Baritone...need help extending range?

[baritonebaritonebaritone]

So, I've been singing for about a year. I remember when I couldn't get past E4, but now I can go up to F4 in chest voice, however a lot of the songs I've listened to (RnB) have singers belting up to Bb4 - C5. The highest I have ever belted was B4 in chest voice, but as you know baritones aren't naturally supposed to sing that high in chest voice. When I belt anything above a G4, I sound really loud, shouty and have no control and there's too much strain on my chords.

I've heard about mixed voice and I understand it theoretically. I know that mixed voice itself ISN'T a register, but rather a technique to close the obvious gap between chest voice and head voice. My question is, is there any possible way I can use mixed voice to substitute in for the chest belting (belting in my chest puts too much strain on my throat) without compromising that chesty quality? I want to be able to safely belt an A4-B4 without damaging my vocal cords. Currently, I can only safely access A4-B4 in my head tone, but I hate using my head voice because it's too light and feminine and not chesty or heavy enough for me. For me, I can go up to an F4 in chest quite comfortably and I would like to expand my "chesty notes" up to at least an Bb4 if at all possible, thanks!

[Masklin]

My current thoughts on this is to put the notes in your falsetto/head voice, just above (inside) your passagio (problem area), but _focus on making the notes sound like chest voice_.

 

The techniques for very high chest and lowish falsetto/head voice are very very similar if you do it right.

 

Good luck!

[DoverOs]

I'm a baritone too that had no talent to begin with.

 

Here's how it works. In order to have a solid cord closure as you ascend, you need nasal resonance in your voice. nasal resonance is pretty much directly proportional to your cord closure.

 

Once you have good cord closure, you can build resonance on top of it by using a tiny head or whistle type of phonation at the top of your range; however you don't need to really worry about this step until much later.

 

What's happening with your voice, is that as you ascend your voice is mixing into an empty space known as your falsetto. So your cords start bouncing around as you go higher and you have to 'push' to phonate those notes.

 

So your first order of business is singing towards your nose through your entire range, without pushing anywhere in your voice. Keep doing that until you get completely comfortable with singing in your nose.

 

@Masklin, I wouldn't recommend using terminology such as that. The entire range is purely controlled by cord closure, so saying something in regards to chest musculature or head musculature imply's factors other than cord closure.

[baritonebaritonebaritone]

Makes sense, I just have a problem making my head voice sound chesty. Are there any excercises to practice this 'cord closure'? Also, at what note will the voice purely go into head voice? As of now, anything above an F4 sounds pretty heady. My only way of reaching a G4 - B4 is belting through my chest and that gets pretty unreliable after G#4 since it ends up being inconsistent and shouty.

As of now, I have no idea where I should start bridging. My question is, should I first focus on smoothing the transition from chest to head and then start working on resonance, or should i start working on resonance right away? I've been watching RockTheStageNYC's videos on YouTube, this one in particular http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDpQXNXKu-0, and in the beginning he states that he isn't a fan of, "bridging early because once you get to the A4-C5, it get's too heady". I want to avoid the "heady" aspect and be able to belt out those panty-dropping notes lol