Would you like to learn how to sing high notes? There are specific things you must do and avoid in order to increase your vocal range. Feel free to try these suggestions. Find out what vocal weight is, and how it can affect your ability to sing high notes. Learn simple singing exercises that can get you started in the right direction when desiring to increase your vocal range.

2. Step # 1

3. Locate Your
Vocal Range

4. Exercise: You will need a piano or keyboard to continue. First you will need to find middle C,
often referred as C4. If you are using a full-size piano, middle C will be the fifth C from the bottom.
Please see the diagram below:
Once you have located C4 or Middle C, play the note and try singing using the commonly known solfège scale:
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, and back to Do.
Make your way down the keyboard, singing each note in the reverse order,
until you reach the lowest note you can comfortably sing, while maintaining good tone.
You have successfully located the bottom of your range.
Now, again starting at middle C, repeat the process moving up the notes until you find the highest note you can comfortably sing.

5. Once You’ve Reached A Comfortable Range
You Have Located Your Tessitura

6. Tessitura:
Tessitura is the range you are most comfortable with, in which you are able to sing the notes consistently,
on-pitch, and while avoiding any strain.
This term can also be used to describe the average pitch range of a song or choral part.
This is your starting point, your foundation, or benchmark in which to stretch your
range.
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7. Step # 2

8. Breathe

9. Breath Support
Singing High Notes
&
It takes a considerable amount breath energy
to sing higher notes than lower notes.

10. IT DOES NOT MEAN
PUTTING PRESSURE
ON YOUR VOCAL CORDS
Avoid straining to reach higher notes

11. Proper breathing requires
resistance of airflow
using your diaphragm.

12. Step # 3

13. Breathing Exercises For
Hitting High Notes

14. > Keep everything expanded when
exhaling with the exception your abs,
which you use to control the rate of
exhalation.

15. > Focus on your upper resonance, better known as your “head voice”.
Imagine that the tone is vertical rather than horizontal, and visualize
the sound you are creating, coming from your forehead and the top
of your head.
To illustrate: it’s the same as riding in an elevator, as you go up, your
breath is like the mechanism that makes the elevator ascend.
Feeling the vibration in your sinuses and the roof of your mouth
(soft palate) is very important.

16. > Shape your mouth so that it is horizontally narrow
but vertically tall inside.
Some like to think of it as someone trying to
swallow something unpleasant while opening
your throat just enough to allow whatever it is
to go down without touching the sides.
Yawn while dropping your jaw.

17. > Start with yawn-slides or the vocal sirens. The yawn-slide is fairly simple.
Start by inhaling and opening your mouth like you are trying to yawn.
When you go to exhale, make a “hoo” or “hee” sound. Beginning with the top of your range,
then slide rapidly to the bottom of your range. Each time you try, continue to progress one a
bit higher.
Vocal sirens are similar to the above, with the exception of starting at the bottom of your
range and moving up. It’s much easier to do it as a hum at first.
Gradually your breath support will become stronger, as you do the siren up and down several
times on one breathe.

18. > Try scale climbing by rapidly ascend and descend a five-
tone scale. Begin in the middle of your range, using either a
buzzing (also known as a lip roll or bubble lips) or a vowel
sound, like “oo” or “ah”.
Do you remember the famous song from The Sound of Music,
Do-Re-MI?
Well, we use a similar pattern as that, only we go from: do-re-
mi-fa-so-fa-mi-re-do.
Basically you start the second pattern a half-step above the first
and continue in the same fashion. It’s important to have good
breath support.
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19. > Sing staccato, meaning that you sing shorter and lighter (less weight), the notes you wish
to sing higher. Keep your neck completely still in order for your larynx to remain steady.
It’s important to discover all the little muscles involved in creating these types of sounds.
Remember to use less pressure when hitting those high notes, thus avoiding strain.
Clarity is key, so start with a longer note, progressively singing notes that become shorter
in order to hold that clarity.
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20. Step # 4

21. Lose Vocal Weight

22. defined as “too much thicker vocal fold mass used too high in pitch often
involving taking one register higher than it is designed to function in pitch.
Vocal Weight is..
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23. In other words..
You have two main registers or areas where you create your sound known as
your Head Voice & Chest Voice
Head Voice is naturally where the lighter part of parts of
your voice is created. The higher notes and thinner tones.
This is where we use the thinner, more vibratory control
over our vocal cords.
Chest Voice is the area where the heavier parts of your
voice are made. The lower notes and thicker tones.
We will use the thicker parts and less vibratory control
over our vocal cords.
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24. The Point is..

25. Focus on using your Head Voice
When Singing Higher Notes

26. Step # 5