Hi! I’m eighteen years old, and I just began voice lessons with a qualified teacher. I’ve always had a knack for music, I come from a musical family, but never had much training until recently. Something that bothers me is that my range in my chest voice is limited. I have about three octaves total, two in my chest voice. my lowest note is a D3, and my highest belt note is a D5. I would consider myself a mezzo soprano I have asked my voice teacher if I can learn to belt higher, but she hasn’t given me a clear answer, she always says, ‘it’s all about breath support.’ I haven’t found my support yet, but when it IS supported, I still can’t belt any higher. Are some people just born with those high belt notes? Also, I have no vibrato, I’ve never been able to achieve it, are some people unable to produce such a sound? Thanks for reading.

(YouTube subscriber)

Hi,
Thank you for considering me for vocal advice. First of all, so you know, every body’s chest voice has a limited range. That is why we have a head voice. It is not natural to take your chest voice all the way up. There are a handful of people that are born with a gift to take it very high, Celine Dion, Barbara Streisand etc… But in general, at some point in your range you will need to switch over into head or a mixed voice. Finding a way of blending the two voices so that the break isn’t extreme is something you can work on with your teacher. You will probably, through good vocal training be able to extend your range a bit as you add good support and technique, but you will not be able to take the chest voice all the way up in lieu of the head voice.
Work on breathing exercises to help to build your support (I have great ones on my v.1 of Vocalize and Breath), and try and vocalize regularly to build your stamina.
Regarding our vibrato, a good vibrato is a voice that is released and free of tension. You may be pressing a bit on your larynx when you are singing which is holding back the vibrato. Your teacher should be able to help you with this. Keep thinking “release of your sound”. Don’t drive your voice. Good luck!
Ariella Vaccarino

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Belting, breath support, singing tips, vibrato, youtube videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.