♫ Hi everybody! My name is Justin Stoney
and I'm the founder of New York Vocal Coaching
here in NewYork City. Welcome to episode 86 of
Voice Lessons To The World. The show where we want
to help you as singers by answering your questions
from all over. And I'll give you a chance
to ask questions later. But our question for this
week comes from Justin L. in
Davao City, Philippines. Justin, that is a nice name. Justin writes, "Dear Justin,
how do I develop my chest voice register?" Now Justin, I love
the question. Love! Because we get questions all
the time on vocal registers. And this question is gonna
inspire a new five part series
on vocal registration. So, pack your suit cases,
pack your sunglasses, pack your sunscreen,
pack your cat. Because for the next
five episodes we're going on a
Vocal Register World Tour. ♫ That's right, the first stop
on our world tour is chest voice. We're gonna talk about
what it is, how it applies to songs,
how to develop it, and give you an
exercise to practice it. But what is chest voice? First of all,
it's your speaking voice! Most of us
speak in our chest voice. There's some people
that speak in head voice. There's some people who
speak in Falsetto. There's even some people
that speak in vocal fry. But most people
speak in chest voice. And this is very
good news. Because truly, if you
can speak it you can sing it. We'll see! But chest voice isn't
just our speaking voice. It's also the most
thyroarytenoid dominant production. [Hits piano] The thyroarytenoid muscle
doesn't have to be an intimidating word. It's really just the muscle
inside your vocal folds, that shortens them
and thickens them. Lowering the pitch,
and making things stronger. Chest voice is the most
thyroarytenoid dominant vocal register. This is also what gives it the
greatest potential for vocal strength. All this shortening and
thickening increases what we call
CQ, that's closed quotient. It just means how long the
vocal cords stay shut in their vibration. Higher CQ equals greater
vocal strength. Like when we're engaging
in a shout or the call function
of our voice. The stage speaking
voice function of our sound, and perhaps even in some
kind of belting that we do when
we sing. But let's make sure that we
know where chest voice is
in our vocal range. Because it's so TA dominant
chest voice really likes to live in the
lower part of the voice. It's really for your low notes
and maybe your middle notes. Some males might be
able to go up to E4, perhaps G4. Some ladies might go to A4,
maybe all the way up to C5. But at a certain point
it starts to feel and sound "shouty"
and "yelly". And that doesn't feel
so great for the voice. It's not so good
to push chest voice up high all the time when it
really wants to live a bit lower. Now let's talk about
chest voice and style. Because chest voice
is such a strong production it works well in certain styles
but not in others. For example, an operatic
or traditional male is almost always in
chest voice. Whereas an operatic female
is almost never in chest voice. In contemporary music though,
pop, rock, R&B, country, gospel, a female singer will be
quite often in chest voice. Whereas a male also will
be in chest voice but not as much as he would
have been in traditional music. Speaking of that, let's see
how chest voice applies to a song. This is "Ol' Man River"
by Jerome Kern. For our chest voice song
I wanted to think of the chestiest thing
I could possibly imagine. And "Ol' Man River"
came right to mind. Now I'm no bass,
but this is gonna be as much TA as
my voice can handle. ♪ ♪ I get wear and
sick o' tryin' ♪ ♪ I'm tired o' livin'
and scared o' dyin' ♪ ♪ But ol' man river
he just keeps rollin' along ♪ Now that's a lot of
that call function, that shout function. We certainly wouldn't want
something lighter for a song like this... ♪ But ol' man river
he just keeps rollin' along ♪ It just wouldn't be right. But I don't want to
give you the impression that chest voice is
only for an operatic sound. You can still bring chest voice
into a more poppy production. ♪ But ol' man river
he just keeps rollin' along ♪ It can still have chest
even if it's not operatic for a male and like I said,
for a female as well. So now, next let's look
at some tips for helping you to
sing in chest voice. Tip number one is that
neutral and low larynxes accommodate chest voice
the best. When the larynx is
neutral or low the cords have more
slack to them. It gives them a greater
mechanical advantage for the stronger sounds. It's actually not so
good for them to have a higher larynx
and a lot of chest voice. It gets really tight. Hey! Hey! It's not so good for you. But the... Hey, hey kind of feeling, of dropping
and opening in chest voice accommodates the sound
and is a lot healthier too. Tip two, it's called
chest voice for a reason. Now I didn't come up
with these terms. Chest voice, head voice,
mix. It can be very confusing. I prefer more specific
things like thyroarytenoid dominant
production. [Hits piano] But it's what we got
cause it's what they named it
back in the day. Why did they do it? Because when we're
in chest voice we feel conductive
vibrations of the chest. Try this out... Hey, hey!
