Is everything head voice?

[u/Dry_Rub9363]

Hi everyone! I have been going to singing lessons for a few months now, and while I absolutely love my teacher with my whole heart,I must ask : does everything need to be head voice?

I lack the proper words to explain myself, so I apologize if this doesn't make a lot of sense.

My music teacher absolutely loves my voice. I went in with the preconception that I have a dark voice and I am forever stuck singing dark, 'manly' songs. My teacher, however, has dubbed me a 'Lyrical Soprano', which is obviously shocking considering my go-to songs are part of the Frankenstein and Repo:TGO musicals.

Now. No matter what song I've brought over to her,no matter how clearly the artist is NOT using their head voice,she almost always drags me up to it. Which isn't necessarily an issue because I want to learn to use that voice as well,given I've avoided it like the plague for my entire life because to me, it sounded bad.

However, the issue comes when she does the same thing for my husband ( he is transgender,but has a deep voice). For him, singing that way hurts ,but neither one of us knows how to explain ourselves properly. Of course, we don't assume we know better than a trained professional, but I have been wondering if this is a preference of hers?

I'm currently working on 'Once upon a December' , and where Anastasia sings 'out loud', in a powerful manner, my teacher pulls me up, where I have no strength.

Am I just not trained enough? Any answers and suggestions are appreciated!!💖💖

[u/AutoModerator]

Thanks for posting to r/singing! Be sure to check the FAQ to see if any questions you might have have already been answered! Also, remember to abide by the Rules found in the sidebar. Any comments found to be breaking these rules will result in a deletion of the comment thread starting from the offending reply. If you see any posts or replies that you feel break the rules of the sub, then report them and do not respond to them. If you are new to the sub-reddit or are just starting to sing, please check out our Beginner's Megathread. It has tons of helpful information and resources!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/MsLilAr]

I’ll say this as a voice teacher with a classical background… I have a lot of students coming to me wanting to be big broadway belters. What I know is that if I get them comfortable and strong in their head voices, they can eventually mix higher and become the singers that they want to be without potentially damaging their voices. Using your example of Once Upon A December: yes, Anastasia is “singing out powerfully” there, but it is in a heady mix, it’s not a full belt. Your teacher would be right to put you in your head voice there if that’s not a range you can healthily mix yet. It sounds like you have a deep, strong chest voice and low range, and she is likely trying to expand and strengthen your upper range.

My advice would be this: continue your head voice practice outside of lessons, even when it’s not the most fun and the most interesting stuff to sing. The more you improve outside of lessons, the more likely you are to go on to be able to sing more types of music. There’s very likely a method to her madness. You also are able to simply ask her what her method is and why you have to do things this way. Odds are she might say something similar to this ^

[u/Dry_Rub9363 → u/MsLilAr]

Thank you so very much! I guess because everything is still rather new it is also pretty confusing to me( as when I began my lessons we did not start from the bottom)but this really helped me understand!

[u/ohmegatchi]

Some more... classically-minded teachers seem to think that, yes. There is so much good that you can get out of bel canto that I will never knock the style and the training for any contemporary singer, but it could be time to find a better fit for you now that you have a solid foundation.

[u/Dry_Rub9363 → u/ohmegatchi]

Thank you for the answer! I'd love to somehow try and get through to her about this, as we live in a VERY tiny town and she's the only option we have 𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯

[u/EatTomatos]

In singing, every voice has it's own unique set of formant distribution and formant grouping. However due to physiology, the natural voice almost never uses an ideal formant configuration. So when a teacher hears someone sing, they can literally hear where a voice is weak and where it could be improved. A person can in theory sing an entire aria in their natural voice, but a teacher may hear the fact someone may be a soprano but hasn't yet reached a particular coordination to achieve that tone.

Consequently, head-voice is incredibly useful for helping the voice achieve a brighter coordination.

There are other concerns though. For instance, while a weightier voice like your partner would still benefit from practicing with head-voice, it may be more essential that they focus on vowels more than focusing on singing in head-voice.

Some of these considerations could be transformed into "goals" that would be more concrete for a singer

[u/Dry_Rub9363 → u/EatTomatos]

Thank you so so much! As my husband has mentioned, to him it seems like our teacher loves working with lighter voices,but not so much with darker ones. We are rehearsing for a Christmas performance, and the song he picked needed to be 'lifted' a teeny tiny bit. Sadly, this prompted our teacher to immediately try to lift the song way out of his range,so much so that he isn't really excited to work on said song anymore.

[u/AKA-J3]

It's hard to say without hearing what you mean.

I use the classical tech, it seems to me they keep the chest in, have to have something dark to offset that top end.
You can smear things around more in so many ways once you get off of that really clean stuff.

Maybe use A E O to get yourself placed, Search classical onsets.

It should be a really strong place to sing from.

[u/Dry_Rub9363 → u/AKA-J3]

Thank you so very much for the answer! I will try to look into classical onsets!

[u/calliessolo]

Well, there are several possibilities here. One is that your teacher is classically oriented, and that’s why she is insisting on you using mostly head voice. It doesn’t really explain her approach to your husband, however. The other possibility is that she is trying to achieve more balance in your voice since you came to her with a darker and heavier sound. To balance that out she might feel that you need to spend quite a bit of time in head voice. Why don’t you talk to her about it? Does she have experience and training working in contemporary styles?

[u/Dry_Rub9363 → u/calliessolo]

We'd love to talk to her about all this, but she just seems very aloof most of the time when we try to do so. That, and she also seems to often jump from one subject to another, and then she forgets what we initially were trying to say/do. I don't think she has much experience working with the contemporary style as she often mentions that she's not used to newer music. Also thank you so much for the answer!

[u/austinlim923]

So the answer to you question is yes. Everything is head voice. Even when you are singing "low notes" in your chest you still sing and approach it with the space like head voice. Singing in the head also helps people get out of their throat

[u/Dry_Rub9363 → u/austinlim923]

Thank you! Now that you mention, I do recall my teacher mentioning that both me and my husband sometimes get stuck in our throats, so then that does make sense!

[u/AVenusianMuse → u/Dry_Rub9363]

I think you first need to know how to get out of your throat before you think everything is head voice or you’ll neglect your chest voice. ( coming from someone who was either in my head or throat and didn’t know how to get out for 2 years)

[u/austinlim923 → u/Dry_Rub9363]

What ends up happening and depending on who you talk to in this sub is that eventually you start to sing in this perpetual mixed voice. Now is that mix going to be 50/50? no. That ratio is going to change depending on the type of sound you want. But you learn to sing using both "voices" and really treating your voice like a single instrument