Thomas J. West Music

So, you're trying for that really high note, and your voice "breaks". It's embarrassing, but not really dangerous...unless you do it too much. Why not learn how to avoid the "break"?

What happens to make that "Tarzan" or yodeling sound when we sometimes try to sing a very high note?

If you're familiar with the vocal registers: the chest voice, the head voice, the falsetto, etc. you'll understand that the chest voice is usually bigger, and fatter than the other registers. The head voice is often thinner with a distinctly different sound. And the falsetto (found more in male voices) is usually weaker with a very different sound (think the BeeGees)

Each of these different parts of the voice is limited as to how low or high it can go without giving out. Let's imagine that our voice, from the lowest to the highest notes we can sing, actually has 2 or 3 spots where the vocal mechanism has to change the way it works in order for us to sing higher. Let's say that from the lowest note we can hit through where we begin to feel stress and strain is called "the chest voice". (We'll talk about why it's named that another day.)

So the chest voice section is limited as to the number of notes it can produce.

So, what happens when we run out of high notes using the chest voice? We "switch gears" and begin using our "head voice". Now this really isn't another voice, but rather is another WAY of using the vocal mechanism to make it easier to sing higher notes than the chest voice is capable of. The vocal cords and other singing parts of our body simply change the way they function.

The head voice (register) then takes over the work from the chest voice and allows us to sing higher and higher notes. This part of our voice can be trained to sing very high notes.

For most girls, the head voice is the only register easy available for singing in the higher part of the range, although some girls have a part of the voice most often found in male voices, called the falsetto. Some girls have a register for very very high notes called the "whistle register" (think Mariah Cary)

In male voices (and some female) there is another very different part called the falsetto. In order to sing in the falsetto, the vocal cords have to radically change the way they actually vibrate to make the sound. The falsetto only functions well in the high range.

Now, going back to our original question: what happens when the voice "breaks" when we sometimes try to hit a high note?"

This happens when we try to push the chest voice up too high in its range, beyond where it should be singing. The voice simply switches to the next register up, the head voice or falsetto. This abrupt change in quality, volume, etc. is usually shocking to hear. (This is how yodeling is done, by rapidly switching from chest voice to head voice and back again.

Is this dangerous to the vocal cords? Not unless you try to sing notes too high for the chest voice to handle without making the change to the head voice. There is a way to move from the chest voice to the head without the abrupt change in sound. This is called the "middle voice" or "mix", and is most easily learned through private instruction or a recorded singing course.

Want to learn more easy techniques to improve your singing? Download my powerful new FREE ebook: "TIPS & TOOLS FOR ALL SINGERS" at:  http://vocalvision.com/ad1.php Al Koehn is a nationally recognized voice teacher, known for achieving amazing results with simple techniques. http://vocalvision.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Al_Koehn