Think mix voice is a separate register? Or that belting is bad for your voice? In this episode of Vocal Tips in 10, Amber Mogg Cathey busts the biggest myths about mix voice and belting. Learn why mix isn’t a mystery register, how many different tonal options you really have, and why belting—done correctly—isn’t dangerous at all. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro, you’ll walk away with clarity, confidence, and practical insights you can use right away.
00:00 Understanding Mix Voice
04:10 The Nuances of Belting
07:47 Resources for Developing Mix Voice Skills
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If you are listening to this right now, I'm going to guess you're a singer of some kind. And if you are a singer of some kind, then you have certainly heard the term mix voice and you have probably been working on it a lot in one way or another. Mix voice is that being able to sing over the vocal break without a change in tonal quality, without it feeling funky, without it sounding funky, being able to take power higher, agility lower, feeling and sounding like you have one connected voice.
And there's a lot of misinformation out there about mix voice. And I also just find there's a lot of different terminology that is used. But what I want to tackle today are the mix voice myths, the misinformation that's out there, that can cause extra difficulty and confusion for us.
This is my third myth-busting episode and it's my final at least for a while. If you guys are interested more, certainly let me know. Last week I did vocal function myths. I'll put that down in the show notes the week before vocal health myths. But mix voice is such a biggie. It's just something we are expected to do a vast majority of time, And I think nearly everything we do is a version of mix. I'm going to tell you why I think that. So let's get into this.
I'm going to cover three or four of the really biggie mix voice myths. That's a little bit of a tongue twister by the way. So the first one is that it is a register like your chest voice or your head voice. Or I don't care what you call these guys. I don't necessarily love the labeling M1, M2, upper register, lower register.
So let's clarify that right off the bat. Mix voice is not a register. It is not a baseline function of the vocal folds. For me, what mix voice is, is one a combination of tonal qualities. So we're not just hearing low full end. We're not just hearing light upper end. We're hearing a mix of those, a combination of those. And we're gonna get into how many combinations that can be in the very next myth.
And then it is the muscles responsible for the low register, your shortening, thickening muscle, and the muscle responsible for your upper register, the stretching, thinning muscle. It is those coordinating together. That's why many times, if you haven't worked over your break or in your quote unquote mix area, which many times we think of that as right over the break, it can feel really funky. And one of the reasons for that is because those muscles aren't used to coordinating together.
And that kind of takes us into myth number two. One of the things I love about mix is it is not one sound. It is not one size fits all. Mix doesn't just mean one particular type of tonal quality. And my mix voice can sound very different than yours. And that is not only okay, it is great. The analogies I like to use for mix and playing with all kinds of combinations of tonal qualities, I like to use two. The first one is thinking about
colors, so let's say that our low register, is red. And let's say that our upper register, That is, what color should I say you guys? That is blue. Clearly I do this off the top of my head. There isn't just, what does blue and red make? Green, no, lies, my God. Purple, that's, see, this is why I'm not an art teacher.
It's not just one shade of purple. There can be everything to deep, dark purple, to really pale lavender. There's so many different shades. That's how I feel about it vocally. You can have a really light, head-dominant mix voice, to a really belty, chest-dominant mix voice. And you can have 50 variations in between.
The voice can be so nuanced, which is one of the many things I love about it, The other analogy I love for mix is cooking. So think of chest voice as flour, head voice as sugar. It all depends on your taste. Maybe you don't like very sweet.
Right? You're not going to put much sugar in it. Maybe you like the most sugary treat ever. Just dump a bunch in there. And one's not right or wrong. It all depends on the flavor, the style that you're going for.
Another mix voice belting myth, because for me, belting that we hear and that most people think of as belting these days is a level of mix. And what I mean by that is it sounds very much like this emotive chesty sound, but It's something that we can do consistently.
And ideally utilizing a little bit of mix. So we're resonating forward. We've got just a little bit of that upper end tonality mix in and just a little bit of that thinning muscle added into the mix makes things feel a lot easier. So when we're talking about belt or a really chest dominant mix,
A big myth about that is that it is unhealthy. It's bad for you.
Belt can be absolutely healthy. There is nothing wrong with it. And it's a sound we use all the time. It's an emotional sound like calling out to somebody, hey, hey! Doesn't feel heavy on my vocal folds. It's this big emotive calling out sound tied to sounds we already know how to make. It is totally healthy work. It is what I call heavy work.
Heavy work isn't bad, heavy work is just heavy work. It takes more energy. It takes a little more athletic endeavor, which means that to balance that out with not quite as heavy work is always a smart thing to do. Whether that's you have some nuance in the song, which I sure prefer. I don't love to hear somebody belt the entire thing. It gets boring really quickly, right? That's like high emotion calling out the entire time. It's not as impressive.
So whether it is you have more nuance in your songs, which is likely going to be the case, or you do a really purposeful warm up, cool down that balances out a lot of that belting, there's nothing wrong with it. It's a fantastic tool. But I do want to point out, and I'll make this the final myth The myth that you have to belt, and if you don't belt, you aren't a great singer. You're lesser of a singer. And I find that to be so hugely
False. Do I love a great belting sound? Absolutely. Do I love some singers who don't belt ever? Absolutely. Belt is a color. It is a tool in your toolbox It is not the only tool. It is not the best tool. It is not the most important tool. And it really, again, depends on the singer. Certain voices really lend themselves to a pretty great belt.
And everybody can learn to belt, believe we can all tap into those natural calling out emotive sounds
But not every singer's voice or the style that they choose to sing or the songs that they choose to do really lends themselves to belt. You don't hear Billie Eilish doing a lot of hardcore belting. I don't think she suffered because of that.
She's not lacking because she's not belting. Belting is a great tool. And I want any singer that I work with to be able to access the wide variety of sounds and tonal colors and
qualities and styles that they want to be able to access. But do you have to be able to do it? Absolutely not, It is a tool. It is not the tool.
Like I said, for me belting is a type of mix voice, most belting today, I think, just because it's more sustainable and you can get the same great sound for just less work. And mix voice is a really important tool, especially in contemporary commercial music styles, meaning everything from, oh gosh, musical theater, of course, but pop, rock, country, folk, soul, R &B, funk, jazz.
We are mixing, I think, the vast majority of time. And I will just say what mix means to me personally, as a singer and as a voice professional, is not just singing over the break. Mix voice to me means having access to your entire range and all the tonal qualities and styles that you want all the time.
It is having access to one connected voice, which is what we have. We have one voice. If you want to get stronger mix voice skills, you really want to erase your vocal breaks and cracks.
Wouldn't you know I have a course called Erase Your Break. I love that thing so much and all that that course is about, 10 weeks with 50 videos, 40 downloadable audio exercises, supplemental PDFs. I love it so much. I very much believe in all the technique that's behind it. There's also a new section that is coming in time for the holidays All really diving deeper into belting, more of that.
Belting mix voice quality.
I'll put a link to it in the show notes so you can check it out. Also, if you are a Vocal Pro member, you get automatic access to Erase Your Break, and you can try out two weeks of Vocal Pro for absolutely free. That will be down in the show notes too. Lastly, I have a new freebie for you, and it is a two-exercise warmup that will take you five minutes or less. That will get you feeling great, plus one of my favorite, a bonus,
Mix Voice Belt exercise. Absolutely free. Sing along audio tracks that's down in the show notes as well. Thank you for listening like always and see you in the next episode.
