Your middle singing voice is the bridge between your chest voice and head voice. For women, middle voice feels like a lighter version of chest voice and a fuller, thicker version of head voice. For men, the middle voice feels lighter than chest voice or head voice and fuller than falsetto.
How To Achieve Middle Voice
The illustration below shows you the average female middle voice range. In the beginning, your middle voice may be weak as you try to figure out how to reach these notes without transitioning to head or chest voice. Depending on the song, you can take your middle voice as low as you want.
If your voice gets too fuzzy or weak on the really low notes, you may need to transition into chest voice. When you sense the vibrations in your mouth and throat, you can easily maintain your middle voice sound while you sing.
In Ancient Greek, verbs often take a "middle voice", neither active nor passive. The forms usually look identical to the passive on the surface, but can take direct objects and cannot take an agent (unlike true passives). Some verbs only ever occur in the middle voice, with no active forms at all!
To a Latin-speaker, this should sound somewhat familiar: verbs which look passive on the surface, but can take direct objects, can't take agents, and have no active forms? That fits the deponent verbs (sequor, hortor, arbitror, etc) perfectly. In other words, the deponent verbs seem to act like the Greek middle voice, rather than the Latin active or passive.
The way I see it, there is no middle voice in Latin, but there can certainly be traces of it.The situation is similar to the dual number.That said, looking for such traces is interesting.Here is one candidate worth considering.
Dictionaries tend to list contemplare and contemplari as separate entries.However, if we analyze them as the same word, something resembling a middle voice arises.The passive forms are not passive in nature, and they can take accusative objects as mentioned in the linked L&S entry.
The slight difference in meaning sounds suitable for a middle reading.Namely, contemplo is roughly "I observe" whereas contemplor is more "I consider" which could be seen as "I observe for myself".For practical purposes the verbs are essentially synonymous, but one can contemplate whether the deponent verb arose from something middle.L&S mentions that the active forms are ante- and post-classical.Perhaps the passive forms took over and there was no need to use the active forms in parallel if the distinction was minor or non-existent.
Plautus appears to be the only writer to use both active and passive forms to any significant extent, so it is worthwhile to take a look at his 15 uses of contempl-.Upon a quick inspection, I get the feeling that the active forms are more "look" and the passive ones "think".This gives some support to the idea of a middle.(But I won't stretch the analysis too far with just these data points or claim that it is absolutely so.)
So, perhaps the deponent verb contemplari could be seen as the middle voice of contemplare.This is not the only verb which has normal and deponent versions.Perhaps analyzing more such pairs could reveal more solid evidence for middle, if these kinds of cases count as middle for you.I happened to be reminded of this particular pair in a recent question.
It seems that there are two ways of analyzing the nominal phrase sinus fluentis: (A) it is the true direct object of collecta, which behaves like a Greek middle participle (see this philological comment on verse 320 // see also Allen and Greenough: 247) and (B) it is an "accusative of relation" (see second alternative on verse 320), perhaps in nice symmetry with genu in the previous Adjectival Phrase nuda genu. See also the very interesting comment on verse 320 made by the eminent classical scholar Robert Seymour Conway.
In the OP's original Q., a "middle-voice" verb is not to take an agent. If the person doing the crowning had been identified, that soul would have been the agent (ablative): "flava caput nectentur oliva, a puella"; presumably, the use of an (ablative) agent restricts the verb to passive-use only; therefore, disqualifying its elevation to the "middle-voice" genre?
Make sure you're conceptualizing the top voice as a melody. Play around with only playing the left hand and the melody to make sure you know how you want your melody to sound. Even consider playing the left hand and the middle voice while singing the melody. I'm always amazed at how different things sound once I've taken a few reps to sing one of the voices.
Lastly, the middle voice is just arpeggios. As you warm up before each practice session, make sure to play some arpeggios at a pp dynamic level, trying to make them as fluid as possible. Ideally, you would practice these in keys with lots of "black notes," since that's part of what makes this middle voice so difficult.
