8

Songs without Fear

IF YOU sat in on lessons with me for a week—or even a day—you’d see the immediate changes that create breakthroughs in people’s singing voices. It’s as though people were driving around in Ferraris that behave like Volkswagens because of a tiny malfunction they never knew was there. Your “malfunction” might be a high larynx, or a weak middle voice. Maybe it’s as simple as a clenched stomach that builds pressure as you try to breathe. The interesting thing is that these factors don’t completely keep us from singing. When we run into roadblocks, we just build alternate paths. You might tell yourself that you can sing in only one key—and so what? You sound great there. Or you figure that everyone knows it’s hard work to hit the high notes that your band wants you to add to its songs, so it’s no big deal that singing wipes you out. You’re getting gigs; what’s the problem? In other words, what’s wrong with a Volkswagen, anyhow, as long as it runs?

Believe me, being a great vocalist is not just about driving from point A to point B; you want to be the Ferrari. And if you listen carefully to the way you sing songs, you can learn to do what I do: find that hidden glitch and fix it. I’d like to help you identify the physical reasons that are making you limit your choice of songs and the way you deliver them. The clues are all there in the places you hate the most—the songs that are “way out of my key,” the notes that make your face turn purple, the phrases that tie your tongue. If you learn how to work through the spots where you would ordinarily stop, you can immediately begin to use them as stepping-stones to amped-up vocal power. So let’s start singing and see what happens.

Singing Along

A lot of teachers will tell you that you need to practice vocal exercises for months, even years, before you’re ready to try a song. One school of thought says: Teach them breathing until they’re bored, then let them do exercises forever, and when the exercises are perfect, bring on the songs. There are even technique teachers on the planet who never let their students graduate from exercises at all. These approaches might be great ways for singing coaches to wring the maximum amount of income from dedicated students, but the problem is that vocal exercises on their own aren’t what you set out to master. You know, and I know, that while you’re learning the vocal technique exercises, you’re going to sing songs, even if I tell you not to.

Since I’m a vocal producer as well as a technique teacher, I can’t see the point of technique that doesn’t flow directly into making music. My feeling is, once you have a sense of where middle is, and you have some control over chest and head, it’s fine to begin to put your new skills to work in songs. I’d just like you to do it in a smart way that will multiply the progress you’re making using exercises alone.

What You Hear versus What I Hear

There’s nothing I love more than an ambitious student who’s eager to jump into the tough stuff right away. I’ve met thousands of you, and typically, I find out who you are when, in your second lesson, you bring me a Sia or Justin Timberlake song and tell me, “I’m ready to do this.” Instead of being scared off by the vocal acrobatics and pure daredevil highs and lows of the music, you’re inspired to go for it. And I say: Fine. I take the sheet music, start to play, and then I just listen. Almost inevitably, the singing I hear is way off the mark. At the points where Sia is soaring, the student has settled into a comfortable monotone that doesn’t come close to the peaks, and when I point this out, the student says: “But I don’t have this problem when I’m singing this at home.”

When you’re singing for the joy of it, just you and your music player, it’s easy to fall into the illusion that you’re singing the same pitches as the recording artist. Part of your brain hears the artist and part hears you, and when one is on and one is off, it’s natural to give yourself the credit. “I was right there with the singer,” you think. “That was great.”

Imitation is a great way to learn a song, and you’ve taken a big step in the right direction by taking the time to listen or play the music repeatedly. You can’t even think about being technically proficient until you know the words and melody completely. Once you’ve reached that stage, though, it’s good to start listening to yourself. And if you learn to listen a little more critically, you’ll hear what I do—the places where the voice is straining, or where there’s a break between one note and the next. You could cringe and criticize yourself every time you identify a rough spot. But instead, I’d like you to keep your ears open and make notes of exactly where you’re getting into trouble. In effect, you’ll be plotting out your own hazard course. Ask yourself:

Where does the song get difficult?

What particular words in the song trip me up?

What passages seem to build up too much pressure in my chest voice?

Where am I breaking between one note and another?

You might notice that one part seems high for you, so you’re straining. Is that a place to leave chest voice? Move into middle? Move from middle to head? How can you reduce the pressure?

Keep in mind that there’s no magic way to leapfrog from where you are now to instant divahood just by choosing more difficult music and knowing where it’s hard. I don’t mind your struggling through songs if you’re not technically perfect, but I want you to struggle through the same areas that we’re working on in the exercises. That means I want you to start with songs that go a little way into middle instead of immediately jumping into songs that go way up into high middle and head. Choose songs that let you sing with chest and a bit of connected middle, and then, as you get stronger, work upward.

