20 | Learn to Navigate Your Full Vocal Range by Understanding These 3 Key Areas of Resonance
31:29 Share

Hey there, songbird. Today we're talking about getting to know your voice and its capabilities by gaining an understanding of your vocal range and how to navigate the different parts of it. And when you have a better grasp of your instrument and how it works, your confidence grows. You begin to trust your voice, know your voice.

and love your voice. And that's really what we're going for, isn't it? Welcome to Reawaken Your Voice. I'm Lainey Prendeville Crawford, holistic voice coach, singer, song weaver. I believe the song in your heart holds medicine for yourself and for the world. And yet too often, something happens along the way. We shut down our voice and our song goes unsung.

Whether you stopped singing years ago or have always harbored an unrealized dream to start, if you're ready to finally give voice to those unsung songs in your heart, then take my hand as I guide you to free yourself from the inner critic, reignite your creativity, find your courage, sing with confidence, and reawaken those dormant parts of yourself aching for a revival.

So dust off your songbooks, tune up your guitar, bust out your singing bowls, your shakers, your drum. Actually, all you really need is your voice, your breath, open ears, and an open heart. Let's play. I hear from women I've worked with who want to understand their vocal range and how to find it. And, you know, they're wondering if it's even possible to

hit certain notes, whether that be high or low. And often there's even some shame tied up in there from past experiences or they just don't know where to begin. You know, I've heard from people who gave up on singing lessons early on in life because they couldn't reach a particular note and that really stuck with them. Or maybe they went to reach for it

in front of people and it didn't go the way they wanted. And so, you know, they kind of shut down and went quiet rather than working through it and learning to understand how to approach these different parts of the range, especially the extremes, the highs and the lows. So yes, while there are physical limits to your voice,

and the range of notes that it's capable of producing, most of the time their range is far greater than they realized. And we end up opening these parts of their voice they never knew existed. You know, there was once a time many years ago when I experienced the same thing myself. So

I was auditioning for the advanced choir at the arts high school I attended. And I had this really amazing teacher, the choir director. She made such a deep impact on me. But in this audition, she guided me through my vocal range. And I had never done it before. I guess I was maybe 14 at the time.

And I had never had a voice lesson, never worked with a teacher one-on-one before. And so as I worked with her through this audition, she was exploring my range to get to know my instrument and determine where my voice could fit into the choir. And I'll never forget, as we moved higher and higher through these vocal exercises she was guiding me through,

When I thought my range had reached its highest point she kept on going and I wanted to stop and say um That's all I got like it ends there But she kept going and so I went with her and she opened up a part of my voice. I never knew existed and a fun part of the story is that yes, I

I was accepted into the choir and we ended up singing in Carnegie Hall in New York City the following year, which was such a special experience. But I share this story to highlight the fact that you don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know. I didn't know I had access to this whole other part of my instrument.

I was limiting myself because I just didn't know. And then I was limiting myself because I doubted that I could. It was scary to go beyond the notes I was comfortable singing on my own. So without someone there guiding me, I never would have explored it or discovered it for myself. It was like there was this ceiling of fear

keeping me in this vocal comfort zone, which was yes, beautiful and felt good and all of those things. But there was so much more available to me and it was with this truly talented teacher that I was able to see that and experience it for myself. And this is something I've seen with many women I've worked with throughout the years.

They're doubting they can reach certain notes, whether that be the high notes or the low notes. You know, it's one of two things. It's either they simply don't know there's another approach to access those different parts of the range and they don't know it exists or they're shying away from it and holding back and afraid to lean into it, afraid to go all in and commit to it.

But then as I gently and safely nudge them toward trying and ease their voice into that space, they're blown away by the capability that comes from within, that is there within themselves. It is truly an eye-opening moment and it's one of my favorite things to witness as a teacher.

So if that sounds like something you'd like to experience for yourself or you've been wanting to explore your vocal range with some guidance to open it up, then hit me up. I'm here for you. reawakenyourvoice.com/coaching Your range is far more expansive than you realize. It's a matter of easing out of your comfort zone

to explore the unknown. And it's just about the approach. The key to understanding your vocal range is understanding the resonance chambers within your body and the parts of your voice where you tap into each of these. So first off, what is resonance? Resonance is when one vibrating body or system

causes another system to vibrate. So in terms of vocal resonance, when your exhaled breath passes through the vocal folds, it causes them to vibrate, creating sound waves. So this vibration starts with the vocal folds in the larynx or the voice box. Now, yes, there is vibration in the larynx, the pharynx, the voice box, the mouth.