[head voice] Great. Now... Hey, hey.
[chest voice] Nice! You feel more
of those vibrations when you're in
chest voice. So it can be a good indication to
you of when you're in chest. Tip number three,
the audacity of the breath. From day one on this
show we've talked about great breathing
technique, good breath support. So you know that singing
relies on a slow, small, steady
stream of breath. But chest voice
is a little bit different. We still want our breath
into the ribcage and low abdominals. But with chest voice we can
be a little bit more bold, a little more intense,
a little more audacious with our breath. We can use just a little
bit more, and that will actually
encourage chest voice more than the other
vocal registers. Tip number four,
have no fear chest voice is here. One of the biggest reasons
that singers can't sing in chest voice is
actually a mental block. They judge the sound
and say it sounds bad, it sounds wrong, it sounds ugly,
sounds like too much, sounds like a sound I don't want
other people to hear me make. But I promise you chest voice
is not a register that you can be shy
and tentative with. We're gonna do
an exercise in a minute and you have to make
not just a joyful noise but actually a
bold noise. You have to let it out
and have no fear or else chest voice
ain't gonna happen. Tip number five,
take it easy. The reason some people
are afraid of chest voice is they've been told
it's bad for them. It's very much
not bad for you. Not for males,
not for females. But what is bad is
doing chest voice all the time, and doing it too loud
and too high, and just too much. But as long as you
take it easy and you're sensitive
to your voice, and you develop the
other registers of your voice alongside chest voice,
then everything's going to work
better than ever. With that in mind,
let's do our vocal exercise now. This is gonna be
YOH on a 5-1. It sounds like this... ♪ YOH ♪ And so you're going
to speak a "YOH" on pitch. We're gonna start with
guys and then bring in the ladies
as we go. Guys down here... ♪ YOH ♪ Here we go... ♪ Nice. ♪ YOH ♪ That's it! ♪ Correct. ♪ Mhm! ♪ Let's bring in some ladies... ♪ YOH ♪ Right! ♪ That's right. ♪ YOH ♪ Let's lose the guys! ♪ Correct, ladies! ♪ Awesome. ♪ Let's bring back the guys. ♪ YOH ♪ Yes. ♪ Good for you. ♪ Right on. ♪ ♪ YOH ♪ Nice and bold! ♪ Awesome. ♪ A few left... ♪ YOH ♪ ♪ Last... ♪ ♪ Wonderful job with that! And so, this is just
the first part of our Vocal Register World Tour. First stop, chest voice. I hope that's been helpful
to you guys today as singers. If you have questions
that you'd like to see us answer on the show
you can send an email to Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com. And you know I encourage
you to not lose the joy, don't lose the passion,
don't let people tell you that you can't sing, you and
I both know that's not true. Get with a great voice teacher
near you. Or if you're in
New York or you'd like to Skype
with one of our staff, check out
NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. If you'd like a vocal course
that you can do
[♪] in the comfort of your
own home the
[♪] Voice Lessons To The World
Vocal Course
[♪] is a 12-part course
that takes you on a journey
[♪] from beginner to master
level vocal exercises.
[♪] You can check that out at
VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
[♪] And if you'd like
free daily vocal tips
[♪] sent to you every day
sign up at
[♪] DailyVocalTips.com.
[♪] I'm Justin Stoney.
[♪] Until next time,
make a joyful noise.
[♪] ♬ ♪ Old Manny river,
that old Manny river ♪
