Is this head voice?

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John	Is this head voice?	Lead	[-]
Posts: 14 (05/01/09 2:18 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Hey everyone, This is my first post here. Long time reader, first time writer. I'm a college music student who's interested in making my voice better. I came into school playing guitar but I guess I'm acceptable enough to be a voice student next year. I train as a baritone right now but my teacher wants to work on making me into a tenor so I'm definitely looking to address my break and mix/head voice. But enough of the introduction. I really just want to know what head voice sounds like. I was just watching a SSO video of James Kelly and his high mix. Around the 2:30 mark he starts demonstrating how he goes from very light to a hard mix. The "mah-mah-mah-mah-mah" he does at 2:29....is that head voice or falsetto? I know it's not breathy but I feel like I can make a sound like that and I've never thought it was head voice.
JollyJake		#1	[-]
Posts: 2329 (05/01/09 10:44 AM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Glad to have you aboard! I often wonder who is reading when I see guests. I have that video, wow, that was released a while ago. Yes, at that point, it is head voice. He is speaking about how he takes a warm up slowly I believe. Jesse did some vocal demonstrations which will help here. You can hear those here: Vocal Coordinations Jake "Work very, very hard - be grounded, be passionate about what you do and find the thing within yourself to make you want to be you. Go beyond me, be yourself, say what you want to say." - Josh Groban "The better you are at vocalizing, the better you will be at singing." - Musiciano
John		#2	[-]
Posts: 14 (05/01/09 4:20 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Well, I'm not going to lie, that makes me very happy. I've always had access to a voice like that but I thought it was falsetto so I was searching in vain for a head voice I already had. At least, I hope that's the case. I'll try to post a recording this weekend or something so it can be analyzed. I had my suspicions that it was possibly head voice because I've recently been able to connect it on the way up through the break. Down is a different story though. How does one start to add power to that sound? Are there any exercises that are good for that?
Napilopez		#3	[-]
Posts: 419 (05/01/09 6:55 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Hey John, one of the best ways for us to help you would be for you to post recordings of your own voice either singing a song or vocalizing. As educated as we may be =P, nothing is quite as hearing what exactly is going on.
John		#4	[-]
Posts: 14 (05/02/09 2:49 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	I totally understand. I'll try to post something this weekend. I'm at college and my roommate is gone so I have a little bit more freedom to record vocal stuff.
JollyJake		#5	[-]
Posts: 2329 (05/03/09 1:40 AM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Head voice can be a powerful sound. If you want a really powerful sound, though, one will "add" the chest coordination into the head coordination; this means that one will be singing in what many call the mixed voice. The mixed voice is simply a mixture of the chest voice and head voice coordination. That's just theory though. I prefer application and audio examples. Check this thread out. Jake "Work very, very hard - be grounded, be passionate about what you do and find the thing within yourself to make you want to be you. Go beyond me, be yourself, say what you want to say." - Josh Groban "The better you are at vocalizing, the better you will be at singing." - Musiciano Last Edited By: JollyJake 05/03/09 1:43 AM. Edited 1 times.
John		#6	[-]
Posts: 14 (05/03/09 11:25 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Ok, so I recorded two files, one is me just singing a note in what might be my head voice and the other is just me singing a couple lines from a song. The song recording has a G4 which I like don't even hit. I don't have any sort of mix so I kinda just pulled up to it. I felt weird recording around my family so I didn't put a lot into it. Head voice? "Red Hands" first phrase I hit what I think is a good D4. What do you guys think? Thanks.
unspoken whisper		#7	[-]
Posts: 215 (05/04/09 1:17 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Your tone is lovely, John! Seriously, your tone is already so polished; I feel that your "finished" tone, so to speak, will sound very similar to how it is now. You sound free, neither high-larynxed nor overly dopey. Very nice. Yes, the "head voice?" clip is head voice. Your larynx doesn't have to be quite as low as in that clip, but otherwise, I feel that that sound is one that you can really "connect" to the rest of your range. The color change between your "head voice" and your "chest voice" really isn't that drastic, which is great as a starting point. It is light, non-breathy. Nice. Yes, you could get more power if you leaned into it a bit more and still be in the realm of "head voice," but you have the very light sound down. Where is the G4? Is that the "a shroud" part? Because you actually hit an F#4. You sound pretty good there, actually; you do need to give a bit more energy, but I feel that you're on the right track. I really don't have much to complain about in these clips. Good job. So, you're interested in addressing your "break" and working on "mix/head voice." Do you have a clip of yourself singing near (at/around, maybe below and above) that part of your range? I don't really hear those issues in these clips.