I’m not sentencing you to remain stuck in a limited range. In fact, in my studio I don’t even allow students to sing simple songs that cover no ground at all. I want you to own the entire range, but as you set out, I’d like you to avoid songs that go from the lowest note in chest to the highest note in head voice. I know this sounds obvious, but it’s easy to fall in love with songs that are technically demanding and try them without really thinking about what they’re asking of your voice.

Finding Music That Works for You

If you look at the sheet music of the song you’re interested in, you can easily see how much of it falls into chest, middle, or head. Women should watch for the notes that fall between B-flat and E or F and know that in that range they should move into middle. If you’re able to get into middle but it’s still weak, look for songs that peak around B-natural to C-sharp. That’s a part of middle that can still be very chesty. Check out the singer Tori Kelly, who sings a lot in this territory, and you’ll see that you can do real songs, with beautiful possibilities, within this range. (Look at the diagram to see what these notes look like on sheet music if you’re not sure.)

If you’re a man, you’ll see middle on the sheet music in the notes that run between E or F and B-flat or B-natural. Your first songs should have their highest notes around G and A. In this range you’ll have a chance to taste middle without having to strain incredibly. (The diagram shows you how these notes look on the page.)

STAFF NOTATION—FEMALE

Keep in mind that 85 percent or more of popular songs for men and women have no head voice in them at all. That means that any song you love probably requires only chest and middle—unless it’s superhigh gospel, or performed by Mariah Carey or Jennifer Hudson, who love middle and head voice. As you sing along with your favorite recording artists, try to be acutely aware of where your voice wants to leave chest and go into middle. Because you’ve worked with the exercises, you’ve learned how to allow air to get above the soft palate and into the nasal area, so when you feel this as you sing, you won’t be in the dark. You can allow middle to happen. Don’t be surprised if middle just pops out. The exercises have cleared the way.

If what you hear as you move beyond chest voice is soft and airy, or if you notice that your voice bounces from chest to a higher voice that is drastically different, you’ll know you’ve missed middle. Having that awareness is vital! And once you’ve got it, you can back up the audio and look for middle in that spot. Try it again. Keep concentrating on finding a place to go with your voice that doesn’t strain.

STAFF NOTATION—MALE

For convenience in popular sheet music, men actually follow the same treble clef notation as the women, but singing an octave lower.

You know what to do when you run into trouble with the exercises. Use the same techniques as you sing along with recordings. Check your breathing and be sure it’s smooth and “unaccessorized”—no chest and shoulders involved. Stop straining at the top of chest voice. Put your finger on your larynx and be sure it’s in the correct position. Use all these techniques—they are there for you when you sing.

The Songwriters’ Obstacle Course

You might notice, as you launch into songs, that problems you think you’ve mastered in the exercises suddenly reappear. Breaks, squeaks, and strains can surprise you at places in the range you’ve started handling smoothly when you do your warm-ups. That’s because you’ve left the ultracontrolled environment I created in the exercises, which was designed to allow you to make sounds easily.

Your ease and comfort are about the last thing on a songwriter’s mind when a new piece is flowing out. I assure you that the composer is not thinking, “What words, what consonants, and what pattern of notes in what range will make this song easy to sing?” Few composers are great technical singers, and a lot of them don’t sing too well at all. More important, they don’t want to limit the magic of the song, or their own creativity, by confining themselves to sounds and notes that are easily accessible. They don’t care how hard the music is as long as it sounds good and creates the perfect emotion.

Not surprisingly, the words and melodies in songs don’t tend to focus the amount of air that goes to the cords the way the exercises did. Singing gug, gug, gugs gives you controlled amounts of air to work with, but replace them with words and a tune like “And now, the end is near” (from “My Way”) and your cords may feel like they’re in a wind tunnel. You’re making quick switches, and suddenly your body has a ton of information to handle.

The exercises train your cords to move into place without your thinking about where they go, but it’s difficult to slide into singing without some thought. You’re not just working with nay and goog, you’ve got dozens of combinations of vowels and consonants that open and close the back of your throat, challenging you to try to control the air. Frequently, there’s a fight between you and the music, and you’ll have to work consciously to make a smooth transition between the sounds you’ve learned in the exercises and the sounds the song requires.

