Eliminating The Register Break In Your Vocals

Jeannie Deva

Historically, the maneuvering between what is believed to be chest and head voice has preoccupied many a singer and consumed many a voice lesson. Many singers have actually given up ever expecting to have a "connected" head and chest voice and settle for simply using only a lower or higher register when singing. Certainly it can seem frustrating, complicated, and often perplexing with no remedy in sight.

How about a fresh approach?

What if there really was no such thing as "head" and "chest"? What if, for the moment, you abandon any memory of having one or several weak transitional notes between your lower and higher registers, and just consider your range to be one long expanse of notes? OK, so a few of these notes may not be as full as you'd like. Let's call them tonally challenged with the capacity to be rehabilitated. Get the idea of your voice as one long continuous expanse of notes with no sections.

One thing you might find useful is to know that the higher you sing the less air your vocal folds need for their vibration. If you PUSH out air - thinking you need to “hit” the note - you will over-blow their vibration and assist in creating your own register break.

Now, what if there were exercises you could do that would get all of these notes in perfect balance?

Here is what you need to do to eliminate register break:

1. Learn how to achieve natural breath support whereby you do not have to think at all about breathing; yet, the air stream would automatically be the perfect amount to vibrate your vocal folds for each pitch - not more - not less.

2. This would then relieve tension in your throat, eliminating the primary cause of register break and the subsequent illusion that there are such things as head and chest voice.

3. Next you would practice certain exercises designed to make all the little vibrational transitions of you voice work smoothly and harmoniously with each other.

The Result: No more register break and much of your attention previously stuck on your body, now free for you to direct as you wish upon your audience and a more passionate performance!

There is an immediate exercise you can try out and apply directly to any of your songs. The more times you practice this approach, the easier it will become and the more apparent it will show in your voice. Rather than write out the directions, you’ll find it easiest to see and hear me coach someone with this technique and then try it out yourself. Go to www.YouTube.com/JeannieDeva. There you’ll find a video of me coaching someone in a recent vocal workshop in Hollywood.

Much of my self-study course, The Contemporary Vocalist Volume One, is devoted to exploring and resolving this problem in much greater detail. Once you practice the exercises that address this, you will understand why what I have said here works. Ultimately, it takes practicing the correct exercises coached in a very specific manner so that once and for all you can move past register break and gain a full, connected range of notes with which to freely express yourself.