How do I warm up my voice before I sing?

How to sing in mixed voice?

• I'm really struggling with my mixed voice in my singing. I've heard so many different things - that its an entire range that takes the place of your lower head range and higher chest range that you can actually sing in, ive heard that its just a few notes of a bridge and you don't really sing in mixed voice? Does anyone have any videos of themselves or anyone else singing in mixed voice? Its difficult to mimic something you don't know what it sounds like... Does anyone have any exercises to help achieve it? Every time I try I just end up flipping between chest and head voice. Does your voice need to be developed to sing in mixed voice? I'm only 15, is this a reason why I'm struggling? Any help would be awesome!

• Answer:

  How to sing in a "mixed voice"--you need to take proper voice lessons. Really. It isn't anything you can just pick up by watching a couple of videos on Youtube--or you would have figured it out on your own by now because you've been trying really hard for a long time as it is. At 15, yeah sure you're voice will be still developing. You will sound different--and hopefully better--at 25 than you do now. However, not if you keep trying to teach yourself or copy what you "think" you should be doing and wind up damaging your vocal cords. Don't risk it! And actually, you do "flip" into whatever register you need to go into. You just learn to do it a lot smoother. I can't explain it here, because it took me a while to master it and I took lessons for years. I learned to "cover", but fought like heck not to do any sudden shifts, when actually this is what I did need to do (as was taught to me by my last voice coach--I hope to have time and money to go back to this great guy). You get to the point where the voice starts to sound smooth and even rather than it seeming like there are two different people singing different parts of the same song! This is especially hard for sopranos since it's natural for us to sing in that head voice. Ask your school choir teachers or any vocal music department staff at your local college to see if they have the names of any good voice teachers that have the patience and experience to train teenagers (not every teacher that is great with adults can also teach teens effectively). Great care should be taken with your voice now. Whatever you do, just don't ever push yourself to sing anything that isn't comfortable. For now, if you need to pick songs where you can stay in either your chest voice OR your head voice--then sing those songs until you can learn to bridge the gap. Here are some articles that I think go into great detail about things like passagio, and singing in mixed registers, and all that. This guy is NOT my voice teacher. I recommend a local face to face teacher always--but the guy does teach singing for a living and his information is valid. Any websites I might post in my answers is for information, and not an endorsement of anyone's program. They may not help you learn how to sing in a "mixed voice" but hopefully they will help you understand why you can't learn it on your own by just trying to guess. http://www.utc.edu/Administration/DepartmentalHonors/HastonG.pdf http://www.voiceteacher.com/female_passaggio.html http://www.voiceteacher.com/middle_voice.html http://neilhowlett.com/articles/passagio.php http://www.voiceteacher.com/high_singing.html