How Do I Control My Voice Break?

Q: Recently, I seem to have less control over my voice around my break, which occurs around D above middle C. Are there any exercises I can do to make the transition from my regular voice to my falsetto easier? —Frustrated Tenor

Kathy Kessler Price answers: You say "recently" in your question about the problems with your "break," which I will call passaggio (which means "passage"—makes us feel better about it, doesn't it?). I don't know how old you are, but there could be maturation/developmental issues going on. In such a case, patience and gentle, top-down exercises may be key until your voice stabilizes a bit. Humming or lip trills that descend (5-4-3-2-1) can be useful.

You can also try these exercises, no matter what age you are:

Lightening up breath pressure as you move through the passaggio is necessary, but if your support system is not healthy, what often happens is you either give up or muscle your way through those subtle changes of the vocal folds.

1. For men, I advocate thinking a small or more closed vowel. Imagine a vertical "core"—like a thin, steel rod—as you move between registers. Opening the vowel too much in the passaggio creates a feeling of losing control. While doing this vowel exercise, maintain a loose jaw and tongue (with tip comfortably forward) and ease up on pressure and volume. You may feel intensified pressure around the nose/cheeks/eyes, but the throat (vocal mechanism and surrounding muscles in the neck) all need to be easy and free.
2. You can also try an exercise that moves you back and forth between the two registers to help you feel commonality. On [su:i] ("swee") or [u] ("oo") try a kind of yodel, starting in falsetto and then allowing the transition to bobble back and forth between falsetto (men) or head (women) and chest voice: 5-4, 5-4, 5-3, 5-3, 5-2, 5-2, 5-1. Take the "weight" of this exercise from the feeling you have on the 5 pitch. This exercise should be done with easy abandon.
3. Try 5-8-1 on [o] ("oh"), starting on the 5 pitch with a lighter sensation, as if you were already singing with the resonant weight (or lack thereof) of the upper octave (8). Come down the octave, relaxing back into the chest voice. You can start this exercise above and below the passaggio point to find that ease of transfer. Sliding is the way to go. Don't pop in and out of registers.

Kathy Kessler Price, soprano (M.M., Ph.D.), has performed as a soloist at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and in a solo concert tour of the Czech Republic. Price teaches at the University of Kansas, William Jewell College, and maintains private voice studios in Kansas City and McLean, VA. She was awarded the 2010 National Vocal Pedagogy Award from the National Association of Teachers of Singing Foundation.

Cate Frazier-Neely answers: It is a bit tricky making helpful suggestions without hearing you because navigating the passaggio relates to the entire way a singer sings, not just those few half-steps where a noticeable shift occurs. That being said, here are three exercises to help with that area:

1. Start in a heady (women) or falsetto (men) "oo" vowel, and gently slide down a whole octave while pinching your nose. Pinching your nose actually opens the naso-pharynx (I know this is a paradox) and helps the soft palate slightly activate with air.
2. While you are doing this, put your other hand on the back of your neck and feel whether or not it collapses or tightens as you sing. In a healthy body, without excessive neck tension, the back of your neck will feel like it is slightly elongating. This, of course, helps the soft palate stay activated and one can sing through the "break" in a lighter mechanism, which is what is required.
3. Sing the word "sing" and immediately close to the "ng." Make sure your tongue tip and middle have not retracted. Ride on the "ng" sound over the pitches 1-2-3-2-1. Massage your jaw joint as you sing and notice when the jaw decides it wants to "help" by getting tighter. Wiggle the jaw to help loosen it, and sing again, opening to an "oo" as you proceed through the steps.

Assuming that you are singing with a balanced support system, lightening up breath pressure as you move through the passaggio is necessary, but if your support system is not healthy, what often happens is you either give up or muscle your way through those subtle changes of the vocal folds. Navigating the passaggio actually starts about a third below it! This is done by either vowel migration or awareness of the difference between loose and dropped jaw as you ascend. An overly-dropped jaw or overly-opened mouth will not help, believe it or not.

Cate Frazier-Neely is a voice educator and arts' education reformer, and has founded five vocal arts organizations in the past 30 years, including the Washington Vocal Consortium. She currently works with professional, post-graduate and committed amateur singers in classical, musical theater and pop music, as well as voice-over artists and news anchors in media. She is also a published composer.

Elizabeth Daniels answers: It is important to be able to feel what it is like to sing in both head and chest mechanisms. Identify what your posture, tongue, and palate are doing in each register; note the differences.

Next, ask yourself, "What can I do three or four notes before I hit my break to anticipate or approximate the physical adjustment for the new direction I am going?"

For female voices, for example, when going from head voice into chest one could try increasing subglottal pressure, encouraging more resonance in the mouth, and slightly altering the posture by lifting the chin up a little. The opposite would happen when going from chest voice into head—less subglottal pressure, more nasopharyngeal pressure, and a straightening of the neck that may bring the chin down and in a little.

These feelings can be implemented by adjusting the palate, the tongue, and the posture. The singer's primary goal should be to let up on breath pressure while changing registers. Allow the cords to readjust their length and thickness naturally. Get out of the way and let it happen!

This adjustment can sometimes be facilitated by momentarily aiming the sound more toward the nose—almost like turning sideways during a narrow point in a cave, and then readjusting the body forward once there is more space. This little trick should be used right at the point of the break and should be implemented in conjunction with the above suggestion to physically anticipate the adjustments needed for the new register. The "nose" trick works especially well when going from the male falsetto to the head voice; it takes pressure off the cords so they can naturally adjust to using the whole cord (going into head voice) or just the edges of the cord (going into falsetto).

Elizabeth Daniels has served on the adjunct faculties of the University of Maryland and the Curtis Institute of Music and presently maintains a large private studio in Silver Spring, Maryland. She is a teaching mentor for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Internship Program, and has been honored for excellent motivational teaching by the Music Teachers National Association.