Why Can’t I Sing High Notes?

OK, Why Can’t I Sing High Notes?

This is a question I get asked a lot. And by a lot, I mean A LOT!

Why? Because high notes are everywhere, they are used in every song, and in some genres or with some artists they are what ‘make’ the song come alive. The result? A lot of people want to know “Why can’t I sing high notes?”

We all want to sing high notes, and we all want to sing high notes easily…

Lets face it, we all want to do it. I can’t name a single singer I’ve worked with who doesn’t want some high notes. I’ve had so many emails about this I wanted to talk a little about what goes into getting high notes with ease, and all without strain.

Five Major Factors

Below are five major factors or ‘steps’ that we need to take towards developing great high notes, and to make them easy. Let’s go through them below.

First factor: Understand why we want high notes? – There are various reasons we want to sing high, because we hear them everywhere, so many of our favourite artists use them. From classical singers like Pavarotti, to contemporary singers like Bruno Mars, from classic rock singers like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin through to modern rock singers like Brandon Flowers.

There are various reasons we want to sing high notes, but there is a big physiological component to why our ear is drawn to people singing high. When you understand the how and the why behind singing high, and you grasp how to use this in your own performances, you will really unlock the emotive power of your voice in song. I can’t go into this into detail now (waaaay too much info) but do keep reading.

Second factor: Build your voice as an instrument itself – OK, the voice is genuinely an instrument like any other, and to get the high notes, we need to make sure it is working properly. I’ve talked before about how the vocal cords of the vocal apparatus are the one thing that is responsible for generating sound, and that to sing high notes they need to make the right adjustments to hit the high notes. You need to stretch your vocal cords and thin them out to sing those higher notes – sadly you can’t voluntarily control those muscles, you need the right exercises to show you how to do it.

With the right exercises, we can introduce your voice to what it feels like to make those adjustments without strain, it just takes the right prescribed exercises to achieve.

Third Factor: Identify the two parts of your voice – There are two perceived ‘parts’ to your voice – these are chest voice and head voice. What is challenging about these two parts of the voice (other than actually accessing them in the first place!) is that we need to be able to access both parts of our voice to a reasonable extent before we can start negotiating and establishing range in our voice. The challenge is that we cannot approach these in isolation – they MUST work together. This presents a key issue in that these two parts of our voice often feel so alien to one another, that the singer struggles to even reconcile that these could be used to work together…. which leads us to…

Factor Four: Blend the two parts of your voice to get a ‘mix’ – BLENDING the two parts of our voice to create what we call a ‘mix’ is THE key to singing high notes with ease. Not only that, but to be able to move between different parts of our voice without tripping into one part or the next. The greatest singers in the world all sing using their ‘mix’, which is this critical blend of chest and head voice. The challenge is HOW do we do this? It differs for each voice, and though we can’t go into it all here, there are easy ways we can do this in your voice if you’ve not already experienced it.

Factor Five: Build power in your mix – Ahhh, the real kicker. Accessing those high notes often isn’t really all we want… for many of us, we want to hit those high notes with power and ease – without that, we feel like it’s all been a bit of a waste. In reality, we need to use slightly more demanding tools on the voice to build strength, but this is the key to developing a great mix. It takes time to do this part, but this is the final step.

Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben

Yesterday I had a conversation with a foreign student who is currently working with me on their voice, who did not know who Pavarotti was. While this seems unthinkable to many of us here in Britain, I can completely understand how those growing up overseas may well never have heard this incredible voice.

Pavarotti was a monster vocalist, not just of his generation, but in the over-arching story of great singers of the ages. He had an incredible voice, one with great agility and range, but also power and tenderness to boot. What is important to remember is that he also had to put a lot of work into his voice… it just goes to show how even gifted singers need to work on their voice. Good can become great in this way!

Check out this beautiful piece, Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben…

Luciano Pavarotti Caro Mio Ben

Elton John Philadelphia Freedom

Elton John Philadelphia Freedom
In one of my practice sessions to further my piano playing, an obvious pitstop was to look at Elton John’s amazing piano work.

I grew up listening to a lot of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Elton John. It’s amazing listening to this material now how I can hear so much of what I love to do mirrored in both of those artists’ back-catalogs.

Elton’s Songwriting
I remember watching a short video dissecting Elton John’s piano playing, and the comment someone made was that Elton always tries to write ‘hymns’. And he didn’t mean religious songs, it was more a reference to the incredibly simple chord progressions that he’d then tweak very subtly to turn them into an anthemic piece. Good hymns tend to do the same thing – they start out functionally very simple, then the odd harmony note starts to turn it on it’s head… Elton is a master of doing this.

Take this song, Philadelphia Freedom.

You may not hear it, but there’s two key changes back and forth every time they move from verse to chorus… and yet it’s so musical! He’s also got a load of smaller modulations/side-stepping to throw in chords that don’t belong in either of the two keys he moves between. I won’t bore you with the details, but he writes very differently to most artists… then or now!

And that’s all at the same time as having a pretty catchy melody. Love it.

Enjoy it! See if you can spot the subtle key changes!

Why Does My Singing Voice Sound Bad?

While I am never explicitly asked ‘why does my singing voice sound bad?‘, as a coach and a singer, I KNOW that this is the often unspoken question that many people ask.

Usually, what I get is students telling me what they’d like to improve about their voice (a far more constructive way to go!). From there, the logical question that gets asked either verbally or internally once they start to experience those desired changes is no longer ‘why does my singing voice sound bad?‘, but ‘how long will this take?‘.