Taming the Musical Beast

Start by scanning the music and getting an idea of how much is in chest voice and how much is above chest. Spot your “middle” notes—E for a man (that’s the fourth space on the treble clef), B-flat for a woman (a flatted note at the third line of the treble clef). Then start to sing, using your diaphragmatic breathing.

As you reach middle, pay close attention to the position of your mouth. In singing, even more than in speaking, the corners of your mouth should never widen into a smile, especially as you go higher. When you sing “no” at a comfortable place in your range, your lips purse slightly, but you may notice that when you try to sing it higher in the range, the pouty lip position disappears, and the o sounds more like an ah. It’s a natural tendency to slide into a smiley face when you go higher than chest voice, but if you let it happen, you’ll hear strange things happening to your lyrics. “Go” becomes “gah,” and the sound of ah becomes aaa, as in splat. In fact, you’ll find your lyrics splatting all around you. Not too attractive.

Worse than that, you can trap yourself in chest voice, with no possibility of getting to middle. When you let your mouth widen, the air that was going to bounce around in the cheeks and travel above the soft palate to the nasal cavity has no room to move, and it goes straight out the corners of your lips.

Some of you have probably encountered the crazy solutions that many teachers use to deal with this problem. Thinking that the vowels will change as you go higher, they ask you to sing new sounds—made-up words that will, they hope, sound like the right ones when they’re sung. That’s silly, confusing, and unnecessary. All you really need to do is to make a conscious effort to control the position of the corners of your mouth. No matter what you’re singing, your lips should remain relatively narrow instead of changing drastically.

This technique is called focusing the vowels, and it sounds simple, but I can’t tell you how many singers it’s helped. Try it, using a small hand mirror to keep an eye on your mouth, and you’ll sound richer, more resonant. If you ever have a question about how a word should sound on a high note, stop, speak the word, and look at the position of your mouth. That’s the position you should try to duplicate when you sing. Just as I’ve told you to speak the way you sing, I want you to sing the way you speak—with the same clarity. Don’t do goofy things with your mouth just because you’re singing. It confuses your brain—and your audience.

That said, there is one specific change I’d like you to make in the position of your mouth as you go higher: I want you to drop your jaw without tilting your head down. As you ascend the scale, the back part of your throat tends to close a bit, making the sounds coming out of your mouth seem smaller. Dropping your jaw compensates for that change by creating a large resonating cavity in your mouth that amplifies the higher notes. Be careful not to throw your jaw down in a spasmodic movement. Let it slide up and down in a gentle fluid motion that creates no pressure in the muscles of the jaw.

At first you might feel that I’m asking you to do two opposing things at one time. After all, I want you to drop your jaw—and not distort the words you’re singing. First of all, don’t drop your jaw three inches, just let it fall slightly, without tension. Practice these mouth positions—corners of the mouth in, jaw down as you go higher—and you’ll find that your words are clear and beautiful without distortion or strain.

When the Words Get in the Way

If you’re having trouble getting from chest to middle at some point in a song because the words are acting like obstacles, switch from words to exercise sounds. Instead of singing “Some-where over the rainbow,” you might sing “Some-mum over the rainbow.” Putting a sound like mum at a trouble spot can help you recapture control over how the cords and air are mixing. You can even sing a whole song in an exercise sound, to get a good sense of where middle needs to come in, then begin to switch to words, going back to the exercise sound only when you need it.

The old habit of thinking “Wow, I can’t hit that high note—time to back off” is something you can change if you stop thinking you have to use chest voice for the whole song. You know how to allow middle to happen in the exercises, and the same guidelines apply here. As you approach the high notes and seem to hit the wall, concentrate on the basics:

Are you getting louder as you go higher? Keep your volume constant.

Are you allowing big bursts of air to come through in some parts of the song and feeling a more restricted flow in other parts? Try to keep the airflow at one level throughout by using a hand on the stomach to be sure you’re exhaling smoothly and evenly.

Are you assuming that you’ll get more power and energy in your voice if you just push harder and tense the muscles in your stomach? A lot of my students see a high note coming and want to use muscle to get up the mountain. It sounds effective, but let me repeat, it just doesn’t work.

