My Top 3 Singing Exercises to Develop a Strong Mix
Contents
Exercise #2 - Nay on a 1.5 Octave Scale
Exercise #3 - Bub on an Octave Arpeggio
It’s time to talk about mix! Working on mix is something vocal coaches spend a lot of their time helping their singers with. It’s something that many singers, regardless of their experience, spend time perfecting and maintaining.
Why? Well, for one, it’s tricky! It requires a lot of patience and practice, but working on developing a strong mix and developing that area of your range gives you more options for tonal colour, vocal quality, power, and flexibility when performing. It gives you access to your full range and grants you a level of control that can really open up your vocal capabilities.
This article follows on from my previous two posts – which discuss strengthening your chest and head registers. Both of which are fundamental to developing mix, so if you haven’t read those yet, be sure to check them out here and here.
What is Mix or "Mixed Voice?"
Mix is a term typically used when we’re singing in the area of the voice between your chest and head register. This area is commonly referred to as the transition, bridge, or break. The voice takes on a quality that we percieve as a “blending” of the chest and head registers, hence the term, “mix.”
For male singers, this is usually between the E flat above middle C (Eb4) and the A above middle C (A4), and for female singers, typically between G4 and B4.
Bear in mind, these are general note ranges. It will change depending on the singer, and also the vowels you’re singing at the time!
Why is Mix so Tricky?
When we are singing through our transition, we’re dealing with two primary factors:
The muscular shift.
When we sing in different parts of our range (lower or higher), different muscles are more engaged when singing there.
The Thyroarytenoid (TA) muscles shorten and thicken the vocal folds and are more engaged when we sing lower notes.
The Cricothyroid (CT) muscle stretches and thins the vocal folds and is more engaged when singing higher notes in our upper register.
When we’re mixing, we’re singing in the area of the range where one muscle has to hand over primary control to the other.
The aim is to make that “handover” gradual and smooth, so our voice sounds balanced and even as we move between registers, without any breaks or obvious “switches” from one register to the other.
Unfortunately for most of us, that handover is not something we are used to doing. It can cause a lot of instability in the voice as we sing through that part of our range.
That feeling of instability can cause people to either hold on to the TA dominant coordination for too long, which results in a shouty, yelled sound (and eventually a crack into headvoice,) OR they let go of it too early and flip into headvoice and it’s too light and feels “disconnected” from the rest of their voice.
It takes time, as well as consistent (and correct!) practice, to smooth over those transitions. The body has to teach the muscles how to coordinate in a different way. We also have to contend with the acoustic shift, which I talk about next!
The resonance shift
Vocal resonance is effectively the result of how the sound wave interacts with its environment.
In singing terms, that environment consists of the vocal resonators – the throat and the mouth.
The shape of those resonators boosts certain parts of the soundwave. The boost in your lower notes is associated with the throat, and the boost for the higher notes is associated with the mouth.
So again, you have that shift as you move between registers.
Managing that along with the physical changes associated with moving between registers is really challenging.
Before I get to my favourite ways to develop your mix, it’s important to remember that both your lower and upper range need to be well developed and coordinated before we work on mix. (If you need help with this, check out my previous blog posts for some ideas on where to start.)
Now that we know what mix is, and what is happening with our voice when we’re “mixing,” how can we strengthen it?
1. Lip Trills on a 1.5 Octave Scale
For this exercise, keep a relaxed posture and let your face muscles relax. Your lips should be gently closed, but not tight or pressed together.
Inhale through your nose and exhale through the mouth. You should feel your lips flutter as the air passes between them. I like to think of the sound of a boat engine chugging away on the water.
If you struggle with this, try placing the index finger of both hands gently on your cheeks, roughly where the teeth meet, and lift your cheeks. This can help relax the facial muscles and get the trill going!
You may also find the trill stops and starts at first. A successful trill relies on consistent airflow and pressure to maintain a steady sound.
Once you’ve got the trill down, add some voice behind it. Think of a dopey, yawny “buh” sound.
