Chest Voice Placement: Dig In
Ahhh, Chest Voice. The provenance and pride of us Altos (shoutout to my fellow Alto ladies!).
Today, I’m going to dive into our Chest Voice and how it should feel, how to access it if you have trouble finding it, and troubleshooting any pesky issues that might arise when trying to sing down here. These tips + tricks go for men, women, and non-binary folks alike - we all have a Chest Voice, and sometimes it just takes a little bit of digging in, sitting heavy, and allowing our voices to go down here in order to find it and use it comfortably.
“Chest Voice” refers to our low notes. This is typically where we speak from in everyday life. Let’s feel it together, shall we? Place a hand on your chest, say something like, gee, I don’t know, “Long live Ruth Bader Ginsburg"!” or something more colorful if you prefer during this dumpster-fire of an election season/year we are all living through. I’ll wait. Did you feel your chest vibrate when you spoke (or cursed, or yelled)? Tapping into this resonance in our chest cavity is going to be really helpful in finding and sitting comfortably in our Chest Voices! Trying to picture - and literally feel - your voice + resonance coming from here can be hugely helpful in getting the throat (that pesky throat again!) to be still, and not over-active, as you are striving to make sound and sing down here.
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Chest Voice: The Vibes
You want to think of Chest Voice as the smoky, sultry, mellow, rich, warm, soul singer of your voice. Think of caramel + warm honey. Think of smoooooothness. Think of someone purring in your ear. That’s the vibe we want to tap into when we’re tapping into our Chest Voice. My voice teacher used to tell me to picture my Chest Voice as a deep, dark red - I still think of it as a deep, rich crimson, or that warm, thick honey I mentioned above - just dripping in mellow, saucy vibes. You can pick whatever color or imagery comes up for you, but that’s just how I picture it. If it’s getting hot in here, and you’re getting sexy vibes, then YES - you’ve got it! Chest Voice is that smooth-as-hell 90s R&B love jam (not the kind by like, Boyz II Men, though, cause them boys were going for the opposite end of the spectrum with that urgent, nasal-in-the-best-kinda-way falsetto). This is Barry White y’all. This is Marvin Gaye vibes, if not necessarily in tone. You know what I mean. Is it clear to you yet that I absolutely adore singing in Chest Voice?
Anyway, my point in painting this picture for you is that I want you to really feel a mood with your voice - wherever you are in it, and whatever tones + textures you want to play up (which may be different on different songs/genres/styles, even syllables once you have your voice mastered!), I want you to reallllly connect with that mood. Chest Voice isn’t just all mellow, smooth sauciness - it can also be gravelly, boomy, raspy, belty - but for initially finding Chest Voice and connecting with it, I like to go here first. This, for me, is where I want Chest Voice to default to - and then we can play things up as we please. But finding - and building-into your voice - the default of a balanced tone in every register in your voice is important, in my opinion. So for our purposes here today, we’re gonna think of Chest Voice in this way. Seriously, go listen to some Barry White after this.
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How to Find Your Chest Voice
If you recall from my past posts on Range + Registers, or Heavy Lifting (all about the littttttle MVP muscles that control your vocal cords), you’ll remember that Head Voice and Chest Voice are controlled by different sets of muscles inside the larynx, which are responsible for pulling the cords to different tensions in order to adjust pitch. The more taut the vocal cords, the higher the pitch. The more loose, the lower and slower the pitch frequency = the lower the pitch. I remind you of this because, knowing this, we can see how maybe those of you who tend to be higher-pitched singers (tenors, mezzo-sopranos, or sopranos) might have some difficulty with singing comfortably down here: if you think about it, our vocal cords being so “loose” when we’re singing down here might feel hard to “grab” the notes, since higher-singers are likely very used to the feeling of tautness or “crispness” that comes from their higher registers. Nine times out of ten when I see a singer having difficulty singing in their lower registers, it is a lack of development on these muscles - meaning we just gotta get you to do more “reps” practicing singing these lower notes so the muscles can strengthen singing down on these notes. Sometimes, adding to this difficulty is the throat, coming in hot (per usual!) to try and “help” you get the notes out down here. What results is usually what I sort of describe as a feeling of the notes “bottoming out”, or becoming “froggy” or feeling “stuck” in the throat. One of my younger students described this sensation one time as feeling like she had a cotton ball stuck in her throat, and I loved that! It perfectly describes that stuck-feeling that I know is so frustrating down here. I will talk more about that in a second down below so if this is something you are experiencing, you’ll find a few tips and tricks to help with getting out of this “stuck” feeling. So, if you try the following exercise and find that you just simply cannot get the sound out, skip below and read some of the troubleshooting tips, and then try again.
