The Truth About Relaxing Your Voice

One of the biggest misconceptions about singing is that to relax your voice, you need to do less. Many believe that by backing off, their voice will naturally become more effortless. However, in 99% of cases, the opposite is true.

Strength Before Relaxation

To truly relax while singing, you first have to go through a phase of rigorous strengthening. At first, this might feel like:

• Straining
• Squeezing
• Over-gripping

This stage is necessary because it builds the muscular strength required to support your voice. Once that strength is in place, you can then ease off, and your voice will remain stable.

The Common Mistake

Most singers try to relax their voice prematurely. As a result:

1. Their voice becomes shaky and starts to fall apart.
2. To compensate, they try to sing louder, but then feel like they are straining.
3. They go back to relaxing, but it collapses again.
4. This cycle continues—stuck between straining and losing control.

Findin...

How to Develop Your Singing Tone: A Measurable Approach

When it comes to singing, tone can feel like a subjective concept—everyone has a different idea of what sounds good. But how do we turn something subjective into a clear, measurable goal?

The Key Elements of Great Singing

1. Range – You need to have the notes required for the songs you want to sing.

2. Control and Ease – The notes should feel stable and effortless; otherwise, they likely won’t sound good.

3. Volume Control – Singing softly and loudly should be within your control because volume impacts tone.

4. Consistency – You should be able to sing your favorite songs all the way through, in one take, with good pitch and confidence.

If you can achieve all these elements, you're on your way to being a killer singer. By the time you reach this point, you will either have the tone you desire or know exactly how to tweak it without sacrificing control.

Why Chasing Tone First Can Lead to Problems

Many singers ...

Do you really need to be born with a high voice if you want to sing high songs?  

As you can hear by my voice, I don't have a naturally high voice.

And if I kind of speak a little bit more, you can kind of hear that my voice is quite low naturally, right? Yet, I've been able to train my voice and develop it to sing crazy high songs.

When I first started singing, my highest note was F. The very first note in a song, I couldn't even sing. When I say my highest note was F, I don't mean I could like sing up there. It was like I had to yell up and I could just touch it for one second.

I know what it's like to be born with a voice that doesn't have talent, right? A voice that's just kind of low, and every song feels like it's too high. Every song feels like it's too high. You put on the radio, and you want to sing along, and it's just like, "Oh, it's too high." The range I can sing in is just ridiculously small, and it's really frustrating because it's like…

A lot of people say thing...

I'm just going to put it really simple for you. You really only need to worry about chest voice and falsetto.

So, what's chest voice and what's falsetto? In case you don't know, chest voice is the voice that I'm speaking in right now. It can be very soft, but it can also be very loud. You're using chest voice when you're speaking, yelling, or calling out. It's basically your real voice — your full, natural voice.

Falsetto is the voice that you use when you're speaking to a small animal or imitating a character like Mickey Mouse. It's higher and softer, but it can also be strong. It can be loud and clear, but it's still falsetto.

Basically, you've got those two vocal registers: chest voice and falsetto. These are the real registers you'll train.

Now, you might be wondering about head voice or mixed voice. Well, head voice and mixed voice are included in chest voice and falsetto. Let me explain:

Mixed Voice

Mixed voice is a term that often comes up online. You'll hear that mi...

How many times have you been told you need to "relax your throat and everything else" and have "no tension" when singing?  This kind of advice ALWAYS frustrated me when I was first learning to sing because it left me with no actionable step on what to do.

I would sing up to F4 which used to be my highest note...strain and just be told "yeah you're straining, relax more!"  Then I'd just flip into falsetto because I was too relaxed.

I didn't know what to do.  I could only either choke and strain...or flip into falsetto.

The best thing for my brain was removing the word "relax" lol.

So I don't think of trying to "relax" a voice...instead I pinpoint what's weak in the voice, or what coordination is overactive and then I strengthen the weaker side of the coin so to speak until the balance is even.

Singing requires muscular effort.  Heck, even STANDING requires muscular effort.  But when you stand up, because it's so easy, you think "I'm just relaxed".

This is why I don't like the term "rela...

The most common areas you might get stuck with your chest voice range are going to be either:

1. The first bridge (F4 for males / C5 for females)
2. Or the 2nd bridge (A4 for males / E5 for females). 

In this video I'll show you what to do if you're getting stuck at either of those areas with your chest voice.

The way I build voices is in segments.  Before trying to go higher, the first main goal is to build an extremely strong, solid chest voice up to your first bridge (F4 for guys, C5 for ladies).  It needs to be loud, solid and clear.  I go more into detail about this in my last video here.

So that's the first step.  Get really good at your first bridge.  Once you've done that then we can focus on how to approach the 2nd bridge.

If you're getting stuck at the 2nd bridge, then it's likely that your approach from the first bridge up is going wrong.  Just because you can sing up to the notes doesn't mean you're doing it in a way that will take you to your goals. 

This took me many...

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 be...

Welcome to PART 3 of my HOW TO SING PAST YOUR BREAK series.  In this video we'll talk about how to mix chest and head voice and how you should go about doing this.

Here are the links to the previous videos in this series:

• PART 1 - The difference between head voice, falsetto, mixed voice and chest voice.
• PART 2 - Why your CHEST voice is the secret to learning how to sing past your vocal break.

In Part 2 I mentioned how there IS a time and place for bridging from your chest voice into your falsetto smoothly.  I say falsetto because most people when they talk about crossing from chest to head voice are REALLY talking about a non-breathy falsetto.  I talk more about this in part 1.  Check it out.

Anyway, the main thing I want to say is this:

You don't build mixed voice and high ranged full voice by just crossing from chest voice to falsetto and "smoothing the break".  I mentioned there is a place for this, but it's a supplement.  It's not a finished sound. 

I might do it for ...

Welcome to PART 2 on how to get rid of the vocal break.  Let's recap what we covered in PART 1:

• I showed you the proof that myself and my students can sing through the vocal break.
• I demonstrated falsetto, 2 different types of head voice, chest voice, mixed voice and explain how they all fit together in the puzzle of the vocal break.

If you haven't seen PART 1 of how to sing past your break, then check that out first here.

Now that we’ve gotten the terminology out of the way, in today’s video I’m going to show you the actual process on how to get rid of the vocal break.  How exactly is it done?  What sorts of sounds will you need to do?  That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

The biggest thing I want you to know right away is, we don’t actually wanna sing "around" our vocal break by leaving chest and going into falsetto and trying to "trick" the audience into thinking we're still in chest...  We want to ELIMINATE the vocal break and make it something that you can sing...

Stuck on how to sing past your break?  Feel like you’ve tried every vocal exercise without any luck?  You’re in the right place.  I was stuck on this for YEARS not knowing what I was meant to do to overcome it. 

This is video is PART 1 of a new free video series I'm creating about how to sing past your break in full voice.

Check out Part 2 and Part 3 here.

In PART 1:

• I prove to you that I can sing through my vocal break as well as my students.
• I demonstrate falsetto, 2 different types of head voice, chest voice, mixed voice and explain how they all fit together in the puzzle of the vocal break.

In PART 2 I'll be explaining the actual process of how you go about building your voice so that you can sing past your vocal break without cracking or flipping.

I hope you enjoyed this video lesson.  If you want to learn the specific exercises and techniques specific to YOUR voice then I recommend getting Skype lessons with me and I'll teach you how to do it.

I'd love to know what ...