Developing Your Head Voice - "Low Head Voice"

If you were under the impression that the head voice was only about singing the high notes, then in this article I want to talk about the low head voice. In my previous article I explained a little more about head voice versus falsetto. When you flip into falsetto, the body is basically, anatomically, kicking in the defense mechanism by splitting apart the vocal cords to protect them from being damaged from all the weight and strain caused by a raised larynx… which in essence, is like you trying to shout your way into higher notes. Whilst out jogging on the beach today, I spotted several youngsters practicing their singing by shouting verses of a song over and over again—which is commonplace in Dar es salaam—and I strongly advise against it. I’ll have to write another article (perhaps in Kiswahili) to highlight the disadvantages of voice training in this fashion, but for now, I want us to take a closer look at the low head voice and how developing that area can bring about tremendous benefits to your singing.

There are a lot of benefits to the low head voice. In terms of how it sounds, it’s kind of like a cartoon sort of voice, if you had to describe literally. When you develop the lower part of your head voice, it gives your chest voice something to blend and to mix with. So that’s one of the additional benefits of working the lower head voice. It also helps to lower the larynx. A lot of problems untrained singers encounter are the direct result of the raised larynx—which causes all of the strain and pain that you don’t want, and gets in the way of you delivering your notes in a more professional and relaxed manner. So developing this part of your head voice, no doubt, will be a great help.

So let’s take a closer look at what exercises to do to help you develop your low head voice. One way to do this would be to work with “MA” with any scale that you do. It’s always a good idea to learn to replace some of the exercises on the scales, with alternative workouts that help fix certain problems. For example, you could be doing the arpeggios, chromatic, and descending scales with “MA”. Obviously, you don’t want to sing in this cartoon type tone, but for training purposes it is extremely good for developing your low head voice area. I do hope that these handy tips have given you additional training to add to your daily vocal training routine. Feel free to download vocal training exercises here.

You are the instrument, learn to sing like a pro!

JOETT

Vocal Coach & Author
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