Songs to help Female Singers Mix

Weekly Teaching Tip – March 2019

Most pop songs (both male and female) definitely sit in the female chest voice area right now. The problem with this is that our female pop students are spending almost all of the time in their chest range. So when they try and sing the 2 or 3 notes in most songs that actually go above Bb4 they either try and pull up or then flip.

I stumbled upon a song that forces the female singer to “live” in their middle and even have to transition from chest to middle to head several times during the song. Ironically, the name of this song is “The Middle” by Maren Morris. Of course you can always get your students to sing through their bridges by just changing the key of the songs, but this is a song that actually sits there in the original artist’s key. So it is a great one to use because as your student sings along with the original artist they will be forced to constantly work through their middle. They can try it with “yeah, yeah, yeah” or some other vowel/consonant combination that is good for them at first to get the feeling of singing in the middle, then they can transition into words and try and keep the same feeling!

Also, Tricia Grey sent this to me regarding a good song for helping female pop students work their Mix:

My favorite mix teaching song for females is Katy Perry’s “Firework” because the melody starts high and comes downward. I also like “Nightingale” by Demi Lovato. Those are pretty dated though, for sure. We should start a list of songs that encourage mix!

Feel free to go to the IVTOM Facebook page and suggest any songs (either female, male, pop, broadway or classical that encourage Mix!

Also, there is a section on the IVTOM website under “Resources”, the “Repertoire Lists” that gives some recommendations for songs to work on to help encourage and strengthen Mix.