The passaggio is the transition area between the vocal registers. Your vocal registers are the chest voice, and the head voice. There is more than one passaggio, as many of you know, but we are focusing on the second passaggio, as this is the one that seems to create the most trouble for many people. Ultimately we want a balance in each register to maintain a smooth, even timbre in the WHOLE instrument.
Through the right information and training, we want to use our skills to produce a rich, powerful, beautiful sound, no matter the size of the voice. This will only be achieved when the balance between chest and head voice is found. Too much chest voice, and you won't be able to effectively go into the top. Too much head voice, and your middle and low ranges will be weak.
This balance is not easy to discover at first, but once you do, it's much like riding a bike: you don't forget! Thank goodness!
For me, as with many singers, the passaggio took a lot of training, partly because I didn't have the information I needed, but also because the full weight and color of my voice didn't come in until a couple of years ago. This lack of fullness left my top notes thinner and less shimmering than they are now.
So we have to talk about Eb, E, F, F#, G, and Ab BEFORE we can get into the so-called "money notes" like high C. They need to be balanced and beautiful, so we can take all that great sound into our high notes.
So in this video we explain a bit about how to deal with the passaggio using vowel modification, as well as the nature of the passaggio in lighter and heavier voices.
We also give you a couple quick vocal exercises to smooth out this register, and hopefully help you concentrate your energies in the right way - both vocally, and mentally!!
I hope you'll watch until the end, because I had a last-minute burst of inspiration about singing in general I don't want you to miss. Or just like skip there, whatever!
Thanks very much to subscribing here at the Living Opera website, and if you haven't already subscribed on Youtube, we'd love to have you there too!!
We hope our videos are helping you on your technical journey and giving you the tools you need to succeed!
