Singing Success II

Vocal Range: Bass Bb below middle C to F above high C

Now this is using a technique that holds your vocal chords together through the breaks when you go into higher pitches. I can achieve much higher pitches using this technique than I can with regular singing. The F above high C is reached 1:30 into the practice track. The pitch keeps rising and rising until 3:20. That's two whole minutes of more pitch that I can't reach. My current range even using these techniques are a mere octave and a half. Well I am still only the second technique disc out of 10. The point of this exercise is to keep the vocal cords moving through the break, so instead of relying raising the chest voice to reach certain pitches, or lowering the head voice, you can use a mixed voice.


Lesson 2:
Objectives:

1. Expand the range of the voice
2. Erase the breaks, and smooth over the transition between vocal registers
3. Take even more tension off the voice
4. *new objective* begin lowering the larynx, which will a) reduce tension. b) make the tone quality richer. c) cancel out the swallowing muscles which interfere in the tone making process

Excercises:

1. Warm up with humming on a 5 tone scale
   
2. Lip rolls on a 5 tone scale
3. Tongue trills on a 5 tone scale
4. Lip rolls on a long scale, two octaves (1-3-6-8(1)-3-6-4-2-7-5-4-2-1) The long scale takes you from chest, to mixed, to head voice, all in one go. Giving you a running start for the higher notes.
5. Tongue trills on a long scale
6. Nay nay nay on a long scale, less nasal sounding
   
7. Mum mum mum on an arpeggio scale. That sound brings the larynx down. A high larynx yields excess tension, and tend to pull chest voice. A dropped larynx produces a richer tone. With the larynx raised, you decrease the amount of distance between your vocal chords and the cavity in your mouth, allowing less space for resonance.
8. Warm down with a yawn at the top of your natural range into vocal fry
   

I just hope I'm not doing them wrong, that is the problem with these self study programs, there's no one to correct you. Also I can't tell if I'm in my head voice or my falsetto at times. I'll move on to disc 3 monday.

Other news
I bought a book titled Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs on the recommendation of my french friend Margot. There are a lot of pop culture references I don't really understand, but I'll keep reading.