Ep.83: How to Train My Voice to Sing Higher #9 of 9 – Two Vital Tips About Air Flow!

 

Singing higher into head voice requires you to sing through the first bridge of your voice. This is where the larynx wants to rise and the vocal cords separate.

 

Here’s two vital tips you must know about airflow from your lungs to the vocal cords that will make singing higher easier or impossible.

 

How to Train My Voice to Sing Higher – Two Vital Tips About Air Flow!

 

Here are two key tips regarding air flow.

 

Tip #1. You need less air, not more, to sing higher.

 

To be successful singing higher, use less air. Especially when you’re first learning to sing through the first bridge, also called the passaggio.

 

 

Why? As you sing higher, the vocal cords stretch, tense and thin. There’s less overall thickness or mass and less air is needed to move the vocal cords.  

 

What happens if you use too much air while learning to sing higher? Too much air will blow the vocal cords apart. That causes a break in the tone. So instinctively the external neck muscles add extra tension to help hold back the excessive air.

 

This pulls the larynx higher, which will make singing higher even more difficult.

 

Watch what happens with too much air. [Demo]  Blew the cords apart. I was blowing too much air.

 

Now watch what happens when I reduce the air flow.  [Demo]  I was successful going through the bridge into my head voice because I reduced the air flow.

 

Reducing air flow helps keep tension out. You’ll notice it’s much easier to go into head voice because the external neck muscles aren’t engaging the larynx and it’s staying down.

 

Tip #2. Reducing the volume or loudness also reduces the amount of air you send to the vocal cords.

 

To be successful singing higher, use less volume. Especially when first learning to sing through the first bridge into head voice.

 

Why? In order to sing loud, the vocal cords instinctively hold back the air flow.

 

But when we’re first learning to sing higher, it’s easy for the external neck muscles to tighten and squeeze the vocal cords. This pulls the larynx upward and makes singing higher nearly impossible.

 

It also leads to pulling the chest voice too high which causes straining, breaks, falsetto and pitch problems. Worse yet, singers can damage their vocal cords and loose their voices.

 

[Demo] Too loud.

 

[Demo]  I’m not going into falsetto, I’m just going very lightly. [Demo]

 

You may find that reducing the volume will help you learn to sing higher faster than anything else.

 

This is because reducing loudness decreases vocal cord and external muscle tension.

 

Does this mean you can never sing with power and volume?  No. When you’re first learning to sing higher you’re also learning a new vocal coordination.

 

You’re trying to keep the larynx down while keeping the vocal cords together and feeling the resonance shift into your head and back to your chest.

 

This gives you a new muscular feeling which is strange and unfamiliar. You feel vocally uncoordinated.

 

Your natural response is to go back to old but ineffective singing habits.

 

Once you begin to accept a new feeling in the vocal cords and a new non-interference from the external neck muscles, you’ll be like a baby learning to walk. At first it feels completely strange and new because you’ve never done it before.

 

Eventually, you start feeling like you can stand without holding on to the chair.

 

Then you feel like you can take a step.  Then two steps and then more and more.

 

Soon you’re walking from chair to chair. Then down the hallway. In time, you start walking faster and faster. One day you start to run, but trip and fall.

 

In time you run anytime you want.  You run confidently and well.

 

Your entire vocal mechanism is learning a new coordination…something you’ve never done before. For some of us, it takes years. Others of us months. Some are born with the ability it seems.

 

The important thing is it’s possible for all of us.

 

As we go through the process of learning how to sing higher, it’s easy for the larynx to go up. It’s easy to pull the chest voice too high. These are old habits we hold on to.

 

What do you tend to do when you sing? This is what I call your vocal type. I’m not talking about your vocal range, soprano, alto, tenor or bass.

 

Your vocal type is your vocal tendencies.

 

Go to PowerToSing.com and take the vocal test, which I call the PowerTest. Take the quiz and discover your vocal type. Then go to the Knowledge Center and watch all the videos about your vocal type.

 

Download the free exercises and use them to start improving your voice immediately.

 

This video concludes the series, “How to Train My Voice to Sing Higher”. These tips can be applied to the exercises taught in Episodes 75-82.

 

I’m Chuck Gilmore with PowerToSing. You can sing higher with beauty, confidence and power.
I’ll see you inside the next video.