How to Find Your Mixed Voice

To sing high with power, you’re going to need to develop what singers describe as the “mixed voice.”

The mixed voice is what gives singers like Chris Cornell and Tori Kelly the ability to hit legendary notes with ease and power.

The good news is that the mixed voice is not as elusive as you may think.

In fact, I found it by mistake while trying to sound like a cat! (I’ll save that story for another time).

Discovering it will lead to breakthroughs in your vocal range, power, and consistency.

So we’re going to talk about what exactly mixed voice is, how you can find it, and how you can develop it.

So let’s get started…

What is The Mixed Voice?

The mixed voice is exactly what it sounds like.

It’s a mix of vocal registers, a colorful blend of both the chest and head voice.

You can think of it like a cocktail.

You have the strength of the alcohol and the sweetness of the syrup. When mixed together, they create a tasty, refreshing, and relaxing drink.

Similarly, as you blend your chest and head voice, you open up new territory in your voice that allows you to hit high notes that don’t sound like you’re yelling.

Some other benefits to singing with mix include:

• Sounding powerful
• Increasing range
• Increasing articulation
• Singing longer without fatigue

Sound like something you want?

Well, keep reading…

To Find it, You Must Feel It

Most vocal teachers will tell you that it takes time to find your mixed voice.

Actually, they’re wrong.

You can find it right now, and I’m going to explain to you how you can do this.

Let’s start by taking a look at one of the masters of mixed voice: Robert Plant, singer for Led Zeppelin.

Listen to the end of the song, “Stairway to Heaven” and you will find the hidden key behind Plant’s ability to sing high notes.

As he’s singing these last words, he uses a sort of whiny/nasally sound.

It sounds very bright, but it also sounds easy and without any breaks.

It’s this “sound” you hear that is actually Plant’s mixed voice.

So here’s a secret: You can listen and put what you perceive Plant’s doing with his voice into your voice.

Doing this will help you find and develop your own mixed voice.

Let’s put this into practice…

The 3 Keys: Listen, Discover, Feel

As I talked about earlier, the first key to finding your mixed voice is by listening and putting what you perceive the singer to be doing, into your own voice.

For this lesson, we’ll be using what Robert Plant does because it’s easy to hear and understand what type of sound we’re going for. 

And if you feel like you don’t sound great, that’s OKAY.

You won’t be singing like this forever, it’s just an exercise to help you find your mixed voice.

Now after you begin using Plant’s nasally/whiny sound, you’re going to take it a step further to really discover your mixed voice.

To do this we’re going to use Vocal fry.

What is Vocal Fry?

Vocal Fry is that sound you might make when you wake up.

That groggy, crackly sound when you say “Uhhhh” with hardly any effort.

So to discover your mix, we will take that nasally sound and then turn it into a fry.

To see how to do this, check out the video explanation I made here: