How To Sing High Notes

how to hit high notes or how to sing high notes this has to be one of the most misunderstood elusive concepts in all of singing and let me explain this first of all the proof is in the singing right i can sing high notes now someone else that comes on another vocal coach they they tell you here's how you sing high notes and yet they never really do it themselves they don't show themselves singing any high notes in a song and they display no students doing it if they can't do it they can't teach you

how to do it and i don't know why people would even go to someone that can't physically demonstrate to them this concept or any concept for singing that they want to learn if the coach themselves cannot replicate it let me explain this whole concept to you so you understand now i want to first off start by saying i studied bel canto which is opera most all of my life and i've sung many arias and i've done a lot of things in belcanto that i use applagio bel canto as the tenant or the basic foundation of

what it is that i teach now i have a singing course it's called how to sing better than anyone else you can find it right here at kentampleanvocalacademy.com where i also have a free singing form over there of over 25 000 singers all getting really good at this stuff there's no excuse for you not to bip on over there and start getting good at it too okay and the internet is filled with misinformation bad information crazy information but the proof is in the singing look and see if that vocal coach sings and sings well a

style that you want to sound like and if they display singing it's the only way you'll know that that information is legit and correct now how to hit these high notes so why i say this is the most understood misunderstood and elusive thing in in most all of vocal technique is i was told that's why i started out with talking about belcanto i was told that my highest note as a baritone which is what i am is this note right here hello that note right there was my highest note so i relegated myself to that

for years thinking that's all i get i get that no on it really good yeah on a good note i get the g sharp but the f sharp four was my highest note and i was told by many bel canto coaches don't go beyond that you're going to hurt yourself well i started researching this a lot believe it or not one of the major inspirations for this was early on i started studying about the castrati and you guys may or may not you won't be needing this anymore what they did to those poor boys in

the 17 1800s they supposedly stopped in the 1900s um and they would um you know give them the snip because their hormones wouldn't change and their voices wouldn't drop the octave and all this stuff and so they for the most part sang in the alto and soprano ranges but i thought well that's kind of weird because you should be able to maintain that over time but then i was told that was crazy and so i left it at that until i really started beating this stuff up so here i am relegated to this note and

i was in this band at the time where all of the stuff was like steve perry mickey thomas you know boston all these really high singers and i wasn't given the gig because i couldn't sing that high so i set on a mission and on a course and over the last 35 years i've i've definitely come to conclusions about that mission that you absolutely can now let me give you a quick demonstration right that's a quick three octaves which i'm not even working at that much to get but so i found out that that was

absolutely false i could sing in these different ranges and there's a lot of misunderstanding about how to get to a high note now one of the major things you've heard me say this before but it's worth repeating is you go to a karaoke bar and someone's singing you know celine dion's the power of love and that and they blow chunks on that note and i've said this a few times guys hang in there i'm gonna repeat it one more time because i'm grandpa and it's my right but but they don't do you know i'm your

lady you are my man whenever you reach for me i'll do all that i can we're heading for something right that head is the same thing as power of love it's the same note now they rarely eat it or blow chunks on were ready for something but they almost always eat it or blow chunks on the last note of power of love this is true for the national anthem too you know uh rockets red glare you know land of the free it's the same note but they rarely blow it on rockets red glare they almost

always blow it on you know land of the free okay so there's a psychological aspect to this but there's also a physiological aspect to this too let me explain the first thing is is if we over sing the bottom or sing the low notes the bottom too loudly too heavy it locks down your vocal folds and it locks down the larynx i should say and it inhibits your ability to have the freedom to relax to go to get the note now i've said this before i'm going to say it again it wasn't until i gave

myself permission to hit the note that i was able to hit the note i want to give you one quick example i've given this example before but it's worth giving it this example again if you've noticed in all of athletics records keep getting broken over and over again right i mean all of a sudden hussein bolt is the fastest guy in the world and then someone beats his record but when hussein bull came out no one ever thought anyone could possibly beat his record this is true with tiger woods in golf this is true in

pretty much any discipline like that so i was coaching this i think it was eight i forget it was an eight and nine-year-old soccer kids one is my son it was an ayso gold team we're doing tryouts and there was a standard size football um goal goal post so the soccer box is underneath it and the goal posts are above it and then you got this the standard side sucker box they're about the same size and so these kids were so cute and they're trying to like kick the ball into the field goal but none

of them can do it really none of them including my son which was kind of strange and so i walk over and i put my foot under the ball and i chip it and i just slam it right through these goal pose and they're like whoa well guess what of the 21 or 22 kids that were there every single one of them was able to do it except one after they saw me do it after they gave themselves permission to be able to see themselves to do it i'm not trying to get all metaphysical and

