Why Straining and Pushing Doesn't Work
I'm sure, if you're someone who tends to push and strain your voice (especially when belting), you've probably figured something out by now.
It doesn't work.
Even if straining manages to allow you to hit the note you wanted to hit, it doesn't sound pretty. It sounds strained.
Unfortunately, the same way we handle getting out the last of the toothpaste, most people will push even harder when they don't see toothpaste coming out. And there are singers who will also push even harder when the note or the volume they want won't come out. It doesn't work, and again, even if it hits the note or volume you want it doesn't sound good, and it never will.
Your voice doesn't work this way.
This is how you should think of your voice in regards to straining, and hopefully it encourages you not to do so:
Imagine your esophagus or your throat as a pipe. Like a metal pipe, sort of like one used for plumbing. Now, whenever you strain, push or force, imagine taking your hand and crumpling that pipe, as if to force your air out even harder.
What happens when you crumple a pipe?
Well, if air is rushing through it, and it's now crumpled up, the air has even less of an area to get through. Plus, think of how damaging this is!
Always remember: straining, pushing and forcing can DAMAGE your voice.
So, no matter what, we now know that straining doesn't just have the possibility of damaging your voice, it also DOESN'T EVEN WORK!
Please, please, please, if you are someone who has a reflex to strain or push, stop!!!!!
So, if we aren't supposed to strain or push, then... how do we get those high notes or that volume?!
RELAX
Yup.
Relax.
First and foremost, you must relax.
We need our airway - that pipe - as open and clear as possible so that our air (our voice) has all the space it needs to come out clearly.
ALL SINGING IS RELAXED.
YES, even belting.
Again, straining to sing is the equivalent of pushing the paintbrush harder against the wall. That doesn't make the color darker - you need to spend the time and patience waiting for it to dry, giving it another light coat, waiting, and a possible other coat.
Technically, I'm saying that if you want to sing well, you've got to take the long route to singing. It takes a bit longer to learn to sing, but it also sounds and feels a hell of a lot better. Hopefully, at least, this gives you some relief! I mean, you've spent how many years straining to no avail? Now you know it's because straining doesn't help you sing; it actually PREVENTS you from singing. The moment you begin to tense your muscles, your voice closes up, and becomes less flexible. That is why we need to relax! When you learn to write with a pencil, you don't keep gripping it harder and harder; you repeat the motion. You build strength in your muscles.
So, relaxing is the first step.
The second, is learning how to move your voice.
Vocal Placement
The other reason why straining doesn't work is because straining is an attempt to force your voice to do something in a place that is incapable of doing it.
Here is a diagram of how most people who strain think their voice does as they go higher (the dotted lines represent the space in your mouth):
Think of the orange line as your voice going up all the way to the highest notes in your range.
This is how most people think of singing higher.
That's also where the term "reach for the high notes" comes from. This idea that we have to reach up.
But what if I told you that those high notes... aren't actually UP?
Straining doesn't work because you're attempting to reach high notes that you think are up through the top of your head, but those notes are actually NOT THERE.
Those notes aren't there because there is no place for your voice up there! If you try to sing straight up through the top of your range, halfway there you're going to hit something hard.
The roof of your mouth.
Singing requires space. And if you try singing straight up, there is no space there. The roof of your mouth prevents you from moving your voice higher!
What we have to do is move our voice somewhere where your voice can move.
For example, it's the same idea as if you're trying to reach something in the backseat of the car, and your arm simply doesn't reach, if you keep trying to push your arm for it, you'll end up hurting yourself. Instead, what do we do?
We shift our position, or we use a different arm, or perhaps try to kick it toward ourselves.
Bottom line: if we cannot physically do something using one part of our body, we try to achieve it with another.
This is the same exact situation with your voice.
Except, think of what you're reaching for as the notes or the volume you want.
We can keep reaching and reaching and reaching, but we can't reach those notes the same way our arm can't reach that thing in the backseat.
That doesn't mean that we can't find a way to reach those notes, however. Just like in the car, we just have to use a part of our body that can reach it.
And the biggest secret of singing (though I have no idea why it's such a secret!):
Your voice does not move STRAIGHT up; it moves BACKWARDS!
This is how your voice moves!