JollyJake		#8	[-]
Posts: 2329 (05/04/09 8:20 AM) Administrator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Sounds good! I can hear some improvement that can be made in tone, but very little. You sound pretty good already! Basically, all of what Jen said! Don't be afraid of those notes, attack them. You sounded like you had a whole lot more than you were showing on that F#4, I want to hear it! I know your family is around, maybe do it while they aren't around. Keep it up! Jake "Work very, very hard - be grounded, be passionate about what you do and find the thing within yourself to make you want to be you. Go beyond me, be yourself, say what you want to say." - Josh Groban "The better you are at vocalizing, the better you will be at singing." - Musiciano
John		#9	[-]
Posts: 14 (05/04/09 11:29 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Well, unspoken whisper, you know how to make a guy blush. Thanks for the compliments. You too Jake. The reason I hit an F#4 is because I just didn't give it enough and therefore I was about half a step flat. Whoops. Now, there's something about that song that makes me sound good. I just feel very free when singing it. On the other hand, sometimes in choir that D4 just will not come without a lot of strain. My head voice starts to strain around that G4 area and I can't usually get a good tone past that point. I've heard there's another bridge around A/Bb. Is that correct? What is that shift of resonance like? Are there any particular exercises that are helpful for expanding the head voice? Should my main focus for the moment be connecting my chest voice and that light head voice through my break and not so much on developing a mix right away?
confused		#10	[-]
Posts: 748 (05/04/09 3:38 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	man, if your "beginning of training" tone is so pure and solid I wonder how delicious you'll sound after training more O.O
CunoDante		#11	[-]
Posts: 960 (05/04/09 9:45 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Hi John, Glad to have you on the forum. You have a lot going well for you right now. You already sing musically, which is a great plus for you. In your "Red Hands" clips, you already seem to have a nice light chest and light mix going on. Continue to play around with what you're doing in that clip. The general coordination is there, but as time goes on, your teacher should help you strengthen that connection a little more. In your head voice clip, you are indeed doing head voice, however, you're doing something else that I would watch out for. Your tongue kind of pulls backwards and retracts a bit, which also causes the root of the tongue to depress the larynx a little. When you practice your head voice, take your thumb and push in under your tongue almost where your chin meets your neck. Make sure that this area does not tense up -- it should stay loose and flaccid. When the underside of the tongue stays loose, that means your tongue is no longer impeding the vocal mechanism, and then it should become a bit easier to ascend in head voice. Keep us updated on your progress. I would love to hear how you improve as time goes on. ~~Dante~~
John		#12	[-]
Posts: 14 (05/07/09 10:58 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	So, I just have one quick question. You are all saying that my "head voice" is head voice. Is it ok if that sound doesn't connect to chest yet? There's is an obvious break or flip when I try to go between the two and I thought that you "flip into falsetto" and not into head voice. Could this mean that I just have a developed falsetto? Or does it just take time to connect chest and head?
unspoken whisper		#13	[-]
Posts: 215 (05/08/09 1:32 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	It takes time to connect chest and head. Trust me, I am a soprano, and I had a very legitimate head voice in my upper register (very strong, not wimpy or airy), but I had a definite break between chest and head. The middle part of my range was not good. I was either singing in a strained chest or in a light head voice, and I could "fake connection" during scales, but I wasn't truly connected. It takes time to develop the coordination to be able to "connect" the two. For me, I needed to add more power and compression to the bottom of head voice in order to connect it; I didn't know how to take up chest voice correctly.
CunoDante		#14	[-]
Posts: 960 (05/09/09 3:38 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	If you want to think of it as a developed falsetto, then fine -- as you develop your voice more, the lines between falsetto and head voice begin to blur more, just like the lines between chest and mix begin to blur. (When you reach that point, everything just becomes a matter of degree and not so black and white.) But, as unspoken whisper said, it does take time and practice to develop and won't be perfect right away. So if you have a small flip for now, that's fine. As you begin to connect the two more and more, you will find you mix! The mix is what will connect them. Actually, in the clip where you were singing the song and sang the F#4, whatever you did on the F#4 is a good place to start for finding that connecting thing for head voice and chest voice. You had a nice light mix on that note. Going from chest to a light mix to head voice will give a nice smooth transition. On the reverse, trying to go straight from head to chest on the way down will likely cause a slight disconnect. So the trick is to gradually bring in more and more chest as you go down, which would put your right in the place of the light mix. As already stated, it takes a bit of practice to get it down, but I'm sure you can do it. The more you work with scales that force you to go back and forth from chest to head and vice versa, the easier it will become.
