Disclaimer: I feel that the recording I attached is pretty loud, so bear that in mind. I'm sorry if I'm doing something wrong, but I am really desperate and I created an account here just to ask about it and it's extremely important to me. If the post is too long, just read the next-to-last paragraph.
I've been singing since May 2020. I'm doing it on my own. I'm unable to take vocal lessons, but I'll be able to start in June this year. So I just need to be patient till this time. However, when singing, I noticed something that bothers me a lot. I'm afraid that I might have damaged my voice. It is shown in the recording (sorry that it's so cringy, I just wanted to show what I mean as accurately as possible). Listen to the first note, please. It isn't sung low, nor high, it's somewhere in the middle (in terms of how I perceive the sound to be), BUT when I try to dampen this sound, my voice breaks. At first, I thought that this is because I'm just learning, but now I really am afraid that it means that I cannot sing. It's frustrating because I would like to learn to make my voice softer on this 'scale', but I'm afraid of my voice breaking. I mean, it doesn't break always, for example, to record this, I made eight or some attempts. But it's just something that I cannot control, I never know when it'll break and that's what makes me scared of even trying to control it. Also, I feel that this should never happen. Like, I would understand it as a 'mistake' if I were belting or just trying to force sound that's just too hard for me, but what I sang is not a high sound, it's pretty easy, and the only thing I do is dampening it. I'm so afraid of having vocal nodules.
The second note I sang is lower and I sang it just to show that if the voice break happens, it is only in that 'middle' part of my scale. When recording, I was a little surprised that in the first note my voice broke (as I said, it wasn't my first attempt, and I cannot predict it), so I'm sorry that my voice shook. I know that there is a lot of work before me.
Finally, the third note. It's... I would say it's my biggest struggle at the moment if it weren't for the health of my voice. It's something that I call head voice. I wrote 'something that I call' because I don't think it really is head voice. As far as I know, I should feel some kind of vibrations on top of my head just as I feel it on my chest while singing in a chest voice. Well, I don't feel these vibrations. Also, as you obviously hear, this sound is extremely false (I use the word 'false' to express the opposite of a clean sound, I hope that's fine). The thing is, I just cannot imagine producing a different sound. When there is a melody, I can easily find the note, but it'll never be clean. I don't understand why that happens. If I had to say what this sound is, I'd say it's falsetto. But I'm not really sure if falsetto is good, I would prefer to use head voice. But I just don't know how to produce any clear sound that'll be higher, so I'm really frustrated.
Sorry for this post being so long. To sum up, my questions are: 1) Is my voice is damaged? If yes/no, what does my voice breaking when I sing the first note say about my voice? Should I take a break from singing? If yes, how long should it take? 2) What is the last sound that I produce? Falsetto, head voice, something different? Why is this sound wrong and how does it affect my vocal cords? Any advice on how to find a clean high sound? Any specific types of vocal exercises? If it matter, since May of 2020, I've been doing this one and, since August of 2020, I've been doing also this (In both cases, I skip the parts that are too high). That's my daily routine. Should I switch to something different?
I'm sorry if my explanations are unclear. I did try to be as detailed as possible, however, English isn't my native language, so perhaps that's the reason why I may use awkward language from the point of a native speaker.
MY RECORDING: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CBEwkRCokx4TE25I24_PauqzlRHYDIc_/view?usp=sharing