To start, I just want you to start to feel what it feels like to be IN your Chest Voice. Let’s place our hands on our chests again, and sing a note, a low note. You can pick any old note that comes out, or if you would like specifics, you can go to a piano or keyboard and find a G3 (G below Middle C) for women, or a D3 (D below Middle C) for men. These notes may feel super-low, or still pretty comfortable for you depending, but this should be a safe, catch-all place to start for most of you. Let’s start by simply humming the note, really feeeeeeling that vibration in your chest. Take an inhale. Repeat. Hum the note, trying to direct your energy and sound to your chest. Can you feel it rumbling down in there? Vibrate your chest cavity so much that you feel it against your hand. When doing this, I sometimes like to imagine I am sitting very heavily down, really rooting my butt into the ground, really grounded. If you’re having trouble here, try to even lean your chest forward a little bit - make sure you don’t reach the chin, but lean the whole chest forward a little bit. See if that helps sort of shake things loose. Hum the note again, and this time, when you feel really “settled” in the note, open up from the hum into an “AH".”
Pause! What did you notice?! Did your sound come effortlessly tumbling out? If so, bravo! Keep walking down in half-steps (next piano key down, making sure you play both the white and black keys), and keep trying to feel each successive note first in the chest on a hum, the opening up to an AH vowel. What we’re listening for - if the voice is properly-placed - is just an open, effortless, resonant, FULL sound. If it feels like it is “heavy” that is okay! That is good! Keep connecting with that, simply noticing if your belly or throat want to squeeze or “close" or hold-onto/pull-back the sound at all. It can feel really strange and uncomfortable for people at first when they’re wayyyy down here in their Chest Voice, so just try to notice if there’s a tendency to want to hold onto or control this sound/sensation - and take note of where that tension is. I find that especially for my Soprano ladies this can take some time + getting used-to. That’s okay, remember: this is all a process of discovery. Keep at it and trust the process - I promise you you DO have a Chest Voice, and you can absolutely sing in it! We just gotta access it and then continue to build on that so your voice + body get used to singing wayyyy down here. I have a lot to say (shocker? nope!) about society and how voices are policed for ALL genders, and how this relates….if you’d like to read that little rant, keep scrolling and you’ll hear it! Anyway. Try to just really tap into what this feels like. We’re always striving with Voice for sense-memory: that muscle memory that we can rely on without even having to think or try at a certain point. Part of that is being really curious + present with how something feels as we are making our sounds in new and different ways - literally how it feels in our bodies, where we sense the resonance being, where it vibrates, etc; but also, what do we notice in our thoughts, and impressions, and images when making a certain sound? These can be illuminating, whether it’s a certain image we can use as our “go-to” when trying to access a certain register or trick, and especially so if we notice a resistance, judgment, or knee-jerk reaction to a certain sound or sensation. Do we worry that it might sound too weird, in some form or fashion? SO many of the physical things that get in the way of our voices coming out the way we want really do stem from the mental - if we’re trying to sound a certain way, or are trying to resist sounding a certain way; if we’re trying to just muscle our voices out to get around that sticky spot, to just squeeze the notes out however we can muster - these are all SO important to identify, recognize, and reframe. Often with singing, it is about putting our voices exactly where we do NOT want them to go that, ironically, opens us up. It’s true! I’ve seen it millions of times with my own eyes and with my own voice. I promise ya this.
Do this, humming + singing each note as far down as you can comfortably go, several times a week.
How will you know when it’s too low? You’ll know - it will feel realllllly impossible to get the sound out. Still stymied? This is where a voice teacher can be super-helpful: we can hear and identify if a note is possibly within your range, and just needs a little more development, or if it is truly outside of your range.
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Vocal Quicksand: Tricks + Tips
Tried all of the above and are still having a hell of a time producing sound down here? Here are a couple of tips + tricks I use with my students when they’re feeling stuck in the weeds. As always, the first step before troubleshooting is making sure that our first order of business is, well, in order: BREATH SUPPORT.
What’s going on with your breath support, baby?! You sure - absolutely sure, now! - that you’re getting the proper inhale (to the belly, not the chest - and keep those shoulders DOWN, you know better than that!), and you’re actually releasing your air AS you’re singing your notes down here? When you’ve got proper breath support you will KNOW IT, baby! Your notes will sound immediately fuller and will feel exponentially easier to sing. Lastly, make sure you’re not squeeeeezing your belly or letting it squeeze in as you start your sound. Again, I know breath support doesn’t feel like the sexiest part of singing, but if your breath support ain’t working for you, none of the other “tricks” will. Especially when we’re talking Chest Voice, these notes need a lotta support - so check in with your breath support and correct anything that needs some love first.
