Owlsome head notes - A secret technique to improve your head voice by Dr. Hoo

Owls besides being mysterious and beautiful creatures can teach us a lot about singing. One of my favourite ways I use to help my students visualise and grasp the mechanics of singing in head voice is by asking them to imitate an owl.

See, instead of using complex terminology to explain singing in head voice, it's always much easier for people to learn from sounds around us. From owls and tigers to the 100s of notification sounds in your phone, you can unlock a lot of singing techniques just by trying to recreate them.

So, an OWL you say? Yes, a great grey owl to be specific ('cause they are my favourite).

Start by making a soft 'Whooo' (Hoot) sound till you feel the vibrations in the upper part of your head.

Once you start feeling the vibrations in your face and head try to go higher, here, imagine a baby owl with a tiny little 'whoo' calling out its mamma.

This animal sound will help you to increase your range, improve your vocal health, and give a boost to vocal flexibility, the 'h' sound in particular will decompress the vocal folds relieving strain.

As you develop this voice and create the mind-muscle connection to use it at will, start exploring it further by imagining and trying to make sounds as if you were a small baby owl, an old grumpy grandpa owl, a super excited teenage owl, a sad owl with long and sorrowful 'whooooo', a happy owl with a short chirpy 'whoo', you see where I am going with this.

This will allow you to make your head voice your friend before trying any fancy exercise that skips this fun. It may seem funny and embarrassing but that's the point to get you out of your shell and start enjoying learning.

Side effects include:

1. Judgement from boring muggles who don't believe in magic.

2. Confidence that'll make people wonder what's wrong with you but also feel super attracted by you.

BONUS: One simple exercise you can do to further your head voice adventures is to do a soft 5-3-1 (so-mi-do)(pa-ga-sa) in your newfound head voice starting from a high enough note and then gradually come down chromatically till your head voice starts to lead into your mix.

Eternalramblings sends you all young owls into the singing world with this secret ingredient that will help you sing those pesky songs that were giving you a hard time! See you next week!