Today I want to talk about the three notes that every singer struggles with.
A few caveats:
- Individual singers will typically only struggle with ONE of these at a time – Because if they are struggling with the first of these, they won’t be doing subsequent ones any justice at all.
- These notes are the lynchpin root causes of vocal problems – Once I state the notes, singers reading this will say “ah well, I am personally fine with that one, it’s the note one above/below that I find hard“. That may well be their interpretation of what they think they are noticing, but these are merely symptoms of the underlying issue. The root causes of people’s perceived vocal limitations are these specific notes.
The Notes
The notes are: E4 – A4 – E5.
These are grouped for men and woman as:
- For men: E4 and A4
- For women: A4 and E5
What are these notes?
The way the voice works, is that to sing low notes the vocal folds contract and thicken. To sing high notes they stretch and thin. The sound emitted by the vocal folds is shaped by the vocal tract, which is the length of your throat above your larynx (Adam’s apple).
These two components acoustically interact with each other to generate a phenomenon we call ‘vocal bridges’ or passagi/passagio. To sing with any meaningful range, we need to be able to cross these bridges – at least the first bridge, and ideally the second also.
The Bridges
For men the first bridge is E4-F#4; the second is A4-B4.
For women the first bridge is A4-B4; the second is E5-F#5.
You’ll note that the male second bridge maps exactly onto the female first bridge.
The bridge exists over several notes, rather than just one note. It’s a transition zone from one register of the voice to the next. Hence, the three key notes are E4, A4 and E5.
However, the challenge I’m focusing on today is the difficulty in ENTERING each bridge cleanly. Landing the E4 to enter the first bridge for men/the A4 for women, is CRITICAL.
So many tend to either struggle to land that note at all, or they are technically hitting the note, but they are hitting it so hard they’ve not actually ENTERED the bridge. When excess force or imprecision exists in the vowels, they are just slamming their voice hard enough to force the vocal folds to hit the right pitch… but this does not mean they’ve made the acoustic transition INTO the bridge properly.
If the singer is not entering the first bridge cleanly, they cannot exit it cleanly to hit higher notes with ease and power. Think of it like clipping the first hurdle in a hurdle race. If you can’t even clear the first one cleanly, you’re not going anywhere well.
What about the second bridge?
The first bridge only provides the transition from chest to the first register within head voice. The second bridge is the next transition zone above that. Many more skilled singers (e.g. Bono of U2), actually have reasonably good first bridges, but they struggle at their second. This is why so often singers will lower songs when performing to put top notes on an Ab4, to avoid the A4 – that’s the second bridge revealing itself.
The same is true for women dealing with their first and second bridges. Often younger women have more facility at their first bridge than younger men, so they ‘vault over it’ and enjoy the range between the first and second bridge. But over time the deepening and thickening of their voice causes them to struggle with a clean entry/exit to the first bridge, so they can feel like they’ve lost a load of range in later life – often by their mid 30s.
Proper vocal training resolves this
These are only the reasons why people struggle with these notes, and correspondingly find higher notes than those hard to consistently sing.
Proper vocal training is all about co-ordinating the vocal folds and vocal tract, to co-ordinate the voice to smoothly cross those bridges, such that they become invisible to the singer and the listenable. This is all entirely solveable, to unlock ever increasing range, with greater ease and wonderful tone. it just takes time and concerted effort. Which is why most singers never reach it. It seems far ‘easier’ just to keep jamming your voice and forcing your way to that note that is 50/50 whether it comes out.
But now you’re at least equipped with knowing WHY you find specific notes difficult in your voice. It may feel like you get stuck at a note above or below the ones I’ve mentioned, but I can assure you that the mechanical and acoustic reason you find any part of your voice tricky, is because of these bridging notes.
If this echoes with your experience in your voice, and you feel you’re clipping any of these notes, you can book in via the work with me button below.