What do you know about vocal registers? Many of us have been taught about chest registers and head registers – the chest register being the deeper of the two and the head register being higher and more airy. Maybe you also were taught about a break between these two, where the notes aren’t as strong or clear or musical.
MTMS teacher Leann Lindsay explains it with a different take: Your voice is more like an infinity symbol. You have low notes and high notes but they all blend together in the middle, like the figure eight or infinity sign. Students need to focus on how it feels and be able to articulate where you are feeling the vibration happening and learn to identify that between registers.
Her techniques work differently for younger and older students to identify and blend these registers for better overall voice control. Research is working on identifying how to gain better control of the muscles that blend between as well as within those registers.
There are also different names for registers, since chest and head can be misleading: pulse, lower, upper, falsetto/flute (men/women), and whistle. It makes sense, then, that the very edges of the vocal range are more pulse and whistle. But allowing each of these ranges to blend together is where we learn to sing incredible music.