And there is no hard and fast and answer to this. The reality is that every singer and every voice is different. What will work and what is appropriate for one singer, may not be the most effective or helpful for another… and vice versa! And it’s this that I wanted to talk about today.

Instruments Vary

I was chatting with another high level voice coach about this in a lesson I had recently, and we were talking about how certain physiological attributes (not necessarily observable from outside the body) seem to result in certain advantages and disadvantages for certain singers. As an example, this coach pointed out that there is a certain volume of space within the voice as an instrument that is referred to as the epilarynx (as I understood it, between the glottis and epiglottis) that is quite important…

NOTE: even if you’re not scientifically minded, go with me on this, trust me – the story will make sense!

When it comes to singing, the epilarynx is a fairly big factor in how voices behave and function well. It is believed that the narrower/tighter this volume becomes in a singer, the better the vocal cords tend to behave in the process of creating a powerful and connected vocal sound. As a further example, at a vocal science meet where a number of vocal coaches had their own voices scoped (i.e. a camera put down their throat to observe vocal behaviour), one of the coaches was found to have an almost UNBELIEVABLY narrow epilarynx… it was said to be so tight in it’s dimensions that they struggled to actually see the vocal cords beyond… and this coach has an incredibly powerful and well connected voice.

What the point of this story is, is to point out that whilst EVERYONE can learn to sing, some are – from at least a physics and biology perspective – gifted with an instrument that is better than others for achieving power and connection throughout their voice, right from birth. Their own biology means that they are predisposed towards having a voice what WANTS to connect itself up, that WANTS to be powerful. The physics accorded by their own biology makes it so. Now while there are many other factors at play, and training can play a role in a singer’s voice and development, we can’t ignore this as a starting point.

By extension, there must also be singers for whom their own biology makes it harder to sing with ease, connection and power from the outset, as every degree to which they vary from the functional ideal will affect their own initial ability.

But here’s the good news!

The Functional Ideal is LEARNABLE

And it’s this that we seek to address in lessons. In every students’ first lesson, we identify the tendencies of the singers (i.e. in what way do they deviate from the functional ideal, and to what degree), and then we apply appropriately designed vocalises (i.e. voice exercises prescribed based on their tendency and the degree of that tendency) in order to PHYSICALLY change the behaviour of their instrument from the ‘base’ state.

Like anyone going to the gym, despite the different body shapes we all have, we can all improve our bodies and physiologies through correctly applied exercises and training. Sometimes it takes longer depending on the starting point and the propensity for that person to take on new muscle memory, but it’s about trusting the process. However many degrees someone’s voice varies from the ideal, and however co-operative their body is about taking on this new muscle memory, these are all factors that affect the speed and degree of progress in developing a voice.

As such, regardless of someone’s vocal starting point, proper technique and appropriately applied vocalises can yield HUGE gains in their voice… it’s very much about trusting the diagnosis of the vocal tendency, and the learning process that stems therefrom.

And here is the biggest catch of all…

We don’t measure someone’s singing ability with numbers.

We don’t measure it by a standardised metric of ‘power’ vs ‘connectedness’. Sure, those things are helpful, important, and worth pursuing, but they do not define whether someone’s voice is “listenable”. All the former things are quantitative, but when it comes to music, we are into QUALITATIVE metrics, i.e. did we enjoy that piece of music? do we like what they do with their voice?

The point is this: as singers, we are into singing in order to sing songs we like better. We’re not in it for vocal olympics, vocal weightlifting, or vocal shred-competitions (though obviously that can be an enjoyable ability to show sometimes, and certainly a proud moment to enjoy as we progress)… but really, as singers we are in it in order to move people with what we do with our voices… and that’s not a game based on numbers or quantitative metrics.

Don’t be put off by what you don’t yet have… instead, be motivated by what you can achieve with work, and above all trust the learning process.

Top 5 Songs from this Week

This week I felt like giving all of you a bit an insight into songs that are brought into the studio for lessons. I’ve featured 5 of my favourites, as well as bit of discussion about each and why I think they are fab songs.

Feels Like Home – Bonnie Raitt or Chantal Krevaziuk

I actually first heard the Bonnie Raitt version of this song as a kid, as it was one of my favourite songs off a movie soundtrack from yeeeears ago. But turns out there is a slightly more popular version by Chantal Krevaziuk that many like – so I’ve featured both here for your enjoyment!


Chantal Krevaziuk


Bonnie Raitt

Rolling In The Deep – Adele

A classic for the noughties, this is a really good one for taxing singers around their first bridge, and is also great for establishing good rhythm given the slightly offbeat nature of the track.

Up – Olly Murs & Demi Lovato

This song straddles the line between pop and dance in it’s sound. While not necessarily taxing on either male or female voices in its original key, it’s quite nice to use with lighter male voices and get them to sing both parts in an appropriate key.

Fields of Gold – Eva Cassidy & Sting

Again, another classic, this time from the folk genre. I really like both versions – Sting, and Eva Cassidy – but Sting’s version just edges out a win over Eva Cassidy’s version for me.


Eva Cassidy


Sting

As Time Goes By – Shirley Bassey

Ahh, a song from a forgotten era… lovely vocals and so beautifully delivered. I also love the harmonically rich chord progression and modulation throughout. As an aside, I remember reading an article about how harmonic content of songs these days has been drastically reduced and simplified since the 60s, and this song is a great example of harmonic richness that we are now missing.

As much as I enjoy the contemporary sound we have from many singers and artists today, I do miss this kind of music.