Thanks, Judy for a very interesting and valid list of recommendations. Like most tenors, I had some problems at the passagio early on, and remember forcing my voice up to the high "A" with little or no head voice. I spent some time wondering why the "A" was my maximum elevation! My voice teacher at the American Conservatory in Chicago worked on my transitional notes E, F, and F-sharp, and low and behold, high C's popped out. Every student who sings classical music, has to withstand the urge of singing forte throughout the middle range. Volume has a way of growing, if as my teacher said many times, you first get the train on the tracks.
At 72 years old,,some days the mechanism works better than other days, but the high C is still there. Too bad it sometimes takes a lifetime to understand what works. Another favorite saying of my teacher, Walter Kirschner: Old too soon, smart too late!
Really great to get your feedback, Ron, thank you! I love hearing how classical singers like you find common ground with the techniques I use for contemporary singing. The voice is the voice... no matter what we're doing with it, there are ways it works best for everything!
Hi Judy, i have this problem with singing that's becoming pretty irksome. When i sing acapella or just with my guitar i feel like i have adequate control of my voice and am pretty happy with my singing. However, when i attempt to sing along to an instrumental track or some form of karaoke, my voice collapses. i feel like i lose all my technique and control and that my voice is straining the entire time. Afterwards, my voice feels damaged. Is there some way to become better at singing karaoke? Why does karaoke seem so much harder than singing acapella?
The difference between singing karaoke and acapella or just with your guitar could have to do with several things. I suspect first of all that when singing karaoke you have to keep up with a steady beat. When singing acapella or just playing for yourself, you can speed up and slow down to help hit notes. That's why I recommend that singers practice a LOT with tracks, click tracks, drum tracks, or some regular beat they can hear. You can even find click track apps on smartphones.
Another variable could be pitch and key. When singing acapella, many people just change keys to hit high or low notes, without knowing it. Singing karaoke causes you to stay within the key and you may notice songs seeming to have much wider ranges than when you sing without music.
If you're straining to hit a note, DON'T SING THE NOTE. Get some training to challenge your voice without hurting it, to control your voice and hit high and lows without strain.
Glad you want to go farther. Keep reading this blog for more free info; get lessons if you can.
Hi Judy, I'm struggling with my mid range been a singer all my life nrver had vocal issues before. I know proper technique so that's not the problem. I believe my problems stem from haven taken zyrtec for over a year every day. I can sing high notes I'm a soprano and i can sing low notes, my range had always been vast. I've been off zyrtec for over a year now and my voice just isn't getting better. It always feels dry. I'm really worried that its damaged and I'll never get it back. I would be devastated. Can you give any advice?
Ah... just now saw this question, Anonymous. Here's the thing... for any chronic vocal health issue or concern/worry, you need to get checked out by a doctor - an ENT who specializes in voice is best. Otherwise, for dryness, I find diluted pineapple juice a great help. 1 part juice, 3 or 4 parts water to avoid adding to acid reflux (unless you're allergic to pineapple!) Try sipping this between singing or speaking lines. And don't forget to drink enough water in general. Shower steam, and a humidifier in very dry environments can also help.
I am sorry but I don't have experience with this, unless the vein is inflamed from technique that causes excessive pushing of air. If you would like to try a lesson where I can observe how you sing, I'd like to help you. But you don't want veins hemorrhaging so you have to do something about it. If you would, I'd love to read another comment where you tell about your experience and how the surgery affects your voice. Take good care.
The Aorist tense conveys the truth that the believer's new birth (indicative mood is mood of reality) has occurred at a point in the past without specifying when this event occurred. The passive voice indicates this new birth was produced by a Source outside of the recipient and in context that Source is "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ".
Aorist tense is somewhat difficult to grasp, so don't be frustrated if you don't receive any glowing practical insights initially. If you continue to perform Word Studies (including verb tense, voice and mood) as an integral part of your Bible study, you will begin to appreciate the meaning of the aorist tense and you will begin to receive insights from this understanding.
Verbs in active voice picture the subject as the one who performs or produces the action or exercises a certain activity. Active voice represents the action as being accomplished by the subject of the verb. The Active voice is the most common voice in the NT, occurring 20,697 times compared to 3500 for middle voice and 3933 for passive voice.
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