binding one sound to the next) and
• colouring of the voice, or chiaroscuro in Italian, or good resonance balance.

​I tried to illustrate my understanding of the many underlaying facets of Bel Canto in the diagram below

In my previous article (here) I discussed the options for improving an amateur singer’s voice. In the few next articles, I will propose a series of exercises that will help in achieving this, but before we go deeper into the singing technique, I would first like to discuss how the vocal mechanism actually works.

All sounds that we hear are produced by oscillating pressure waves of the surrounding air. Therefore, to make a sound, we need (1) a vibrator - something that oscillates (the “source”), (2) a motor – the energy input that moves the source and causes it to vibrate, and (3) a resonator - something that converts those oscillations into an audible air wave. Examples of motors are the drummer’s hand, the breath energy in singing or blowing a woodwind instrument, the guitarist’s finger action, etc. Musial instruments’ oscillators are usually either the strings (violin, guitar, harp) or reeds/mouthpieces (clarinet, trumpet). For human voice it is the vocal folds inside the larynx that oscillate, and it is the vocal tract (the throat, the mouth) that acts as the resonator. Without the resonator the raw source sound would be little more than a quack. It is the resonator upon which depends the beauty of the musical sound, and so is true for the singing voice. The vocal tract is a Stradivarius hidden inside an elite singer’s body.

The prime and the most coveted skill for any singer is, of course, musicality, and the foremost are the ability to pitch the notes and the intervals correctly, to sight-read, and to memorise tunes easily. Armed with those skills, you can confidently sing in almost any choir, save the very elite ones. But there is also the issue of voice quality, and improvements in that department can offer you (a) more joy, (b) entry into the elite choirs, and (c) even a soloist status if you so desire.

So, how can a (male) singer improve his voice quality? (I address the “male” because: (a) men face tougher challenges, (b) I do not have sufficient knowledge of female voices; however, much of what is outlined here applies to the ladies as well).

But first: You will not want to sing opera? Right! This means that you will not need to project in a large hall and over an orchestra. And you will not need the stratospherically high notes, the elite voice’s sustainment and singing stamina. That greatly simplifies the task of making improvements to your voice. Singing opera is a tour de force, a singing equivalent of running a marathon with climbing, sprinting and weightlifting on the way. This is true for all voices, but operatic tenors exhibit almost superhuman ability when singing Belcanto, Verdi, Verismo repertoire (e.g. Puccini) or Wagner.