I got a great demonstration of where true physical power and energy come from when I worked with Bruce Jenner many years ago. This was long before he became famous on the reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians or made the transition to becoming Caitlyn. I knew him as the man who won the 1976 Olympic decathlon, meaning he could throw farther, jump higher, and run faster than any man alive. My job was to teach him how to sing for a project he was doing. During that time, Bruce continued to maintain his well-toned Olympic body, but he would go to the gym and look scrawny next to the power lifters all around him. He liked to bet them that, as small as he was by comparison, he could lift more weight than they could. The funny thing was, he always won. Why? It was a matter of technique. The big guys would inevitably hold their breath and push. Bruce, on the other hand, would focus energy on the muscles he needed and lift on a smooth, deep diaphragmatic exhalation. There was no tension at all in his stomach as he hoisted hundreds of pounds. Maximum physical—and vocal—power is a matter of using your breath correctly.

Remember to record your voice from time to time. Recently, one of my students was singing the Katy Perry song “ Roar,” and though I assured her she sounded great, she was certain that she’d jumped straight from chest voice to head. She felt a definite difference in her body when she left chest and was sure her listeners could hear it. All instruments make shifts in sound as they move from range to range. A piano, for instance, is fat and bassy on the bottom but tinkles into treble on the top. The key to making both sounds fit comfortably together is in the transitions, and it’s the seamless connections that I’d like you to concentrate on. The seam areas will undoubtedly feel strange at first. But as we’ve seen along the way, you can’t judge your sound from the inside alone. Record and listen to yourself before rushing to the conclusion that everyone heard the big change you felt as you moved out of chest voice. You might be pleasantly surprised to hear that it sounds a lot better than you thought.

What Key Are You In?

You might be wondering, about this time, if you could make things a little easier on yourself by choosing songs that are in “your key,” the magical musical neighborhood that will show off the real strengths in your voice and maybe even let you avoid the struggle with middle or head voice.

I’d like to make things as simple as possible for you, but I’m afraid assigning you to your key isn’t going to do the trick. The key signature of a song tells us how many sharps and flats are in a piece, but it says nothing at all about how high or low the notes go in the range. For example, the key of C has no sharps or flats, and while staying in that key, I could play the notes that correspond to every white key of the piano. That means that if I scooted all the way to the left side of the piano bench and played the lowest white notes, I’d be in the key of C—and there’s no way I, or any human, could make my voice that deep. On the other hand, the notes that correspond to the white keys on the far right side of the piano are also in C, and none of us is going to be singing those either. So to say “I love to sing in the key of C” makes no sense.

It does make sense, however, to figure out what key you like best for a particular song. That’s a question an accompanist might ask you, and there are a couple of ways to decide how to answer.

The first is to listen to where the artist who first performed it sang it. This can put you in the ballpark if you’re the same gender as the original singer, but it can cause a bit of confusion if you’re, say, a man who’s drawn to music that was made popular by a woman. My student Evan loved Taylor Swift, and he’d endlessly play her records and sing along as he danced around in his apartment, waiting to be either discovered or evicted. Although Taylor’s voice isn’t super-high, when Evan tried to copy it, he wound up spending all his time in middle and head voice. As I’ve mentioned, both men and women should keep the low notes of every song in chest voice, and for Evan to let his voice develop, he needed to transpose Taylor’s songs into a key that would allow him to dip into chest voice and expand his repertoire of vocal sounds. You can sing along with, and be inspired by, performers whose voices are very different from your own, but it’s important to avoid getting stuck in limiting imitations and to look for ways to bring the unique qualities of your own voice into the mix.

Most people do end up choosing keys based on what they see as their own vocal limitations. If all you have is chest voice, it’s natural to feel inclined to stay low in your safe, comfortable range. And if you’re a woman who has studied opera for years and are trapped in head voice, it’s typical to pick keys that keep you stuck in the stratosphere. This method, though, is like going to an ice cream shop that offers fifty flavors and choosing vanilla—not because you love vanilla, but because you’re too timid to try the others.

I recommend taking a chance on the new possibilities of your voice. You’ve got an instrument that has chest, middle, and head voices, and with that kind of versatility, you can place your song anywhere in the range that makes the music and your voice sparkle. Does the song sound great high? Put it there. Does it sound sultry and sexy down low? Put it there. Each song has a signature and an emotional resonance that begs for certain vocal sounds. A driving, fast-paced rock tune screams out for a certain amount of chest voice. A slow love ballad may require the conversational sound of chest voice on the bottom and the lilting excitement of middle, even head voice, on the high notes. With a few tries, it should be easy to uncover the perfect key. Look for the combination that excites you, even if it’s difficult. Make the choice to take a chance on sounding great—even if it takes you time and practice to get there.

