# Unifying female vocal registers The three registers of the female speaking voice are head, head and chest mixed, and chest. Singers who may avoid chest or head voice in speech need help developing said register.[^1] Women's middle voices can also be broken into upper middle and lower middle.[^2] Exercising chest voice higher through the first passaggio can result in hyperfunction. But bringing head voice down is a method of register combining.[^3] There is no mixing of mechanical functions without mixing of timbres.[^4] "Open chest" voice is produced by heavy action from the thyroarytenoid muscles.[^4] Inability to sing in chest mixture may be the result of hypofunction of the thyroarytenoids and a corresponding hyperfunction of the cricothyroids.[^4] ## Exercises for chest mixture See pg. 137-140 [^1]: [[The Structure of Singing]] pg. 133 [^2]: [[Cantabile]] pg. 94 [^3]: [[The Structure of Singing]] pg. 133-134 [^4]: [[The Structure of Singing]] pg. 136