September 2022 by Rachel Gerrard

"Why is it that I can sing my high notes perfectly well in my vocal training exercises, but when I try to sing high notes in my songs, it feels much harder?"

I am going to let you into a little secret in this blogpost. Vocal technique training and technique in songs are actually two different things.

I'm referring to those songs you sing perfectly well until you come to that hairy section where you have to leap up to a note that feels harder than the rest of the song. Those changes are why singers struggle with high notes in songs, but not necessarily in their training. Suddenly you're yelling, your voice is straining or breaking, or your tone changes and your sound becomes gnarly or just.....not as good. Maybe it's just one word in the line that doesn't seem to 'sit' as nicely as the rest of it.

Relate? Why don't we identify what the problem is and what to actually do:

Whether you have trained formally, trained by yourself or are untrained but happen to sing a lot: there are 'hacks' you can employ RIGHT NOW which will transform your high notes from difficult or unstable to easy and spicy.

It's NOT All About Training

.....although It Is Important to Train the singing Voice too

As a professional singer, songwriter and voice nerd, I regularly record my own voice and analyse each and every detail, including why some parts sound great and others don't. I'm also an experienced vocal coach, but formal training wasn't where I picked up what I like to call my 'working hacks'.

Firstly, I promise I'm not going to send you away to practice exercises. As a working singer, I understand there's a difference between long-term training vs. problem solving which needs to be done in the context of the actual song, and on the fly.

Instead, identify which of these three things is the source of your woes, and you'll be able to make the relevant changes today:

Register

Chest voice, head voice, mixed voice, falsetto, breaking, cracking, going soft, shouting...

Pocket

Placement, tone, squeezing, character, feeling, moving the sound...

Vowel

Sound, word, shape, lyrics, widening, narrowing, modifying...

All three of these things are really one and the same, and I encourage you to go with whatever works, and mix and match:

Register

Simply put, which PART of the voice are you in? You may need to make a switch from a heavier voice to a lighter one, and then back again. There are options on how to do this, including bridging, which requires skilfully making adjustments so that the voice remains sounding 'as one'; wilfully 'popping over' into an audibly lighter tone, or 'pulling chest' which basically means a controlled yell when it's done deliberately.

Whichever sounds better is the right answer. Let's have a look at some examples. The following videos are all clipped, so you can click on them and hear the examples without hearing the whole video:

Bridging

Sara Bareilles, 'Chandelier'.You'll hear her chest voice release into strong head voice on the word 'fly'. There is a slight tonal shift, a vibrato that occurs because of the release, but no loss of the chest voice quality. This release into a chesty-sounding head voice is what a lot of vocal training aims for, but had she stayed in this 'released' co-ordination she would have lost the intensity on the notes immediately after this one, and it may have sounded too 'correct' for the genre and vibe. A well placed 'correct' note can sound glorious in the context of being surrounded by others which vary in compression level and execution.

Flipping Over

Adele, 'Hello'. You'll hear a clear flip from a solid sounding 'chest voice', to a loose, hooty 'head voice'. The other options here would be to apply more intensity resulting in belted notes, or to balance the air with more compression ('mixed voice' or strong head voice) but it wasn't the sound she deemed appropriate. To achieve this flip from chest to hooty head voice, you have to totally 'let go' of the voice, then grab a hold of it again on the next note, which can be tricky.

Pulling Chest

Radiohead, 'Creep'. In this clip, you'll hear Thom Yorke move from a very light head voice into a full chest voice, which is necessarily yelled because of the pitch being out of the natural chest voice range. Consequently, it's loud, powerful and his mouth is large. A pulled up chest voice note gives a what I like to call 'football chant' quality, and can sound great as a climactic part of a song.

Pocket

Pocket can also be thought of as 'placement'. You may need to make an adjustment in regards to where you FEEL the voice in the body. This might require moving the voice forward, backward, up, down or flattening, lengthening, tightening the space in the throat or mouth. This can be done by 'directing' the voice into different spaces, or by focussing on a change of - or keeping of - the balance of frequencies (resonance), for example holding a sensation of twanginess rather than letting it go, or adding more twang as you hit a higher note. 'Pocket' can also be perceived by either staying in or switching 'characters' or tone.

