If you’ve been following Eurovision, chances are you’ve already had My System stuck in your head. This EDM-infused pop track is an absolute jam, and it’s also a goldmine of vocal technique worth breaking down.
Whether you’re a singer looking to level up or just a fan curious about what goes into a live performance like this, this breakdown will give you a real look at what makes Felicia’s delivery so compelling, and where the challenges lie.
The Chest Voice Power Behind My System
Right from the top, Felicia is working in a chest voice quality, what we call thicker vocal folds. She’s singing with real weight and presence in her tone, and one of the first tools she reaches for is a glottal onset. T
his is where the vocal folds close before the sound begins, helping her land cleanly and directly on that chest voice sound without any breathiness creeping in. It’s a deliberate, trained choice, and it gives My System that punchy, grounded quality right from the first phrase.
As she moves higher in the range, you’ll hear something called thyroid tilt start to come in, that little touch of emotional “cry” in the sound. The thyroid is the top part of the larynx where the vocal folds live, and tilting it forward stretches the vocal folds so you can sing higher while staying in that heavier, more powerful quality. It’s what keeps Felicia sounding emotionally raw rather than flipping into a lighter, airier sound.
Key Vocal Techniques in Felicia’s Performance
Felicia’s live delivery of My System draws on several advanced techniques working together:
- Glottal onset: closing the vocal folds before the tone begins to land cleanly on chest voice
- Thyroid tilt: tilting the larynx forward to stretch the vocal folds and reach higher notes with weight
- Short, sharp, high breaths: counterintuitive but essential for holding back airflow and keeping the vocal folds closed during high-energy sections
- Subglottic pressure management: the pressure below the vocal folds that helps drive and stabilize the sound
- Mixed voice transitions: shifting between thinner and thicker vocal folds at the top of the range for added weight and colour
The Tricky Consonants and Vowels in My System
One of the more interesting moments in My System comes on the word “taste,” specifically that opening “T.” The T consonant is created with a burst of breath, and that increase in breath pressure makes it harder for the vocal folds to close properly on the following vowel. Felicia has a slight slip here, which is actually a really common challenge for singers. The fix? Get off the T consonant as quickly as possible so you can pitch the vowel cleanly, rather than lingering on the breath-heavy consonant.
Closed vowels, like the “ee” sound in “weekend,” present a similar challenge. When your mouth is nearly closed for the vowel, it gets harder to stay in chest voice at higher pitches. Opening the mouth just slightly, without going too wide, can make a significant difference in your ability to stay grounded in the sound. Felicia navigates this with a relatively small mouth position, which is part of her natural style, but it does add an extra layer of difficulty to the melody.
Breathing Like a Pro During Movement
One of the most impressive things about Felicia’s performance of My System is how she manages her breath around movement. When your heart rate increases, whether from nerves or choreography, there’s a natural tendency to push more air through the vocal folds, which can cause the voice to go airy or pitchy. The solution isn’t to breathe more deeply; it’s actually the opposite.
Short, sharp, high breaths taken quickly at the top of the chest help hold back that airflow so the vocal folds can stay closed and the tone stays clean. This is exactly what Felicia does between phrases, and it’s why her voice recovers so quickly after the more active sections of the song. A great way to practice this yourself is to walk on the spot while you sing. It gently raises your heart rate so you can train your body to manage breath and vocal fold closure under pressure, no treadmill required.
Head Voice, Mixed Voice, and the Top of the Range
Towards the climax of My System, Felicia moves into thinner vocal folds, what we’d call head voice territory, hitting notes up around C#5. In pure head voice, the vocal folds are thin and the sound can take on a more airy quality if the folds aren’t staying well-closed.
What’s interesting is that at certain moments, Felicia shifts into a slightly mixed quality, adding a touch more thickness to the vocal folds to bring weight and emotion back into the sound. This is exactly the kind of nuanced control that separates trained singers from beginners.
The brightness of her tone throughout is also worth noting. A higher larynx position contributes directly to that bright, forward timbre, but it also means there’s less room to push for more volume before the pitch starts to waver. At Eurovision, where the stakes are sky-high, that’s a real technical tightrope to walk.
What Makes This Performance a Learning Opportunity
My System is, frankly, a difficult melody to write for yourself. There are big intervallic leaps, sustained high notes, repeated phrases that require stamina, and all of it has to be delivered live in one of the highest-pressure performance environments in the world.
A couple of small slips in Felicia’s performance, a slightly flubbed note here, a touch of nasality there, are not flaws to criticise. They’re windows into what live singing actually looks like, and they make this a perfect case study for anyone learning to sing.
What stands out most is how quickly she self-corrects. She takes a short sharp breath, resets, and delivers. That’s not luck, that’s training.
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.