Building Bridges

By revbill on Wed, 08/25/2010 - 6:18pm

Building Bridges With Waterfalls

Dear Lis,

My registers don’t connect very well. There’s a big break when I pop over from one to the other. What can I do to smooth out the connection between the two.

Greg

Dear Greg,

Here is an exercise called the waterfall. (Click here for the link to the male version and here for the female version.) Starting in your upper register, called head voice, sing the vowel ‘oo’, as in ‘too’, and slide down across your break into your lower voice, called chest voice. Try to make it slow and even, keeping the volume the same all the way down. At first you might feel the break. As you work on it, it will start to smooth out, especially if you go slowly over the range where you’re going to be switching voices. Try to fill in the notes that you might be jumping over. Then try reversing it, going from the bottom of your range in chest voice and crossing into your head voice. Don’t try to push your chest voice as high as you can. The goal is to make the transition into your head voice smooth. That will mean getting a little lighter as you go higher.

Lis Lewis is a vocal coach in Los Angeles. Her website http://www.TheSingersWorkshop.com has all the information a pop singer needs to further their career. Her clients include Rihanna, The Bravery, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Demi Lovato, Jimmy Eat World, Courtney Love and the All-American Rejects.