Ep.40 Sing Better High Notes – 1 Vital Tip
Ep.40 Sing Better High Notes – 1 Vital Tip
This is not only about how to sing better high notes, but how to sing better period! Once there was a vocal workshop where students were asked this one question: What is the single most difficult problem you face as a singer?
18 hands when up and 17 of them had the exact same answer. Can you guess what it was?
The answer was: My number one problem is getting through the break area of my voice.
Answer number 18 was different. He said, I get really nervous as I sing. All I can think about is the note I’ve got to sing where I tend to break!!!
Over the years I’ve interviewed new students, and the majority say they have trouble singing higher. This is another way of saying the very same thing.
What is this problem the majority of us singers face in our voices? It’s the area in our voices just above the chest voice. It’s that middle register or what I call the First Bridge of the voice.
Sing Better High Notes – What is the First Bridge
The First Bridge in your voice is a transition area between your chest (the lower notes) and your head voice (the higher notes). This is the area where you leave the chest voice and enter into the head voice. The problem is we don’t know how to do it without problems.
There are 3 things that happen when we sing in and through the bridge successfully.
- The resonance or vibration in your chest, first splits into your head and/or, as the notes move higher, the resonance moves completely into your head.
2. The vocal cords eliminate the larger vibrating mass of the chest voice. This means that as the pitch goes higher, the vibrating mass of the vocal cords gets less and less. As the resonance shifts into the head, the vocal cords thin, stretch longer and increase in tension. The vocal cords also “handoff” from one set of muscle, cartilage and tendon to another as you move back and forth between chest and head voice.
3. The last thing is as we sing in the first bridge, we sing comfortably with this strange feeling of split resonance and vocal cord adjustment, without the larynx rising or the vocal cords separating. This enables an optimal Mix and blend of chest and head voice.
Doing this successfully is sometimes referred to as Bridging!
Let me illustrate the resonance or the vibration starting in my chest, splitting into my head (meaning still part of it’s in chest and part of it splits off into head) so I have a split resonance.
Meaning there’s resonance in my chest and resonance entering into my head…going at the same time. Also, illustrate how the resonance then moves completely up into the head. This is an illustration of bridging. Alright? [Vocal Demo]
What is the one vital tip? It’s this: Learn how to bridge!
Take to heart this message today. Learn all about bridging. Believe anyone can do it. Invest in yourself to do it. It will be life changing.
And your vocal type is all about the bridging process. Your vocal type describes what you tend to do when you sing in and through the first bridge.
Do you know your vocal type? Do you know what you tend to do when you sing in your first bridge?
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 the videos and download the exercises for your vocal type.
These exercises will help you learn to bridge successfully and improve your voice.
I’m Chuck Gilmore with Power To Sing. You can sing higher with beauty, confidence and power.
I’ll see you inside the next video.