Joining the Rhythm Nation

Singing in perfect rhythm is not always so easy to do. Yes, I’ve taught dancers like Julianne Hough, who could sing wonderfully in time when I coached her for the starring role in the movie Rock of Ages. I’ve also seen many students who concentrate so hard on singing the words correctly and hitting the right notes that they wind up separating themselves from the flow of the music—the rhythm. My student David was a classical pianist and conductor, yet when he sang for me, I noticed that at times he was too fast or too slow, and often he was out of sync with the music. We stopped our session and did a simple diagnostic exercise that I’d like you to try.

Follow along with audio 29 on the website and join me as I accentuate different beats at different times. We’ll use a basic rhythmic pattern called 4/4 time. First, clap with me on the first beat of every 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 cycle. Then clap on the first and third beats. You can count aloud if that makes it easier for you. Finally, we’ll clap only on the third beat.

It sounds easy, but David had a considerable amount of trouble accentuating different beats—and he was a professional musician. When he listens to other people making sounds, vocal or instrumental, his internal sense of rhythm operates quite proficiently. But when he tries to sing, his rhythmic sense goes out the window. Why? I believe it’s a matter of concentrating on the details—those tricky lyrics, those daunting high passages—and never quite connecting with the big picture.

It’s common for students to say, “I don’t have rhythm,” but that’s an argument I just don’t buy. Listen to your breathing. That’s rhythm. Look at how smoothly and regularly you walk. Or pay attention to the sound of your heart—which is so regular that when it adds or skips a beat, you know something is wrong. If you’ve got a body, you’ve got rhythm.

You can translate that natural gift into a consciousness that will help your singing by attuning your ears to the pulse of your favorite songs. First, focus on finding the straight-ahead beat—the toe-tapping rhythm that the drummer is providing as a backbone of the song. (If you get confused, listen for the snare drum, which usually signals the main beat.) Second, use audio 29 on the website to get accustomed to clapping out the main rhythm of songs as you sing. The more you do this, the more you’ll be able to keep a simple rhythm going in your mind even as you’re singing notes and counterrhythms that move and weave all over the song. David was a little embarrassed about going back to the rhythm basics he thought he’d learned in grade school, but he practiced them anyway. And he quickly stopped losing the main beat of his songs. I know this will work for you, too, if you’ll take this musical essential as seriously as you do the other components we’ve worked on. You’ll step out of the notes and into the music.

Handling the Old Bugaboos

Whether you know it or not, you now have all the tools you need to guide yourself back and forth between your warm-up exercises and songs, and I hope you’re feeling the close relationship between them. The feeling and placement of “mum” can become “love” easily in a song if you let it, and you can flip-flop your way into handling even the most complicated lyrics with ease. If the pieces are clicking into place for you now, and your technique has switched to autopilot, you’re probably having a lot of fun and enjoying what may seem like a brand-new voice.

If you’re still having trouble getting a particular part of the technique, though, I know you may still be frustrated. So I’d like to tell you about a couple of students who patiently and persistently solved what looked like insurmountable problems. Remember the path I described to you earlier, the road that leads to vocal mastery. It’s lined with great successes but also with plateaus and with places where adding some new element—like dropping your jaw or facing the challenge of singing words instead of just sounds—seems to throw you backward. Work gently and take small steps. The next breakthrough will amaze you.

Singing the High-Larynx Blues

My student Chuck was a keyboard player for a popular band. Aside from playing, he also handled a lot of the background singing, which required some amazingly high notes. Chuck and the band were very successful, but for him, performing was a nightmare. Whenever he approached the top of his chest voice, he would create huge amounts of pressure. His face would turn red, and he would look a little like he was being choked. He would even cock his head over to one side, and his tongue would stick out—while he was onstage. I know this doesn’t sound like a pretty picture, and it wasn’t. Chuck loved what he did, but he hated the physical experience of singing.

His problem was an extremely high larynx, which forcefully rose when he hit high notes, closing off his throat like a cannonball stuck in a cannon. We spent several months on low-larynx exercises alone. Months of singing like Yogi Bear, months of keeping a finger on the Adam’s apple to keep track of when it rose and when it went down. In the beginning we seemed to stand still. The muscles controlling the larynx were so used to pushing his throat closed that they hardly seemed to respond, no matter what we did. But we kept working, despite our worries and doubts. One-eighth inch by one-eighth inch, Chuck’s larynx began to move down and find a new, slightly lower resting place in his throat. And eventually, after all those weeks of dedicated work, his body accepted that he could allow sound to come out while his larynx remained in its proper place. It was miraculous to sit in the audience and watch him perform without pressure or strain. There were no facial spasms, just the occasional smile—his and mine.

