Vocal Bridges - What are they, and what is the secret to unlocking this mystery?
Vocal Bridges - What are they and what is the secret behind their success ?
Anyone who has a lesson with me always go through an initial assessment which tells me everything I need to know about their bridges. Why is this so important? Why is it the very 1st thing I look out for after we have had a chat about your goals and dreams as a singer?
To answer that, you first need to understand our main goal for developing the voice.
Are You Ready to Get your yelling probelms Figured Out Today?
Some of you reading this may be fortunate enough to have experienced the above sensation, but I’m guessing that most of you haven’t. I certainly hadn’t before I had lessons.
So in order to sing smoothly from the bottom of your range to the top, without any sudden breaks or changes in quality we need to understand that there is a) a bottom part of your voice and b) a top part of your voice. The bottom part of your voice is where you typically speak. It has a more brassy and weighted feeling. This is commonly referred to as our CHEST VOICE. The top part of your voice is quite often sung in a light and breathy manner( although it can be sung with great power and ease) and is commonly referred to as HEAD VOICE.
What many of you probably find is that whilst you're singing, something starts to go horribly wrong as you're leaving the chest voice. What I mean is , imagine you're singing along with your favourite artist. The song starts off easy enough and then climbs to a point where you're either yelling, yodelling, or forced into a whisper - leaving many to wander why they can’t sing like the recording.
The answer is……………….. your voice hasn’t learned to bridge yet.
Typically a bridge connects 2 points together. In the case of singing you're connecting your chest voice to your head voice. There are actually multiple bridging points as you ascend in pitch, however the most important bridge to tackle is the 1st one, as this is where we feel the greatest change in the voice.
Now, there is one secret to achieving this bridging process and that is - the subtle thinning out of your voice throughout your 1st Bridge - also known as Mix Voice - so that it seamlessly moves through the bridge and connects nicely into the head voice.
Another way to see this concept is the blending of 2 x colours to create an entirely different colour. To create grey, you need to start with both Black and White. In this instance, let's imagine that Black represents Chest Voice, and White represents Head Voice. The goal is to make sure you're using all of the black that is available to you, so that when you blend the white (head voice) you will get a true grey.
More often than not, singers tend to start with grey - meaning that they have an underdeveloped chest voice. As they sing higher into the range 2 things will happen.
1. What is meant to be a more robust sound (or darker colour grey,) comes out as a thinner less powerful sound (a lighter grey,) than is supposed to happen.
2. When we don't have enough Chest voice in our mix (colour black,) our larynx will rise which creates a more nasal and squeaky sound by default.
An effective blending process is the secret ingredient to anyone who wants to sing from the bottom of the range to the top without any sudden changes or underdeveloped qualities in the voice. Michael Jackson did it and so did Whitney Houston, Brandon Flowers (the Killers) does it and Pavarotti mastered it.