The Joys Of Singing Higher

Although you’ve worked hard and expanded your range to sing higher notes, you may find that you can’t sustain them. Or if you’re singing a piece that has a lot of high notes (as opposed to simply hitting one and coming back down), your voice may get very fatigued.

For both scenarios, tessitura is the problem and not just range. Tessitura is your comfortable range, in which you can sing the notes consistently, on-pitch, and without strain. It is also known as the average pitch range of a song or choral part.

Many mezzo-sopranos, for example, can sing an occasional high C at the extreme of their range. But their tessitura is probably an octave to half an octave below that: perhaps from the A above middle C to the second A above middle C. They will experience vocal strain and fatigue if they try to sing a piece in which the tessitura is from high “G” to high “C”.

The key is knowing where your own tessitura is, so you can choose songs within that range. You may be able to sing higher than your natural tessitura, but you run the risk of straining your voice.

So, is it possible to raise your tessitura? Again, Yes, but it takes work. The key is breath support, combined with upper resonance. Vocal strain is what you’ll get if you try to sing higher notes from your throat without adequate breath support. Over an extended period of time, you could cause lasting damage.

It takes more breath energy to sing higher notes than lower ones. You need to use all of your breath muscles–diaphragm, abdominal, spinals, and intercostals–and fully expand your midsection with each inhalation. As you exhale, keep everything expanded except your abdominal, which will control the rate of breath flow.

Focus on your “head voice” or upper resonance once you are breathing properly. Think of the tone as being vertical rather than horizontal, and imagine the sound coming from your forehead and the top of your head. You can compare to like riding an elevator, with your breath as the mechanism that makes the elevator ascend.

You should feel the vibration in your sinuses and the roof of your mouth (soft palate). Your mouth should be horizontally narrow but vertically tall inside. One voice teacher tells her students to imagine trying to swallow something unpleasant, opening the throat enough so that whatever it is won’t touch the sides.

Don’t try to force anything out from your tone, keep it light. Start with the yawn-slide or the vocal siren. For the yawn-slide, inhale and open your mouth as if to yawn, then exhale on “hoo” or “hee”, starting at the top of your range and sliding rapidly all the way to the bottom. Try to start each successive one a bit higher.

The vocal siren is similar, except that it starts at the bottom of your range and goes up. Do it on a hum. As your breath support gets stronger, do the siren up and down several times on the same breath.

Another good exercise is the rapidly ascending and descending five-tone scale. Start in the middle of your range and use either the buzz (also called lip roll or bubble lips) or a vowel sound, such as “oo” or “ah”. The pattern is do-re-mi-fa-so-fa-mi-re-do. Start the second pattern a half-step above the first and continue in that manner. Be sure to use good breath support.

Don’t worry too much, you can raise your tessitura and sing higher notes more comfortably and easily with a little time and effort. Just be patient, persistent, and realistic.

There are tons more info and tips on how to Sing Higher , increase vocal range, hit high notes and more in http://www.singingbasics.com/! Check it out Now!