John		#15	[-]
Posts: 14 (05/09/09 3:34 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Ok, that's good to hear. I'll give it a try and see how things turn out in the next couple weeks. Thanks everyone!
doctadre		#16	[-]
Posts: 6 (05/23/09 3:24 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Hey John, Cool clips. Your voice has a nice tone to it, and with further development you can really cultivate "your" distinguished and pleasant tone! One thing you can also try is to simply do lip trills and tongue trills up and down the range. Shake your body a little throughout to keep it loose, and just keep focusing on connecting the chest to head voices smoothly. When you get more comfortable with this, then try singing a high note in head voice, G4 or A4, and just go from a soft volume to louder. If things break up and flip, its ok, not harm done. Keep experimenting with this and you'll find more power. Dre
musiciano		#17	[-]
Posts: 1034 (05/24/09 4:15 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Reason why you guys like this guy´s tone is because of the freedom in his speaking voice. There is a fair amount of imitation in this and this isn´t his true tone, but it can only get better from here. Freedom sounds imperfect, it is the pursuit of ¨perfection¨ that locks us up. I find it annoying that we are so freaking trained to go after a false ideal of perfection. Have you guys noticed, most music we hear are fixed recordings, the pictures we see are airbrushed, the movies we watch are edited, the lights strategically placed, the sound enhanced, the magazines are so sanitized. It´s like it´s all a fake world. And we are brainwashed to pursue it. I find it so harmful... but what maddens me is not only the people who set this up, it´s also the people who pursue it. We all want to sound like someone else, because we like them, but the reason we like them is because they sound like themselves, in most cases. We have to break out of this. If we are to be ¨free,¨ we absolutely must. It´s absolutely necessary. Until we do this, we are just on a wild goose chase. Going after something that doesn´t even exist. Use reality as your model, not a distant, photoshoped illusion. You guys have NO idea how late it is by the time it´s already up on TV or on a CD to start trying to catch up. It all starts with a dark, lonely throat and a desire to sing. It gets SO contaminated so quickly and easily and it can make you get SO discouraged and get you SO stuck! The basis of succes is FAILURE. Cracking, chocking, frustration, tension, annoyance, all that. I am sure there is not one realized singer who hasn´t gone through these time and time and time again. Unless you are talking about an incredibly wise and phenomenal exception. A freak of nature. I am telling you, find out who YOU are. That´s all it takes. I had a ¨vocal awakening¨ the other day, I just got tired of trying to be good and be in tune and sound like something and boom! There was I. Pure, true, real, amazing, easy. All the tone, range, power, dynamics and it factor were there. And the curtain fell and there was just utter astonishment and a standing ovation with crying, moved and amazed audience members. Get tired. That´s my suggestion. So do all you must to tire yourselves out... then the ¨awakening¨ has room to enter. When you are not so occupied with trying to be so in charge. Stop trying, that´s all it takes.
doctadre		#18	[-]
Posts: 6 (05/31/09 12:56 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	The reason I like this guy's tone is because I think it sound's cool. The way I see it, we all as beginners imitate our favorite singers. Maybe they make a certain sound that we dig, or they are just wild and free and crazy, or whatever. We try to get that same tone. Of course, we can't match someone else's tone exactly. At the end of the day, we have mixed in the tones of all of our favorite singers, plus our own personality, and we get "our" tone. It is gonna have elements of our life and our favorite sounds, but it is ours. That's it. As for the "perfect" world of sound and sight we live in, it is a wonderful thing to be able to convey these emotions and atmospheres in an ideal way. It is great to be able to lay a song down and perfect it, so that the listener gets the precise idea you wanted to convey. Same with pictures and movies. We get into trouble when trying to imitate this and taking things personally when we don't quite match up to it. It helps to understand that it is a "polished" world, and that the raw qualities are always shining through. We must develop our raw tone until we fully enjoy it. Then we can either share this free and raw tone with the world, or polish it and show the ideal version. Either way is good. A good way to explore freeing up your mind from the roadblocks we have in there is to practice dilligently. While practicing, focus on getting the tone you want with the form and freedom you want. Then, when you are comfortable, perform the songs in front of people. But during a performance, only focus on the emotions of the lyrics and the tone of the song. No form, no micromanaging. Just be in the moment. Practice, do your homework, then when you are out there, let it rip! Dre
John		#19	[-]
Posts: 14 (06/15/09 9:23 PM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	So I've finally finished my first year of school and I've started practicing a little bit with SS and the like. I'm working on connection now and I'm starting to get it every once in a while. I think I have a significant problem though...I have no head voice range. Seriously, I can't make a sound with a decent tone above G4. I don't understand. Do you have any suggestions for increasing my head voice range? Without it there's no way I can bring a mixed voice higher if I don't have any head voice to mix with.
doctadre		#20	[-]
Posts: 6 (06/17/09 12:46 AM) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Report Post	Couple questions first: Have you been partying a lot lately (drinking, going out to clubs, talking loud over music, etc.)? This would affect your head voice greatly. Have you been getting enough sleep, have you been eating bad unhealthy snacks late at night? If not, then send us some clips of what you mean. Perhaps attach a clip of you singing an AH vowel, sliding from lowest note to highest. This would give us an idea of what is goin on. Maybe also sing a scale of legato notes in AH. Sing a major scale from bottom to top. Dre

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Is this head voice?

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