Chest voice is that thicker, heavier sound in the lower part of your singing voice that makes vibrations in your chest when you’re singing. You may have felt it take over a time or two, whether you wanted it to or not. The trick to singing in chest voice is knowing how and when to use it.
If you need to find out how high to take your chest voice — or even how to find your chest voice, if you haven’t been introduced — continue reading to learn to have a strong but controlled chest voice.
Singing in chest voice can be such a powerful feeling. However, you have to be fair to your middle voice and not let chest voice take over too soon. Explore your range so you know how soon is too soon to transition to chest voice.
In the following illustration, you can see the average female chest voice range. Chest voice is a strong part of the female voice — often stronger than the middle voice — and you may want to strengthen your middle voice. You need to know your chest voice range. If you take chest voice too high, you can weaken your middle voice.
Remember that you can always switch out of chest voice sooner, but preferably not later, than the range given in the below illustration.
The following shows the average range of chest voice for men. Most men speak in chest voice, so they often already have a strong chest voice. You can develop yours if you think it’s weak, and explore the difference between your chest voice and middle voice.
