3 STEPS TO STOP SHOUTING FOR HIGH NOTES
Shouting for high notes might be holding you back from your full singing potential. Do you ever question how to sing high notes? Too much force and not enough vocal technique is an approach many singers take. Many of the problems we see daily in lessons at Singing Success stem from singers using too much force to produce higher notes.
A Myth About Hitting High Notes In Your Vocal Range
Singers often remark that without shouting, they wouldn’t be able to sing the required notes. The myth is that you can’t ever hit high notes without straining because it just doesn’t happen. But that’s only true because they don’t know another way. In the long term, yelling for high notes will result in unwanted voice breaks, a lower range, and potential vocal damage. There is a better way to sing higher!
Here are the 3 Steps to Stop Shouting When Singing High Notes
1. Don’t Spread Your Vowels
Shouting has less to do with volume than it does resonance placement. Vowel sounds often instinctually cause the mouth to spread. When a singer yells, their mouth spreads. This means they are using their mouth as the main resonator. This results in changes to vocal tone and can affect vocal register as some of the resonance is lost.
Watch Yourself Sing High Notes
Watch yourself in the mirror and check whether you’re widening your mouth. If so, try doing the opposite. Narrow your mouth on high notes, and notice that your voice doesn’t seem to project sound as forcefully out of the mouth. It’s almost as if the sound stays more contained in the mouth (technically the pharynx) and reverberates like someone had rung a bell. This containment of the sound is the vocal resonance that can affect the vocal range.
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2. Develop High Range Independence
Singers who habitually shout for high notes typically can’t begin singing directly on high notes, especially softly. They have climbed up to the pitch by scooping from the lower part of their range until the desired note is achieved.
The muscles inside your larynx, aka the voice box, should reconfigure themselves for higher notes, but they often can’t because singers use too much force to get to those notes. In other words, shouting prevents the proper development of the muscles in your vocal cords needed for high notes. This is why we practice voice building exercises.
Practice Singing And Develop Vocal Techniques
Start developing your higher range properly by attacking high notes directly with a soft head voice. The point where you change from singing to shouting the notes is most typically the break between the low notes in the chest voice and the higher notes in the head voice. The more you do this, the easier you’ll find it to attack high notes directly with more power as you build vocal muscles and vocal range.
3. Use Low Notes (Chest Voice) Properly
As described in the previous point, your vocal cords should reconfigure themselves when going from one part of your range to another. If you don’t sing your low notes properly, the change needed for high notes won’t occur. Instead, your voice will try to push your chest voice higher and higher.
Vocal exerciseS build a weak voice
The proper way to sing melodies that go from low to high notes is to make your chest voice thinner as you ascend; that way the right muscles can take over for the high notes without straining, in a way that blends.
In other words, don’t let your voice get too heavy when singing lower notes. Practice singing this way. You’ll be surprised how much easier your voice can ascend when you remove the extra effort on your low notes.
But What About Vocal Power?
Two of the three points in this article are about lightening up your voice so that it can go higher with more ease. This is will make singing powerful high notes significantly easier.
Here’s the simple strategy to implement: sing some vocal ease exercises before doing vocal power exercises in a warm up. This way to practice singing lets the transitions from low notes to higher notes seem effortless. This strategy is simple but profound in its effects!
Mixed Voice is Easy with the Right Teacher
When done properly, high notes don’t require a forceful attack to sound strong. We all want to sing higher to showcase vocal range and vocal techniques. But remember from our singing lessons and what Brett Manning repeatedly says, that “singing high notes is more about coordination than strength.”
Benny Meza is a Master Associate at Brett Manning Studios in Nashville, TN. He’s taught over 7,000 vocal lessons and has worked with clients from Warner Music, RCA, Universal Music Group, and many others.
Book a Skype or In-Person lesson with Benny today!