weird on you guys trust me i'm just talking about the psychology of singing it's really important because you want to write how to hit the high note well the other thing is too so i'm not going to be terrified of the high note why because i've learned and again my singing course kentamplinvocalacademy.com i walk you through this extensively how to do this i've learned that it's about correct support a relaxation response in the chest so i'm not tightening up the chest the neck i'm not tightening up the neck and the throat and my i'm not

like getting all bound up to give it all like i'm not looking up either because that cuts off the trachea and your wind supplies and people you look up and that's how you get these notes no absolutely not i give myself permission to get the note okay now you're probably saying okay ken i've heard you've talked a lot how do i actually do this glad you asked let's do this together i want to do some sliders or sirens as they're called now whatever the flavor of them they're always changing names on things i want to

start with guys and girls and i want you to do something that you probably hadn't thought of before we're going to just do some simple sliders on an ah vowel so we're going to start here and we're going to do them in octaves [Laughter] and i want you to go ahead and roll into falsetto don't feel like you're la don't pull chest into the sound just roll into falsetto ladies you do this up yoga so you do this up the octave with me with us okay here we go [Music] both guys and gals you should

still be in chest in your call register [Music] [Music] now everybody should start feeling a little tension mounting in the throat if you're just really in chest voice like okay i could start to feel like i'm i'm approaching maybe not the top of my range but i'm getting somewhere in that vicinity okay [Music] [Music] you're probably right now saying okay i think that's probably the top of my range maybe i get a couple more notes in my case [Music] right i can get to that f sharp like i was told that's all i got okay

now stop stop everything don't sing the bottom so heavy even if you have a break you can hear the register break i want you to roll into falsetto for a minute hang in there and say well ken that's not really i want a belt and get a belted chest sound i know i'm gonna get to that hold on [Music] i want you to roll into head voice with me [Music] [Applause] [Music] now for you altos out there you're probably kind of at the top of your range but i'll get back to you in a second

sopranos you stay with us up the octave [Music] [Music] [Music] i'm not killing you with sound i'm being very judicious and very subtle on how much volume i'm using so i can get through my passaggio break without hearing the brain okay now even if you hear the break that's okay we're going to talk about the passagio we're going to get to that a little bit on another video but i'm going to go through this now stay with me this is the tenor high c and for you ladies at the octave it's the soprano high c

at the c6 this is c5 for guys [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay now that for guys it's an e5 ladies that's an e6 okay now if you noticed i went all the way up here without all muscling through and pulling my chest voice through this sound and getting all this crazy and just you know and killing you with sound okay because we start here this is where we start we start by giving ourselves permission to feel what it's supposed to feel like when i do hit that high note how i'm supposed to hit that high

note without strain without stress even yeah even if i'm gonna lean into a sound and hit it really hard and sing a higher note that note itself yeah with no distortion so that's both right um that note should feel open relaxed and free in the throat and it should pinched and squeezed to go up and grab the note now what happens this is what happens the body starts to have this cascading effect of tension it kind of starts in the legs and it goes in the stomach and you're thinking oh my gosh here comes the

note here comes the note oh no am i going to get to the note and we blow chunks and we don't get to the note but what if i told you i feel like one of those memes on facebook what if i told you um what if i told you though it's not about the high note at all it's about strength in the abdomen the engine that drives your car to sustain the note the relaxation response in the chest the neck and the throat and correct vowel placement then if you go hey yeah you know

or anything in between whatever it is right what if i told you that getting to that note was about kind of in your mind seeing the note knowing what vowel it's supposed to be and we've talked about vowel mods we've talked about vocal track shaping i've given you all these videos and i cover all of this thoroughly in my singing course but that that note was about oh that's what the vowel is supposed to sound like this is the space i'm supposed to have in my throat and i just give myself permission to hit that

note now yes there's a training process yes i've got to build stamina up to that note yes i've got to remember not to over sing the bottom yes i've got to remember not to pull too much chest through the passagio and the sound but here's what we do first we strengthen the foundation of our voice which is our chest voice to betress or build a foundation to hold up the walls that we want to put up the different vowels the notes etc as we ascend and descend scales and passages and songs etc but that this

building of the chest voice starts first okay we start building the chest voice first don't worry about your high notes yet let's build a foundation strong foundation then we build our head voice big robust powerful head voice to match the tonal qualities of our chess voice so they're going to be ah [Applause] write the same sound and the only thing at that point that's left is negotiating the passagio the register break and getting through that passagio to give us one long powerful note the final thing then is is taking that passagio and making it nice

and strong so we can sing percentages of our chess voice and our head voice what is called mixed voice or mixing that sound so we can pull chest through that sound a little bit then hand it off the head we could bring in head voice a little earlier if we're looking for more of an r b sound we're not looking to shout at people sing too loudly and we don't want to sing too loudly we cover this in our vowel modifications video we want to pair the sound down and make it smaller so we're not

over singing or singing too loudly and just shouting at people we want it to be beautiful anyway gang this is how you hit high notes definitely stick around and check out my next video [Music] my day