Think about it logically; if we hit the roof of our mouth in the halfway point of our range, and we can't move our voice up because there's no space there, where do we have space to move it? Where in our mouth can we go? Not forward, because that's no longer in our mouth. Not down, because there's no space there either. But, we do have space if we move up and backward.
As I mentioned in my vowels post yet, we talked about how to get as much space in our mouth as possible. But to quickly give you an idea here, either pretend to yawn or imagine an upright egg on your tongue. Do you feel the back of your mouth lift higher? That's your soft palate raising! This gives you space for your voice to move to the highest points of your range!
When you move your voice like this, there are three distinct places you're utilizing. And they're the three voices.
The Three Voices
There are three places we can use to sing in our voice. But unless you've had some vocal training, you're probably only utilizing one. Therefore, you're trying to hit a whole bunch of notes that don't exist where you're singing.
The Two Main Voices:
Head Voice
Chest Voice
These are your two main voices. And don't worry; you've already used them both throughout your life. You've probably used them both already today!
But you might not have used one or the other while you sing.
Chest Voice is the lowest part of your voice. When you sing in chest voice, you'll feel it resonate (a little vibration feeling in your body) in your chest as well as in your mouth, closer to your teeth. Chest voice is speaking or talking voice. So, the entire time you spend talking to someone, you're using chest voice! It's a very full sound - the fullest sound your voice can physically make.
Here is a video I made for Chest Voice, with the exercises I used to learn this placement!
Head Voice (also known as falsetto) is the opposite of chest voice; it's the highest part of your voice. When you sing in head voice, you'll feel it resonate in the back of your head, or sometimes even the whole upper half of your head. You've also used head voice many, many times, and you might have even used it today already. Head voice is a very soft, light voice, and we often use it to speak to a young child, baby, puppy or cute animal. It's the voice you use when you go, "What a good boy!" or "Got your nose!"
And here is my Head Voice video, with easy exercises you can use to learn this placement!
Often, new singers are used to only singing in just one of these two voices. So, those who are used to singing in only chest voice have trouble with high notes, and they're the culprits of major straining and pushing, because they're trying to reach high notes, and high notes don't exist in chest voice alone. And those who only sing in head voice (ahem, where I started) have an impossible time trying to sing with any kind of volume, because head voice in of itself is soft and light, and physically cannot give you the fullness that chest voice can.
But, even when you learn both of these voices, you still run into a problem.
Switching between them.
There's an area between them, a few notes in your range that sit right between chest voice and head voice, that is called your vocal break. This is literally where your voice breaks from chest voice into head voice. And when you try to switch between these, it tends to be very abrupt, and it's not seamless. This can also make people want to strain to push through that break.
BUT, there is a solution!
And that's the third voice, which isn't exactly it's own voice, but it's a mixture of head and chest voice.
And that is mixed voice.
Mixed Voice
Mixed Voice is a lifesaver. And it's often the one step singers don't know they need to take, and leaves them frustrated for years and years (ahem, me).
Mixed Voice is the transition area between Chest Voice and Head Voice. It's a mixture between the two, that allows you to seamlessly transition between them without that break, and sing in that break without a problem. (post on HOW to sing in mixed voice coming soon!)
Here is the video on mixed voice, as well as the exercise that taught me how to sing in mixed voice, the "Nay" exercise!
The Three Voices:
Chest Voice
Mixed Voice
Head Voice
Think of vocal placement using this image:
Chest Voice Mixed Voice Head Voice
When you put yellow and blue together, they create green. Green is a mixture of yellow and blue. (Yellow didn't read well in the diagram I drew, so pretend that orange is yellow!)
Learning to sing without straining, with complete freedom, is about relaxing your muscles and learning to move your voice.
Think about it like the gears of a car. If you want to drive slow, first gear is fine. But when you want to drive faster, you need to move up to a higher gear to physically allow the car to travel at those speeds. If you try to go 60mph in first gear, I think you know what will happen. You'll hear a whole bunch of bad noises, and perhaps damage the car. And you will definitely not be driving smoothly.
It is the same thing with your voice.
Your vocal range is there. You can sing high notes. And you can belt with volume. You just have to move your voice into a place where it CAN hit those notes, and where it CAN get to that volume.
Learn how to sing in all three of these voices, and you will never ever feel the need to strain again!
The best part is that you won't have to.
Leave any questions or comments below, and if you need any more help, I offer online voice lessons over here!
Happy Singing!
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