How to sing high notes

Note: Before you read this article you need to be familiar with breath control.

How to sing high notes with vowel modification

The easiest way to learn how to sing high notes is by modifying vowels.

If it feels painful to sing a phrase or song you should start out by singing it in a deeper pitch. No pains, all gains! The wonder of singing!

Vowel modification for males (and women in high chest voice)

When you learn how to sing high notes in chest voice it is common to constrict the throat when singing high notes on "narrow" vowels like I (as in sin), ee (as in seen), oo (as in threw), etc.

Therefore we need to modify the wovels a little.

How to sing high notes on the vowel oo

When you sing oo (as in threw) on a high note, replace the oo-sound with an A as in the word bad.

Practice this for a while to get used to the feeling and after a while you can change the shape of your lips to make the oo-sound.

Keep the exact same mouth-position to do this. It will probably not work at first, so take your time! Oo is a difficult vowel to sing in the high part of the voice.

The vowels I and ee (as in sin and seen)

The easiest way to sing these vowels in the high part of the voice is simply to replace them with e (as in bet and yeah).

...But that won't sound right!

So you should try to hold the high note on the vowel E and gradually move towards I/ee.

And to make this simpler, you can press the tip of your tongue gently against your lower teeth.

This enables you to lower your jaw a bit more, and get rid of that awful tension that are the cause of the problems with "narrow" vowels on high notes.

So. If you don't go straight for the E-solution, you need to practice not using to much or too little E-sound.

And remember; your not building a muscle, you're training your subconscious mind. If it hurts, you are not doing things right! Period.

You should practice replacing the I's and ee's with a mix between I/ee and E, and after you have practiced that for a while you will probably be able to make it sound as if you sing I/ee exclusively.

..If you still have trouble with some vowels, feel free to send me an e-mail, and I'll help you figure things out.

Well, let's move on the the femme fatales!

High singing for women (or males in falsetto)

It's much simpler to explain how to sing high notes with vowel modification for women than it is for men.

..All vowels should be directed more towards O(woman), oo(threw) or ee/I (seat/sit).

The vowels will need more of that "sharp" sound of oo/ee/I to keep them from splatting, and sounding dull and airy.

Unless, of course you want an airy sound to your voice.

Say you wanted to sing "I bet you need me" on a high note, you should mix the E in bet with I like the Irish do.

The experiment with the amount of E and I to find a mix that sounds good and doesn't mix up the sound of your song.

You don't have to sing bit. You just need to add the "metallicness" of bit to bet!

..And if you still have trouble with some vowels, feel free to send me an e-mail!

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