The truth is that all singers would love to increase their range, and the high notes are most impressive. After all, there is no one that is born able to sing high notes perfectly. Just like all of your other muscles, your vocal cords need exercise to get stronger.
You can start by learning to relax your muscles. Then, warm up your voice and practice certain exercises to increase your range. You can check out SINGORAMA to learn more about learning to sing better.
Relax Your Muscles: Tips for Reaching Higher Notes
Start by taking some slow, relaxed breaths to reduce tension. In order to reach the high notes, your breathing must be relaxed. Otherwise the tension will be heard in your voice. Inhale normally and then exhale.
Your breath should be slow and even. Make sure that you keep your chest, shoulders, and neck relaxed as you breathe- this will release the tension in those areas.
You can release the tension in your jaw by massaging your face and jaw muscles. To do this, place the heels of your hands on either side of your face, just below your cheekbones.
Then, gently push them into your cheeks, moving them slowly down into your jaws. Allow your mouth to hang open slightly.
Loosen the muscles in your shoulder and neck by slowly rolling your neck from one side to the other. Once you feel like your neck is adequately stretched out, gently & slowly roll your shoulders backward and then forward.
Allow your arms to hang loosely at your sides. When you are practicing, try making sure that you keep your arms as loose as possible. Avoid balling up your fists or straining your arm muscles when you try to hit the high notes.
Warm Up Your Voice
Relax your throat muscles by drinking a glass of warm water. This will help hydrate your vocal cords, which will allow you to hit the higher notes.
You can add honey to the water to keep your throat from swelling. You should never drink milk, caffeinated beverages, or ice water before you warm up, as these have a negative effect on your voice.
You can warm your lips up by trilling them together. Loosely press your lips together and release a steady stream of air through your mouth so that your lips are vibrating and making a raspberry sound.
After this, you can move to “h” sounds, making sure that you maintain a steady voice as the air is moving past your lips. After that, try “b” sounds- and finally, start moving up and down the scales.
Next, pretend you are sucking down a spaghetti noodle and form an “o” shape with your mouth. As you are exhaling, you will make “woo” sound, much like a siren. Try keeping the “woo” as steady as you can and repeat 2 or 3 more times.
This is effective for stretching out your vocal cords. Once you have completed that, move up and down the scales as you make the “woo” sound.
To warm up for the higher notes, start in a low pitch as you sing “me” going up the scale. Then, go down the scale singing an “ee” sound. Keep moving up and down, slowly increasing your range every time.
When you feel like you have loosened up sufficiently, switch to an “oo” sound. Never push past what you are comfortable with because this will end up having the opposite effect and decreasing your range.
Develop Your Range
For a stronger sound, make sure that you are breathing from your abdomen. If you have been singing for any length of time, chances are you have been told that many times. That’s because it’s so important. It helps you relax your muscles and helps you reach- and maintain- the high notes.
As you are inhaling, your stomach should rise then your chest. If you are having trouble, place your hand on your stomach as you are breathing. This will remind you to focus on breathing from there.
Find the middle of your range and move to higher and higher notes. This is basically a continuation of the “ee” and “oo” sounds that you were using during your warm up.
Once you have gotten your voice up to the note that you want, you can open these vowels up to more of an “uh” and “oh”. With practice, you’ll find the notes will get easier for you to reach.
Everyone has certain vowels that work best for them when they are singing the higher notes. Others are much harder to hit.
You need to figure out which vowels work best for you and once you figure that out, modify towards another vowel as you ascend the scale. For example, if you have trouble with the long “e” as in “meet”, start with “mitt” and move the “i” to the long “e” as you go higher.
Next, you can start putting a consonant in front of your vowels. Consonants can help you get better control of closing your vocal cords- a hard “g” works great for this. Once you practice your vowels for a bit, put a hard “g” in front of them.
This will help you to maintain a steady sound by keeping your vocal cords steadily vibrating. You can also work on putting consonants like “m” or “n” in front of the vowels.
Of course, just like working out any other muscles, you must cool down after you have been working on the high notes to keep from injuring your voice. You can cool down by gently humming an “m” sound as you move up and down the scales.
Finally, if you need some extra help learning to become a better singer, check out SINGORAMA.