There is a particular kind of singing that does not try to impress you with volume. Instead it pulls you in close and lets you hear every tiny decision the voice is making.
Alessia Cara’s performance of Middle Ground in her Giant Desk concert is exactly that.
It is intimate, jazzy and beautifully controlled, and it gives us a wonderful opportunity to slow down and study how a seasoned voice moves between breath and tone, between soft and strong, and between the lower and upper parts of the range.
Below we break down the main techniques on display so you can start to understand how these sounds are made and, eventually, how you can make them too.
The Mix Voice at the Heart of Alessia Cara’s Sound
The first thing that stands out is the quality often described as mix voice. It is a slippery term, because there is no single muscle that switches a mix on or off.
The simplest way to think about it is a thicker vocal fold carried a little further up the range than you might expect, or a meeting point between the thin fold of head voice and the thicker fold of chest voice.
The folds settle somewhere in the middle, which is where the word mix comes from. Alessia Cara uses this blend to keep her tone warm and connected even as the melody climbs, so the sound never thins out or flips abruptly into something disconnected.
Breath Flow and Fold Closure in Middle Ground
One of the most beautiful aspects of Middle Ground is the constant play between breathy and non breathy sound. The voice is governed by how completely the vocal folds close.
When they close firmly you get a clear, present tone. When they stay slightly apart, more air escapes and you get that soft, intimate, slightly smoky quality.
Alessia Cara moves in and out of this fold closure with real intention, letting breath enter the tone at moments of tenderness and then closing the folds again for lines that need more presence.
This is the heart of expressive singing, because the amount of breath in the sound carries emotional meaning all on its own, much like the difference between someone whispering to you and someone speaking plainly.
How Alessia Cara Moves Into Falsetto
Several phrases lift into a light, airy falsetto. Falsetto happens when the small cartilages at the back of the larynx, the arytenoids, rock backwards.
That backward tilt stretches the folds and holds them stiff so that they only flutter against each other rather than closing fully.
The result is that breathy, floating quality up high. What makes Alessia Cara’s use of it so effective is the smoothness of the transition.
She slips into falsetto and back into thicker fold sound without an obvious click or break, which tells us she is managing the air pressure and the closure very carefully as she crosses between the two.
Singing Quietly and Working the Mic in Middle Ground
A lot of the control in Middle Ground is possible because she is singing very quietly and staying close to the microphone.
Singing softly makes it far easier to glide between breath and full closure without a jolt in the sound, because there is less air pressure to manage in the first place. The microphone choice matters too.
A sensitive close range microphone captures all of that quiet detail, which is why studio and live performers invest in the right gear.
For your own practice the lesson is not the expensive microphone, it is the principle: when you want to move smoothly between breathy and clear tone, bring the volume down and let the closeness of the mic do the work of carrying the sound.
What Alessia Cara’s Posture Teaches Us
Posture is one of the most common questions singers ask, and this performance is a useful case study.
Alessia Cara sits relatively relaxed on a stool, shoulders a little forward, yet she sits up taller and lifts her energy whenever the line grows louder or climbs higher. That shift is not cosmetic.
Sitting up allows the chest, or thoracic chamber, to build the pressure underneath the folds that a stronger note needs, and it lets the stabilising muscles of the torso help steady the sound.
It is worth saying that she is a long established professional with a very well trained instrument, so her relaxed posture is not a template to copy. When you are learning, aim for optimal posture instead, which you can find like this:
- Reach both hands up over your head and let your spine lengthen.
- Let your shoulders drop down and back into a relaxed, open position.
- Lower your arms gently back to your sides while keeping that shoulder placement.
This gives you a tall, easy alignment to sing from. It is never about yanking the shoulders back or creating tension in the chest.
Adding and Removing Twang in Middle Ground
Throughout Middle Ground you can hear the tone brighten and round out as she adds and removes twang.
Twang is a narrowing of the space just above the larynx, and it boosts the frequencies our ears are most sensitive to, which is why it makes a voice cut through and sound brighter.
Alessia Cara dials it in when she wants more fold closure and brightness higher in the range, then eases it out as she drops lower, which lets the warmer, darker, more resonant frequencies come back through.
Learning to add and release twang at will is one of the most useful skills a singer can build, because it lets you brighten a phrase for power and soften it for warmth without changing anything else.
Constriction and the Cry in Alessia Cara’s Tone
In some of the more emotional moments you can hear a gentle constriction and a cry quality.
Constriction is a light squeezing of the area above the vocal folds, and a small, controlled amount of it adds grit and emotional weight to the sound.
The important word is small. Too much tension above the folds will start to choke the closure underneath, so the skill lies in balancing the two:
- Enough closure underneath to keep the tone clear and supported.
- Just enough tightness above to add the cry or edge you want.
- Constant listening, so the squeeze never overwhelms the actual note.
This balance is exactly how a teacher would coach the effect safely, building the sound on control rather than force.
High Chest Breathing for the Big Moments in Middle Ground
On the louder, higher lines of Middle Ground the breath is taken high in the chest. This may run counter to the low, belly focused breathing you often hear about, but for a louder sound higher in the range it is exactly what you want.
Breathing high helps build the pressure beneath the folds that a big note depends on, and it engages the stabilising muscles that keep that pressure steady.
Different phrases call for different breaths, and matching the breath to the demand of the line is a hallmark of an experienced singer.
Tongue Stability and Larynx Position in Alessia Cara’s High Notes
Watch the highest moments, around the C5, and you can see a small dip form in the middle of the tongue.
That dip signals stability rather than tension. The back of the tongue effectively lends a little support to the larynx, which sits relatively high in Alessia Cara’s voice, helping her reach the note without the tone becoming too bright or strained.
Not every singer’s tongue behaves this way, and you should never force a shape onto your tongue.
It is simply a clue that the instrument is organising itself to support the high note, and it reminds us that the tongue and larynx are quietly working together far more than we tend to realise.
Opening the Mouth for Thicker Folds in Middle Ground
As she carries those thicker, mixier folds into the upper range, you can see the mouth open wider.
A wider mouth shape, sometimes called a wider valve shape, helps support a thicker, fuller vocal quality up high.
Combined with a touch of twang for closure and brightness, this is what lets the top of Middle Ground feel powerful and resonant rather than thin or pinched.
The takeaway is that the shape of the mouth is an active tool, not a fixed setting, and opening it strategically can give your higher notes more body.
Putting Alessia Cara’s Approach Into Practice
The single biggest reason Alessia Cara can do all of this so smoothly is years of real performing.
Her control is the product of a long, well trained career, so do not measure your own beginnings against her finished instrument. What you can take away is the path that built it. To start growing in the same direction, focus on these habits:
- Practise moving between breathy and clear tone at a low volume before you ever add power.
- Train your ears and musicality by singing with other people at jam sessions and open mic nights.
- Keep your recording setup simple and low fidelity at the start, since the magic is in the singing, not the gear.
- Treat brightness, breath and cry as dials you can turn up or down rather than fixed features of your voice.
Singing live with other musicians is how you really sharpen your style, your interpretation and your communication, and it is exactly the kind of work that takes a voice from good to genuinely compelling.
If you want to learn more about how you can learn to implement these singing techniques into your own voice, let’s sit down for a chat and discuss if the vocal academy is the right fit for you. You can join us here.