Why does my voice always break in the middle?

Author

Ivan Lu
April 18, 2024

Why does my voice always break in the middle?

Have you ever noticed this happened?

[DEMONSTRATE VOICE SLIDING DOWN AND DROPPING DOWN AN ENTIRE OCTAVE]

I recently started teaching a new student.

And one of the challenges that he was having was that he felt like whenever he was going from his falsetto to his “regular voice”, it felts like his voice would drop a whole octave.

Why does our voice break and why does this happen?

Let’s talk about this today and I’ll also share some strategies that have helped me and my students overcome this.

Now to explain this in a way that makes sense.

I want to dive a bit deeper into the fundamental mechanisms of the voice. Namely

1) Stretch (in charge of pitch adjustment)
2) The cord connect (in charge of the strength/presence of the sound)

So what happens when the voice breaks?

You can think of the voice as just SUDDEN change in these mechanisms.

For example, if I slide down like this and clunk down into the range.

There’s 2 things that’s happening

1) I suddenly disengage a lot of the stretch of the folds which is why pitch drops

2) I add unnecessary pressure or connection.

So it’s really because of a lack of awareness/control of these finer muscular controls that cause us to break.

Real quick before I share how we fix this! For those of you who don’t know me. My name is Ivan, I love making music and also teaching singing to students all around the world. On this newsletter my goal is to make learning to sing simple. If that’s up your lane, consider subscribing. If you want to improve your voice faster, check out the links down below for ways to work with me

If you want to inspire our next episode! Drop in the comments below what you want me to talk about next.

And so how do we tackle this? How do we start to build some more finessed control in our vocal folds?

Well an easy way is learning to HIT the same note in a light connection (some of you think of it as falsetto) and something with a bit more connection WITHOUT losing the stretch.

Because by nature of being able to do this, it will get you familiar with what either of these functions are.

Step 1: Let’s find an easy falsetto

The reason we’re choosing an easy falsetto. Another way to think of it is just a light sound.

Is in a falsetto, the cords are stretched but WITHOUT a lot of connection or pressure at the moment.

It can teach us the sensation or position that stretching the vocal folds feel like.

Now I want to you to start noticing sensations, because unfortunately we can’t see the voice. Now it’s important to note here that we’re not necessarily looking for a physical stretching, like stretching out your hamstrings.

Rather we’re going to have to observe a sensation that FEELS linked to the stretch. So give yourself the space to play here.

For me personally I notice there’s a position where the sound sits. It stays up high in the head more and it’s a little more narrow/focused. However everyone feels this differently.

Once you have this sensation

Step 2: Now in this position of stretch?

See if you can add more pressure WITHOUT losing the stretch or pitch.

If you notice the pitch fall flat, or the sounds pulls down away from this position of stretch. This is a sign you’ve lost it.

Now this might take some experimenting and at the same time, we’re using a lot of imageries here. So play around with this and always ask yourself.

Is this making my singing feel EASIER?

Anyway! I hope this episode was useful. If it was, please support this channel through all the usual social media stuff. Like, comment/subscribe.

If you’re from the podcast, leaving a 5 star would really help us grow and mean the world to me.

Last but not least, if you’ve always wanted to improve your singing faster and with less confusion. Remember you don’t have to do this on your own.

I’ve got ways to work with me in the description down below. Make sure to check it out. Apart from that, my name is Ivan, I'm your voice teacher, and I'll see you for our weekly tutorials every single Thursday or Friday.

Take care.

🌍 Book Private Singing Lessons here: https://calendly.com/singingsimply 

🌍 Stream my music: https://linktr.ee/singingsimply

🌍 Business/other inquiries: [email protected]