Dear Jonas:
This will be my last attempt on this issue. Contact me privately if
I can be of assistance...maybe I can help, maybe not.
Jonas wrote,
> Well,i always seemed to have a good voice.With lessons it became(of
> course) much better.During a small period of time i learnt many
> things and corrected many of my technical weaknesses.That's why
i'm
> happy with my teacher.However,i see that in this period,no matter
> how much we both tried,i didn't even enter head voice.
So to summarize:
You haven't been studying for very long
Your current teacher has helped you out in general
But, you still can't find "head voice"
I would have a bit more patience then ... sometimes one part of the
voice is stuck but you make progress elsewhere, and then suddenly
things free up.
Here are a few more thoughts:
It seems you are trying to find a "head voice" which is totally
different from your "chest voice". Apparently that approach works
for some - and presently it is working for me. But another way is to
try to learn how to lighten and "mix" more "head" into the chest
voice first, and then sometimes the head comes later. Some of this
is a matter of keeping the larynx relaxed, and if one has a raised
larynx, then exercises that induce a bit of a "dumb" or "hollow"
sound can sometimes trick you into a headier production.
So - here's one exercise I made up - I have a fictional character
called "Count Chocula" - I think there's a cereal by that name.
Try speaking in your regular voice - "I am count chocula - blahhh" -
imagine the way that dracula might say it - a bit of a lowered larynx
and kind of exaggerated. If you watch Sesame Street there is the
character of the Count - imagine how he talks, but exaggerate it more.
You might try speaking that phrase higher and higher - "I am count
chocula blahhh" and see if it can trick you into entering a bit of a
head voice or at least a heady sounding voice.
If I have a chance, I'm tempted to try and record this and place it
in the files section.
So what I'm saying is - rather than worrying about "head voice" - see
if you can get a "heady" sound while still in the comfortable range
of your chest voice. This "headiness" in the sound should start, I
believe, well below middle C - say the G below. If you listen to a
good lyric baritone, for example, even in their middle voice there is
a lot of sense of roundness, an ease of tone from "blending"
the "head" (and of course physically this is nonsense - what is
happening is that the singer has learned to lengthen and thin their
folds lower down in pitch).
We have this CD of Children's Lullabies (see
Daydreams And Lullabies CD at amazon.com
that I play for my young son, featuring Russell Braun
(http://www.russellbraun.com/) - and it is such a lovely voice he
has - and a good role model I think for hearing how heady a sound one
can/should have in the upper middle and higher of one's chest voice.
Thomas Hampson is another baritone that has a very heady sound.
Good luck!
Michael Gordon
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