Weak mixed voice? STOP "bridging into headvoice" if you sound like THIS....

Weak mixed voice?  Just continuously "bridging into headvoice" may not fix the issue.  It is only ONE PART of the answer.  If your mixed voice is weak then it is likely that you need to STRENGTHEN your CHEST VOICE.

Here is an email I received:

"Dear Phil,
My mix voice is very weak and has a really bad tone which isn’t changing despite me trying various exercises.

I’m looking to learn how to strengthen this mix voice and make it actually usable when singing above the break.

Is this mix voice a good start or do I need to find a different approach?"

He sent an audio recording which I show in the video above.  What you're doing in this clip is actually NOT mixed voice.  You're going from chest voice and flipping to falsetto.  There is a common misconception that mixed voice is just about "smoothing the vocal break between chest voice and falsetto" but it's not.  Mixed voice is actually just your chest voice extending beyond where your vocal break used to be.

Most people have this belief that chest voice HAS to "get stuck" and then "transition into something else".  The truth though is that your chest voice can be developed to where it DOESN'T get stuck or jam up, and instead you can just take it all the way up into the 5th octave.  It will gradually taper out more and more as you go higher.

When I first started singing I was stuck at F4 for YEARS despite doing loads of vocal exercises and "bridging" between chest voice and falsetto over and over again.  I only started getting results once I embraced my chest voice and properly learned how to strengthen and grow it.

Now this isn't to say that practicing chest voice to falsetto and smoothing the transition is useless.  It IS definitely a PART of the training, but most people I encounter are already doing so much of that kind of training that the major thing that needs addressing is the chest voice the most.

So the first thing you will need to focus on to build a high mixed voice, is actually working WITHIN your current chest voice range.  If you focus on lots of bridging between chest voice and falsetto before you grow a solid big chest voice you won't get any results.

The first thing you need to do is learn how to create a loud, solid, calling out/belting kind of sound.  You need to be able to do this on all of the major vowels.  EH and AH are the easiest to start with, then you can try AE (like yay), O, EE and OO (like boo).

If your vocal break is F#4 then work from there and downwards.  I show in the video the exercise and the way to do the sound so make sure you watch it.

You need to focus on creating a very loud, strong, CLEAR sound.  If it is airy you will might go hoarse from too much air rushing through the vocal cords.  So you need to really actively COMPRESS the vocal cords against the air like how I show in the video.

As you take this sound lower it should get softer and less intense and as you go higher it should get MORE intense and louder.  The same is true with applying this technique into songs.