Now, apply the trill to the one-and-a-half octave scale we spoke about last time. As a reminder, the scale pattern is:
1-3-5-8-3-5-4-2-7-5-4-2-1
Notation of the 1.5 Octave scale in the key of C Major.
Why do I like this exercise for mix?
The lip trill does a couple of things:
It reflects some of the energy from the soundwave back to the vocal folds and helps them come together easily and vibrate more efficiently. This helps them stay together more easily through the transition. This means that the voice is able to get used to that coordination between the TA and CT muscles and begin to smooth over that register change.
The dopey, yawn-like quality helps keep the larynx from rising, which can cause tension and strain, and also encourages the external muscles surrounding the larynx to stay relaxed. We don’t want those involved when singing!
A stable larynx also helps the with the acoustic resonance shift I mentioned earlier.
Lip trills can take a while to get the hang of (It took me a while!) so keep practicing, but alternatively you can try:
A tongue trill - Roll your ‘r’ like in the Spanish language and use that on the scale instead.
Puff your cheeks out like you’re blowing up a balloon and add your voice behind it (think uh again!) and use that instead
2. Nay on a 1.5 Octave Scale
For this one, I want to say the word “Nay” But I want you to make it as bright and annoying as possible. Make it really whiny and Bratty. It should have a bright and piercing quality.
“But Sam! I don’t want to sound Bratty and annoying when I sing!”
I hear you! But this isn’t about a “finished sound” this, (just like the dopey yawn quality) is used as a training exercise to reinforce good coordination for the voice. Once the voice is used to doing what it needs to, we can normalise the sound again.
The Nay will assist with vocal fold closure. The bratty, bright sound helps energise part of the soundwave, and hear that as buzz and ring, making the voice sound louder and more powerful but without engaging more muscle.
This helps build strength and power into the mix while still allowing the vocal folds to thin as we move higher in our range.
If the “Nay” feels too tight or strained, try switching to a “Nah” instead. Just make sure to keep it as bright and annoying as possible!
3. Bub on an Octave Arpeggio
For my last exercise, we’re going to switch to the Octave Arpeggio and use the sound “Bub” (as in Bubble)
The Bub is great because it’s a more normalised sound, especially when compared to the bratty Nay. This brings us closer to a “sung sound” than the previous exercises while still reinforcing consistent vocal fold closure (using the B consonant) and managing the acoustic shift by using the Uh vowel.
The vowel sound is what we call a neutral vowel sound. This means it doesn’t encourage the voice towards either a chesty or a heady resonance. Rather it’s a middle ground. This is great for mix, when we’re working on an even, balanced sound through the transition, we don’t want to sound too heady and light, but we also don’t want to be too chesty either.
A couple of tips for this exercise:
If you find you are still too light and breathy, or you flip into headvoice, add in a little cry sound and really emphasise the “B” to encourage more vocal fold closure.
If you find you are too heavy and it’s getting a little shouty or strained, use the dopey yawn quality and back away from the volume a little.
Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts!
Mix is HARD! As I mentioned at the beginning, many singers of all experience levels spend a lot of time working on this. It takes time to develop, be kind to yourself and give it time!
There are many more exercises, or variations on exercises that work on mix. These are just a few that I picked as a good starting point.
Mix is more than just ONE thing! It’s a spectrum of vocal qualities. There are many different shades and colours to mix. You might hear other terms like chest mix, head mix, balanced mix, light mix, high mix. What you need will vary depending on genre and the quality that you want to bring to your singing for stylistic choices. There's too much to cover in one article, but I’m sure I’ll be revisiting the topic of mix again soon.
So that’s it for today’s entry on mix! I hope it was helpful. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions, or tell me what your favourite exercises are to strengthen your mix.
If you’d like to work with me personally, I teach private one-to-one singing lessons online via Zoom. I offer a FREE consultation call, where we can get to know each other and chat about your singing goals, and all new students recieve their first 30 minute lesson at a discounted price!
Book your session here or email me at info@samgibbinsvocalcoach.com
I look forward to working with you. Happy Singing!