Do Singers Have to Use the Head Voice?
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by: GeorgiaReader
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The higher part of the vocal range is often called the head voice. When you sing at this level, the singer will feel the vibration in their head. This is felt by most singers above the roof of their mouth just behind the vocal cavity like tingling feeling in their throat.
When a singer first makes the effort to use the head voice, there is a complete shift which is called the Passagio, in vocal terms. The switch known as Passagio from chest voice (the middle notes) and the head voice (the higher notes) happens as a singers works on increasing the vocal range of pitches. After the Passagio is reached by the singer, the head register starts with more higher notes and a vibration in the sinus area.
There is less resistance to breath due to there being less of the folds. So the glottis does not open and close completely hence the beginning of the head voice. Most singers will in time adapt to using both elements of the voice which results in the mixing between chest and head registers.
The chest voice generally is used for the lower part of the singing range while the head voice will undoubtedly be an octave above. Those of you will know that when you sing in the chest voice if you put your hand on your chest while singing. You will feel the vibration, or you may experience a vibration in the throat as well, but if you are singing correctly in the chest voice you will always feel it in the chest.
It can take time and practice to develop the correct head voice, and like all singing at the beginning it will also take a lot of patience. When being taught to sing from the head voice, most people will be asked to sing an octave above the note they sang for the chest voice. Again with proper coaching they will be taught the proper breathing technique.
If you practiced learning the head voice accurately, there should be slight or no tremor in the throat area. Most of the time, it can be fairly tricky for someone to identify a tremor when singing with the head voice. Keep in mind that you can position your hand on the forehead to feel some shaking or tremor.
At the beginning of voice training, some inexperienced singers are labeled with a temporary voice classification. There are some who worry and think they are an alto because they can't sing high, this may simply be a problem with the head voice. Once there is a focus on the problem with solid training, it is possible to discover that a singer is in actual fact a soprano.
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