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Okay! Barring anything breath-related, here are a couple hot tips that might help liberate that Chest Voice.
1) Lip Trills
Yes, our best buddy the lip trill (whoop whoop) is helpful again here, as always. What’s the age-old adage we all (okay, some of us vocal nerds) know and love?! Say it with me!: if you can trill it, you can sing it. Yessssirree, if you can trill this note easily, it’s likely within your range and just needs some reps to strengthen. If, when trying to trill it, you still can barely get any sound out, it’s likely that this is just one of those notes that’s outside your range. And that’s alright. Trills can give you a barometer one way or another to help you know if you should keep try, trying again - or if you should move on, and back up, from a note. No good can come of trying to squeeze out a note that’s too low for you - you’ll notice very quickly that this does not feel good at all. Best to move on and work on the notes that ARE in your range rather than trying to “push” the voice down unnaturally.
2) The Chin
So, check it out. Stand in front of a mirror and sing these low notes again. What’s your chiny-chin-chin doing? Sorry, I know, that was annoying. I’ll stop being cute. Okay, so what’s it doing? Is it sitting level, the way it normally is when you’re just doing nothing? OR - is it tucking in and down, sort of crunching-in to try and “reach down” to get those notes out? We don’t realize it, but for some of us, the chin is always trying to “help” us sing our notes - either by reaching UP for our high notes, or in this case, by reaching down to try and “grab” our low notes. Why don’t we need our chin helping us out? Because when the chin is crunched-down, that is seriously inhibiting our larynx (our voicebox - the point of your Adam’s Apple right there in your throat is the front of your larynx), and therefore our vocal cords, from being freed-up to do their work. The larynx needs to be free so that the vocal cords, inside, can be producing our pitches. Keep the chin level and see if that helps you place the notes more freely and easily - remember, try to feel it in the chest, as opposed to thinking of pushing the sound out from the throat. More on this below if the idea of freeing-up the larynx AND feeling the sound in the chest feel like they fight with one another!
3) The Larynx
As I mentioned just above, our larynx needs to be free for proper singing. If it is jumping up, or depressing down when we sing, it is doing wayyyyy too much. The larynx houses our vocal cords, which are pulling, abducting, and adducting accordingly to make our notes - if the entire apparatus is moving around, well - think of it sort of like one of those fun houses at carnivals where the floor is shaking and moving and it’s hard to walk through, right? It’s sort of like that. We want the larynx staying as steady as possible when we’re singing so that something is steadying. A note on the larynx: the larynx will tilt a little bit, and you will definitely feel your vocal cords as they make pitch adjustments. We just don’t want it hiking ALL the way up or pressing WAY down as we’re singing. To feel this: place your finger on the point of your Adam’s Apple. Yes, right there - right where it feels totally weird and disconcerting to touch. I know. Rest your finger there and swallow. See how high it jumps up? That’s too high for singing. Now, take a breath in with your lips slightly parted, like you’re drinking in some air. See/feel how the larynx drops a bit? We just don’t want it to drop WAY down when we’re coming down.
One more note on larynx work: I’m not classically a huge fan of working with the larynx directly with students, for a couple reasons. The larynx and its position have been a point of debate (imagine these nerdy-ass vocal debates, I know!), and also I feel that focusing in TOO much on larynx position is sort of overthinking it a lot of the time - usually, there are more to-the-point visuals that I think actually work better for people to steady their larynx naturally, without them even realizing that they are doing it. However, I am also of the belief that being FULLY aware of all of the moving parts of your voice can only be helpful, if even just to be aware of in the background. Sometimes, a quick-and-dirty larynx check-in with a student, to make sure they keep it steady + stable, can be just the ticket. I’m here for whatever gets the sound out of my students in a healthy + well-balanced, properly-placed way - so I’m pretty much game to try what needs trying. Everyone is different, and it’s about results for me.
So, checking-in with your larynx: a lot of the time, when people are having difficulty with low notes, it’s just because the larynx is pushing down (sometimes working with the chin, as described above) too much, causing the pitch to feel “stuck” in the throat. So, try singing the notes again with your finger resting lightly on the larynx - try to keep the larynx steady against your finger as you come in to sing your low note. Did it help?! Try practicing your low notes like this, checking-in to ensure the larynx is staying steady. Again, you will feel it rocking back and forth and this is fine - we just don’t want it “bottoming out” as you come down to your low notes (you might notice this a lot more when you’re descending DOWN to a low note, say).