And the tone quality is affected by the shape of the vowels and the consonants, where your tongue is placed, the soft palate, all of these things. But I don't want to focus on this or get too technical with this for a number of reasons. One, because I don't want you to focus so much on the sensation in the throat. And two, I like to simplify when it comes to technique.

So that we're not getting all caught up in our heads about it. Been there, done that. There's a better way. So we're going to focus on three areas of resonance. The chest resonance, the head resonance, and the mask resonance. So let's start off first with the chest resonance or the chest voice. This is...

that range that's around your speaking voice. A really simple way to experience this is by just saying, "Hey!" You can put your hand on your chest and feel the resonance happening there. Now, to find the range of your chest voice, start with the lowest possible note where it feels comfortable but low.

and slide up until you reach what feels like a ceiling, where it feels like you would have to start reaching with your throat or your neck if you tried to go higher. So a little something like this. So I reached this part where if I tried to go higher with the chest resonance, it would start to reach a little with my throat. Now that gives you an idea of how

high you can go with your chest voice comfortably. So where the top of that chest voice, chest resonance is for you. To find the bottom of that, you can try something like going down in half steps until you reach the low extreme. Hey-ah. Hey-ah. Hey-ah.

stepping down in half steps as low as you can go without pushing without forcing without creating tension and where it starts to fall away that'll be the lowest extreme of your vocal range but remember gentle easy and try not to push it down there it's a very comfortable easing and

you'll feel where it starts to fall away. Trust yourself. So those are just some ideas to explore the chest voice. Find the height of it and then go down in half steps to find the bottom of it. Until you get down. Okay, so.

Moving on to the head voice, the head resonance. So this is kind of like through the top of your head, through the skull. That's where the vibration is sensed. You can experience this with hello. Up in there. So you can begin at the top of your range where you feel comfortable with it. Gradually kind of trickle down.

And as you trickle down, as you slide down, you will feel a shift. There's an inclination toward moving back into the chest voice. All right around here right now for me in this moment. But you'll feel where it wants to shift back into the chest voice, the chest resonance. And this is where we encounter the passaggio.

Just as with the chest voice going up, we encounter the passaggio at the height of the chest voice and at the bottom of where we feel that shift in the head voice. The passaggio is an Italian term for passage. It's the passage between the head voice and the chest voice, between these different parts of your range. And it's often that trouble spot where you're

We really have to work on smoothing it out, blending it, gaining a bit of control, you know, how to navigate and manage that area of the voice. It's something we gain through practice. Moving back into exploring the head voice, you can begin to ease your way up to the top of your range with this.

something like this exercise. There are so many different ones you can use, but I'll just start with a simple example. Let's use "yo". "Yo". So having that like "y" sound, "yuh, yuh", in front of an "o" vowel can help you create kind of a springboard up into the top of your range. So start, start somewhere, start somewhere comfortable in your head voice. "Yo".

Yo, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Yo, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Sliding up and stepping back down. And remember, use that yo as a springboard. Yo, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Stepping up in half steps. Just as we stepped down in half steps through the lower range, now we're stepping up in half steps.

through the higher range as far as you can go without reaching, without creating tension. Keep that sense of ease and a light spring to it. Just remember as you go higher, stay grounded, stay rooted.

Rather than imagining you're reaching up to these high notes, sink deeper into the earth. Moving on to the mask resonance. The mask. So this is the face, the sinus cavities. These are not only the ones on either side of your nose under your eyes, but also in the forehead, the nasal cavities.

all of this mask area. This is where we bring in the mixed voice. So we can mix this mask resonance with the head resonance and with the chest resonance to create a full bodied, fully resonant sound that's balanced. This takes practice. What we're focusing on right now is just

being able to experience the sensation of it and understand that this is also a place where you can feel the vibrations you can sense the resonance in your body and kind of tap into that to create different tone colors and blend these different parts of your voice so you can use the consonant N

to get here and yeah, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh with the little tilde, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh. That's a really helpful sound to like get that forward placement in the mask. I had a teacher, he called it nasty, be nasty with it. So we're going to use that nyeh to go to this extreme nasal sound

But then we pull it back by balancing it out with the head resonance, with the chest resonance, depending on where we are in our range. You can kind of awaken the nasal cavities by doing lip trills. Just kind of explore that.