Consistent Resonance and Character

Avril Lavigne, 'Complicated'. On the lyric 'and you fall.....' you'll hear large vocal leaps, and very little change between the tone of the lower note and the higher one. In order to achieve this without breaking off into a headier or lighter sound, she's added a little more 'aggression' or squeeze to the higher note, but the result is that it blends in and sounds tonally the same as the lower words.

Changing the Resonance and Character

Prince, 'Kiss'. In this clip, he starts off in the 'hooty head voice'. It's also what we know as falsetto, but its the hollow, low larynx one, not the brighter, BeeGees-sounding one. He then switches pockets by gripping his voice hard and getting rid of all hootiness and looseness, giving a distorted, fuzzy sound. He's arguably still in a falsetto-type co-ordination but the tonal shift is obvious.

Changing the Resonance

Chris Cornell, 'Sun Shower'. The lyric 'it's alright' is what I would call his 'normal' chest voice, then he ascends to the higher notes, not simply by squeezing more, but by filtering frequencies higher into his face: note the tonal shift. It becomes more 'pharyngaelly' - ie, it takes on more of that 'rock star', Axl Rose-esque, waily tone, but with release and balance with the tone he left off on. This involves a change in position of the tongue, larynx, soft palate, and a change in the perception of the vowel and acoustical space.

Vowel

This concept is arguably the easier one to get to grips with. Words, particularly vowels, can get in the way of keeping a line smooth, particularly when coupled with a change to a higher pitch. We sometimes sing a suddenly odd sounding vowel unnessecarily, or we attempt to keep a vowel 'more literal' than it should be.

You can try focussing on keeping a vowel literal, and also changing the vowel, or keeping a vowel shape throughout a whole line. Changing vowels can include narrowing, widening and modifying (choosing a new, similar sounding vowel in place of a difficult one).

Widening

Loren Allred, 'Never Enough'. The infamous, "For me, for me, for MEHHH!" This one speaks for itself. It's a very obvious example, but changing a hootier vowel such as 'ee' or 'ooh' to a clearer one can get your note to pack a punch rather than fall away, and can be done a lot more subtly than this if you are finding that parts of lines are sounding 'muddy', muffled or weak.

Narrowing

Bruno Mars, 'Leave the Door Open'. You'll hear a very subtle vowel modification on the word 'say': Rather than a very definite 'AY', which would have required a little more force (probably resulting in a slightly harder or more aggressive sound), he beautifully narrows the vowel - or rather, colours it with a hint of 'EE', which blends it seamlessly with the rest of the line. This is a good technique to try if you are finding yourself straining or yelling.

Same Vowel Throughout the Line

Courtney Love (Hole), 'Violet'. Again, a nice, wide 'EH' vowel for intensity, but note how she keeps the shape going throughout the line. The words almost bleed into each other, but can still easily be deciphered. Holding a vowel shape even when words change will add a certain colour to the sound, and also minimise interruptions to the flow, making it easier to keep the compression and tone where you want it.

Long-Term Training AND Creative Solutions

Long-term training can be very important to building the robustness of the voice, and proper bridging technique can be the difference between a good voice a great voice, and is also a very healthy and useful thing to know how to do, keeps the voice aligned and under your control, etc.

However, our favourite artists use a myriad of interesting techniques to navigate phrases and high notes - precisely because they are NOT solely focussed on 'correct' technique. I've identified and used a large number of these techniques, and I see time and time again my clients able to more easily sing higher notes, as well as spice up their singing no end when they apply a few of them.

Check out my FREE bonus video for demonstrations of how to apply these techniques, as well as some new ones:

Upcoming Mini Course: SING BETTER NOW!

You can learn exactly how to identify the subtler problems in your singing and how to apply techniques to instantly improve things in the Mini Course I am currently writing and shooting. To be notified when it is ready to purchase, to join my mailing list, to ask a question or to receive one on one coaching, click here:

Until then, click below for a FREE taster. I'll give you some bonus tips that are not in this article, and some quick explanations and demonstrations of how to apply what you've read about here: