Musical Theatre Singing - My Solo Recital - Using the Mixed Quality

For my solo assessment I wanted to perform a contemporary Musical Theatre piece that allowed me to explore vocal techniques such as; acting through song, vibrato, chest belt and tilt voice. My main struggle is tilt voice (head voice) as I find it tricky to keep the dynamics still strong and powerful. So that the piece has a variation of dynamics it is vital that I put different techniques to practice and another that I tried was using a mixed voice.

 Using a mixed voice can take a lot of practice as it is blending and mixing both tilt voice and chest belt by using the nasal resonance creating the technique of twang.

However, using too much of the nasal quality will result in the note sounding too 'nasally' and therefore sounding more like a whine which is not the sound needed for this piece. Getting the right balance of both qualities is the aim. Another advantage of using the mixed resonance is that if performed correctly, the higher notes in the piece can be performed without pure belt voice which is much easier on the vocal folds and resulting in less injury overtime making you a stronger performer.

"The definition I use is the continuation of a 'chest'-like tone above the main passaggio but with more 'twang' and 'cry' added. There is no sensation of gear change." Pg 39, Teaching Singing in the 21st Century.  I wanted to use this quote as it clearly explains the mix voice in brief.

For example, if you have a show to perform 8 times a week it would not be possible to sing high chest belt notes every show for such a long period of time without inducing the risk of vocal health issues such as nodules or vocal fold strain, even if the diaphragm is being used correctly each time. It is possible for the mixed quality to resemble a belting sound and this was the aim for me when performing and rehearsing my solo song. I chose to perform 'See I'm Smiling' from The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown.


Here is the original version of the song from the demo album. I wanted to put this on my blog as although some of the lyrics are different from the more up to date version and the one that I performed, I thought that this recording shows more vocal play with different techniques and in particular the mix quality.