Imagine you are icing the cake, and you want to make sure the icing covers the cake right over the edges and down the sides to the plate. How do you get a smooth finish? You dip a knife in hot water and spread the icing out from the centre again and again till there is a substantial thickness at the edge, and then you keep spreading this down the sides. As you get further from the centre the icing will get thinner, so you try to take as much icing with you as possible. If it gets unacceptably thin, you return to the centre and start the process again.

This little story can help explain the process of strengthening the lower part of high voice, through the use of downward scales that start high. Once the high register is well developed, it usually becomes apparent, especially in women's voices, that the lower part of high voice, before the change over into chest, is thin and breathy. By learning to carry the high voice resonance down you can strengthen this part of the voice, and eventually also provide an alternative sweeter quality to belting out the top range of the chest register.



Dam Story

Imagine a large river with a big dam across it. At the base of this dam is a machine for generating electricity, that runs on a pipe of water coming out the dam. At different times you may want high power or low output, which means sometimes large quantities of water and sometimes small amounts. But at all times you will want a steady controlled flow, so you can regulate the machine properly. You will also want the dam to be as full as possible at all times, so that the choice of output power can be varied by the machine, and is not limited by the water levels in the dam.

Dam = breath support; water = air; machine = voice.