Had Chuck been faint of heart, or believed that his miracle had to be instantaneous, he never would have reached his goals. Remember that some changes will happen fast, and some will happen slowly for you. But whatever you need to fix, I promise you, the body will eventually make the necessary changes. We simply need to keep moving in the right direction and refuse to give up.

I offer you the same advice I’d give the star of The Exorcist: “Remember, Linda, even though you might not feel in charge right now, it’s still your body—and if you just stay with it, you’ll soon be in control.”

The Mirage of Middle—and How to Make It Real

I know we’ve talked a lot about middle and how to find it, and that you’ve been practicing for some time to strengthen that part of your voice. If you’re still wobbly when it comes to leaving chest voice, read on to see how I worked with my student Carol. The techniques we used may be just what you need to get beyond what’s blocking you.

Carol had a terrific chest voice, and she’d been singing with it for thirty years, never venturing beyond the notes she knew she could always count on. As we worked with the diagnostic exercises, I noticed that as soon as she got to the top of chest voice, she strained, pushed, and inevitably hit a concrete wall. We tried to break through with the whole range of exercise sounds, but no matter what sound I gave her, we couldn’t seem to find middle. For her, the next voice after chest voice was a weak, airy, falsetto-like sound. I know that some of you can definitely relate to this dilemma.

The first thing we needed to do was to establish the correct place for the seam between chest voice and head voice. Because her chest voice was overused and overworked, she needed to make a conscious effort to draw a border where chest voice would end and middle could begin. I drew the line at B-flat. Even though we couldn’t get access to middle, we left chest at that point and went anywhere we could get without pressure, then came right back to chest on the way down each scale.

Let’s say we were doing the one-octave exercise using goog. As we sang the first three notes we were in chest. Then we left chest for any of the high notes above B-flat. We came right back to chest on the way down. It went like this:

CHEST… CHEST… CHEST… SOMETHING… SOMETHING… SOMETHING… SOMETHING… CHEST… CHEST… CHEST.

I told Carol to be sure she didn’t ride her high voice back down the scale. It’s easy to leave chest on the way up and get caught in that new place as you descend.

By making sure that Carol was at least going back and forth at the right place, we were paving a place where middle could exist when she found it. We were finally telling her voice and mind that we were no longer going to accept the belted-out, pressured sound that resulted when she brought chest voice too high. And by not allowing the old habits to surface, we were telling her body to find a new way to sing higher than chest.

For a full half hour, we kept searching unsuccessfully for the middle, while I assured her that it would come. It was a long thirty minutes for her. Though she might have believed me, she couldn’t help feeling impatient when the middle voice wouldn’t thicken up. Every time she looked for middle she would either get caught in a strained chest or go too far toward head.

Then I gave her the octave jump exercise on mum. I told her to sustain the top note and increase the volume as she held it. As she hit the high note in a headlike tone, I told her simply to add more of the chest-voice feeling to that. Though she didn’t fully understand, she tried. We also did this with the nay and nah sounds, which really helped to get more of the vocal cords vibrating. Within a few minutes, she was suddenly in the middle. She could feel that it wasn’t chest, because it had no pressure, and it wasn’t head because it was too strong for that. She understood and agreed that it must be middle.

Because Carol sang all the time, she was locked into the specific sounds she called upon so regularly. But when she realized that there was more to her voice than she’d ever used, she began to accept that her voice could, indeed, have the magic of middle. Though we were still only getting a small amount of volume in that part of her voice, at least she could feel the right spot, and that feeling would be the compass that pointed her back to middle when she felt lost.

If you’re stuck in chest and feeling that there’s no way out, I hope you’ll try allowing yourself to make any nonstrained sound when you cross the border where chest should end. Like Carol, you’ll quickly teach your body that the middle voice truly does exist, in all its glory.

Claim a Great Sound

From here, the sky’s the limit. Stay with the exercises, develop your strength, and when you run into trouble, don’t stop. Just stop worrying. Persist, as Chuck did. Be willing to take a risk and try something frighteningly new, as Carol did. I’ve offered you a whole range of techniques and tips to help your body become accustomed to its power and its possibilities, and I hope you’ll use them in any combination that helps you today.

Later in this book we’ll put the icing on the cake and decorate it, adding style and advanced presentation skills to your singing. For now, though, enjoy making the cake itself. Let your voice flow into new places, and savor its richness. You’ve earned it.