The foundations of a perfect vocal technique

Many of you have probably heard of a head voice or chest voice at any time in their lifes. They are an essential part of the foundations needed to make someone a good singer. For a proper understanding of these foundations of a good singing voice, more explanation and examples will be given below.

Great artists like Beyonce Knowles, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder are experts in handling a chest voice, a middle voice, a head voice and belting, professional terms they know everything about. For a better understanding of these terms, you need to know a few things more about these different voices.

Chest voice

The chest voice can be compared with the voice you speak with. It has a rather low pitch and a deep sound. Basically, this is also the voice people use to sing along with a tune on the radio. Practically every song is dominated by a chest voice. Generally, this part of the voice is developed very well in male singers. The chest voice is often used to sing in a relaxed way, though it has a natural power of its own.

Head voice 

When a melody gets too high to be sung in a chest voice, there is often a transition to a head voice (falsetto). A good example of this is the chorus of Irreplacable by Beyonce Knowles. Apart from the necessity of this specific transition, it may help to raise the interpretation of a song to a higher level. A head voice has a somewhat softer and gentler sound than a chest voice and can reach great heights. When the head voice is used, the larynx is turned over, which can actually be felt by the singer. If a singing voice is well trained, there is full control of the transition from chest to head voice, enabling the singer to have the larynx turned over at will.

Middle voice

A major and well-known problem for singers is a 'breaking' voice. What actually happens is that the transition from chest voice to head voice is not made consciously, but spontaneously. The fact is that many singers are faced with the dilemma that they want to sing a beautiful song but do not feel up to it, because its high notes require that they sing in the registers of the head voice instead of the chest voice. When trying to sing these notes in the chest voice, the singers stumble across the dividing point between these voices, called bridge or break, which causes the strong lower voice to break or flip into a different, usually weaker, sound. In order to handle the vocal range of nearly all modern songs, most singers need to sing past this bridge, resulting in a weak and airy head voice that does not continue the sound of the chest voice. Though there is a lot of needless shame about this break, which is characteristic of every voice, it can be overcome by doing exercises helping singers to sing through the bridge and to get full control of the breath and the larynx, making their voice consistent and stable.
One of many artists who frequently avail themselves of this voice is Stevie Wonder, whose Isn't She Lovely is a striking example of a song that is predominated by a middle voice.

Whistle and falsetto voice

Apart from these parts of the voice, there are a few more added aspects of the voice, such as the whistle voice in women and the falsetto voice in men. These functions of the voice are mainly used to embellish songs with their extraordinary sound. Remember Minnie Ripperton's whistle voice in Loving You and the falsetto voice that can often be heard in Michael Jackson's songs, in particular the often used 'Whoehoe', which is nearly a scream.

An amusing anecdote is that men are said not to be capable of using the whistle voice and women are are said not to be capable of using the falsetto voice. This happens to be true because the body cannot produce these sounds, or only imitate them at best.  

Sources: www.todio.nl