4) Feel it in the Chest, not the Throat
Lastly, I want to come back to this idea: we want to feel, experience our Chest Voices in our chests - attached to, and of, the body. The chest cavity is this big resonant cavity that we can resonate our sounds into - so use it! Don’t be afraid to allow your voice to “drop” - to be heavy, to really sit into that chest. Remember: YES, we are producing our sound from the vocal cords, which are located in the larynx, in the throat. BUT. We don’t want to THINK of our throats as where we are singing from. Does that make sense? The sound is originating in here, but it is shaped by our resonator (see my post on the Vocal Tract for more about this - it’s really the nexus of SO much vocal understanding!). The throat, therefore, needs to be an open channel for the sound to travel and resonate - not an active participant.
Remember, if the throat is free, then the sound will be freed-up to resonate and vibrate in our chest. Going back to where we started today, place your hand on your chest and try to picture your sound as coming out from here - feel it vibrating here. Sometimes, it’s just tapping into the body sensations and the imagery that helps us get out of our own way to FEEL our voices, rather than trying to push the sound out in ways that only hinder it.
Be patient with your Voice + yourself. I’ve found the Chest Voice to be a deeply meditative and cathartic place to sing. There’s something very quietly-powerful about vibrating down here that I just absolutely love. Have fun, allow yourself to make all the sounds down here - discover this rich world of Chest Voice and the tones, colors, and rich textures it has to show you.
<3
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As Promised: Thoughts on Societal Conditioning Around “Deep” Voices
I told ya I have thoughts on this and DO I have thoughts on this!
Something I’ve noticed over the past 7 years of teaching voice is that everyone comes in with a story - something that happened, usually years ago, usually during the hellscape we call “middle school” - about someone saying something to shame them about their voice. This takes on many different forms, and there are as many cruel things people can say about another’s voice as there are stars in the sky. I have absolutely ZERO tolerance or patience for people saying unkind things about another’s voice. I will write about this topic more and at length, but one common theme I’ve heard from students of different genders, gender-and-sexual orientations has to do with a lot of what we’re talking about here in regards to Chest Voice: the Deep Voice. This extends, as a different side of the same coin to Head Voice, but something I’ve heard a lot from my students over the years has to do how our society views “deeper” voices, and how that plays a huge role in gender, opportunities, equality, etc.
Many of female students have expressed worry about their voices sounding too “manly” if they sing down in their Chest Voices. They’ve been taught that they should sound “pretty” and therefore “feminine" - and I think this is a big barrier to properly developing the chest register which - even if you don’t want to sing primarily in your lower register, or the sweet spot in your voice is really your upper registers - is crucial in developing a well-balanced Mixed Voice, and most especially a healthy, dynamic Belt. Again, not all of us want to sing down in Chest Voice, and truly a lot of singers shine way more in their high registers - everyone’s got their sweet spot. But I think a lot of women have been done a disservice having their voices policed - and this policing comes in alllll ways, whether their voices are “too high” or “too deep” or “too shrill” or…. the list goes on and on.
On the same token, many of my gay students have shared that they had the opposite instilled in them growing up: many of my gay students have told me that growing up, they felt pressure to speak more deeply, oftentimes down in their throats in a forced way, all because they were assigned as “male” at birth, and feared being perceived as “weak” or “sissy” or “gay-sounding.” Many of them have even shared that this deep fear of “outing” themselves as gay prohibited them from exploring their singing, which they deeply-loved, because choir and singing were seen as primarily “girly” things. This breaks my heart so much. Singing is one of the most profound, personal magical joys we possess - and to think anyone felt they had to be on the outside of their voices looking-in just kills me. For a lot of these students of mine, I find that Chest Voice can feel more like a cage that they can’t break free from easily - making their speech and singing weighted-down and more laborious than feels comfortable, and making Head Voice hard to access.
Both directions are problematic, and both piss me off equally.
I’m not sure what I can say to heal any of these deep-seated things we’ve all been engrained with, but what I do hope to do in my lessons and work is to have a place where we can look at, and acknowledge, and hopefully shed some of those ingrained-beliefs that are within us, and may be contributing to some of our unconscious vocal strain. Singing is physical, but it is also so much more mental and emotional than we realize. Trying to make our voices sound a certain way, or trying to manipulate them to AVOID sounding a certain way, can lead to strain and tension and moving further away from our own unique, authentic, true sound. I hope, if you’re struggling with any of this, that you can suspend - just for a little bit, and in the privacy of your own home, or wherever you practice and sing - judgment, preconceived notions, or any ideas of how it “should” sound, and try to embark on a process of allowing + discovering within your voice. Allow your voice to make sounds in ways that might feel different or even a bit scary (in a healthy way, of course!) - and see what you discover in so doing.
And in closing: here’s some Barry White for y’all.
Happy Chest Voice singing, you saucy babes!