So yeah, start there with just some lip trills. You feel it kind of tickle your nose and you can feel those sinus cavities and nasal cavities awaken. Then use the N to bring the sound forward. You can do... And I'm going to get really extreme and nasty and nasally with it.

It doesn't even have to sound pretty. That's not what we're going for here. We're trying to find the sensation. And then when you feel in the nose, in that forward mask area, you feel the placement, you feel the sound vibrating there, then try this. Still, we're in that nasally sound that doesn't have to sound pretty, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, now we want to balance it out through the back of the head a little bit. Let's move back down.

And then I feel this sensation of, ooh, I want to go down into my chest voice when I get lower than that. And that's how you know you're in this vicinity of the passaggio. So this mask resonance is used a lot through the passaggio, through that middle range, and it's blended with the head and chest resonance. So

You want to work towards balancing it out so it's not nasally, but there's an opening through the back of the head and opening through the chest. But you have this, it almost feels like a pearl. There's this pearl of the mask resonance blended in with that. And it's something to experience more so than it is something to explain and put to words.

As you play and explore, you can kind of seek out these sensations and see what they feel like to you. How would you describe it? How would you put words to it? Through this passaggio, I see an image of a canyon. So the land is all connected. It's all there, but there's this canyon and maybe some water flowing through that canyon.

But how do you get across safely from one side of the canyon to the other? How do you get across safely and easily and seamlessly? Well, you build a bridge. You build a bridge through practice. This is one of the gifts of developing your voice and practicing these parts that are kind of sticky, kind of challenging, like really challenging.

is that when you learn how to navigate this, you have so much more command over your voice and can be so much more expressive as you have so many more artistic choices and possibilities with your voice. Also something to be experienced and something that I can totally guide you through if you're interested, reawakenyourvoice.com slash coaching. So we've talked about these three ways

kinds of resonance. Now while there is vibration happening in your throat, in your voice box, in your mouth, that is not where your power comes from. The power of your voice comes from the breath and it comes from tapping into these other resonance chambers within the body. So you can imagine to just like take your neck and your throat area out of this whole equation.

The only thing you really need to think about in that space is just openness, openness through the throat and focus on these three main areas of resonance, the head resonance, the chest resonance and the mask resonance through the face. There's so much to play with there with blending the different kinds and balancing them and making certain choices for certain parts of a song.

But we want to focus on these three kinds of resonance when singing: the chest voice, the head voice, and the mixed voice. And with the mask resonance, we're blending with the head and the chest resonance. It's used throughout the passaggio, but also above and below when you're going for a certain tone color.

And these three will help you navigate your upper range, your lower range, and your middle range. Now just as a final thought, I want you to know that yes, your voice physically does have limits that need to be acknowledged and respected so you don't hurt yourself trying to do something that your voice wasn't designed to do.

you know, there are boundaries to your vocal range. There is a high extreme, there is a low extreme, and we have to be careful not to push beyond that. And it's important to approach those extremes with the proper breath support, the resonance, the placement, so that you don't run into problems down the road, and so that you can preserve your instrument and

Enjoy singing for years to come. So embrace the range that you have. Embrace the voice you were given and lean into the place where it feels really good and really juicy and really rich. So play with these resonance chambers and the sensations they create. See if you can locate your passaggio.

and notice the shift that wants to happen as you're moving from the head voice to the chest voice or vice versa from the chest voice to the head voice and as you slide through that middle range of your voice. So take some time this week and practice exploring this. Explore the chest voice. So first finding it with "hey, hey" and then sliding up

from the bottom on O to where you reach that ceiling. That'll be moving into the passaggio, right? And then exploring the head voice with hello, hello, hello. Sliding down on O, in the head voice and then feeling where it wants to shift into the chest. And there is that passaggio again. To experience mask resonance, use those lip trills to awaken.

And then use the N to find that forward placement in the mask. And then balancing it out with the head and the chest resonance. At first, maybe being a little extreme with it and nasty. And then kind of pulling it back to play with the sensation and to experience what you experience.

So have fun with it as always. Play. This is just exploratory. And as you explore these different parts of your voice and experience the sensations that come through tapping into these different resonance chambers, you'll get to know your instrument. And through getting to know your instrument, you begin to gain confidence, learn to trust your voice.

And yes, ultimately learn to love your voice. Hey friend, thank you so much for listening. If this episode unlocked something in you or moved you in some way, I'd be so grateful if you'd leave me a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're streaming this and share this episode with a friend who's been praying for a vocal breakthrough.

Until we meet again, keep nurturing that song in your heart. Lots of love.