For so many of us, this may sound like boring discouraging news. I can’t tell you how many singers I work with that love their strong chest voice and neglect their head voice. This is tragic!!! If we only knew! What we have to understand is that our head voice is often the key to our mix! Without it, you quickly reach the ceiling of your range and your power.

The head voice is the release of your mix, while chest is the foundation of your mix. If I don’t exercise my head voice I’ll never hit those epic high notes with ease and power. I can wear my Air Force One’s all day and still never jump very high. Just because I have the great shoes, doesn’t mean I’ll slam dunk like Jordan. I’m 5’4”. But if I know how to use my shoes (follow my sports analogy, shoes=foundation of chest / jumping crazy high=release of head voice) then I can find the release like my boy Muggsy Bogues (5’3” NBA star). Confused? Maybe it’s because I don’t play basketball, but trust me here...A deficient head voice will equate to strained chords and a overly heavy chest belt.

So why do I harp on this point you ask? Because too many of us consider our head voice the easy part, the boring part, or the unimportant part. Some people actually have damaged their voice due to head voice neglect! Think about it, if you do nothing but push your chest to the limit, because lets all collectively admit it- it’s the “money” part that we love to hear people cheer and holler for- then all you have is your quasi-high high note. Men, maybe an E or F, ladies, a B or C.... But with your head voice comes the release of that awesome mix that’s waiting for you.

Training your head voice can be tedious. But it is so worth it. Like most things in life, the really good stuff you have to work for. The majority of us out there just have an underused or out of shape head voice. Sometimes vocal fry therapy is in order, sometimes a good “goh goh goh” exercise helps a singer find that chord closure, and for others, feeling the release up in the head is where the light bulb goes off.

The good news is that there IS a solution for your problem! Head voice work has become one of my favorite things to workshop with students. If you’re struggling with finding connection in your head voice, keep working on it, good habits will absolutely reap success. And hit me up with questions! I’d love to hear from you! But most importantly, you HAVE to be patient with yourself. So many of us are entirely too good at criticizing the sound coming out of our mouths and then get in the way of our progress! But I don’t want to get ahead of myself, that’s all waiting for you in Part 2 of this little blog here so stay tuned!