How to improve vocal range.
Well, again this is another one of those subjects that’s really elusive, and I’ve seen a
lot of tutorials on this, and I want to just kind of share how I’ve increased my range, and hopefully
this will help you.
Now, there’s a tendency to think of, you know, if I just do this one scale and I stretch
my voice enough in this scale, that eventually, if I can do it just before I feel like I’m
going to crack or break or before my throat gets sore and then I can go in and take a
breath or break and then come back and do it again, that that’s good vocal health
and technique for practicing how to stretch your vocal range.
Well, in fact it’s not.
I want to recap a couple of things that we discussed already.
Again guys, remember, we have to have good diaphragmatic support, if you don’t know
what that is, please see my video on diaphragmatic support.
We have to have a good relaxation response in the chest, the neck, and the throat.
We have to have open throat technique, relaxing the throat, keeping it nice and open, to where
there’s a lot of agility and space in the throat itself, and let me explain why scales
can be a little problematic and some other exercises that we can do to come alongside
and buttress or support scale exercises.
Now, the first thing is when we think of a scale, let’s do a simple Triad scale:
EEEEEEEEEEEE.
Right?
Because we think of it incrementally, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE.
We’re starting to think of it like a stairstep, like oh climbed the stair, oh, climbed this
stair, oh, no, oh I made it to the top step!
OK.
Now I’m going to run back down the stairs.
Then we move up.
EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE.
And then all of a sudden we think, gosh, if we just stretch that as high as we can, then
everything’s going to line up, and if we do that enough times you know, it’s all
just going to work out.
Well, Einstein’s definition of insanity is trying the same experiment over and over
again and expecting a different result.
And you’re going to find that if you try that same experiment over and over again you
are probably not going to increase your range very much at all, if at all, and there’s
a good chance you could hurt yourself if you push yourself too hard because you want it
so bad that you start to strain and you start to lose control of your voice.
So a good way around this is doing some stretching exercises via sliders.
So, in a slider, I want you to be able to feel the sensation of, by the way the notes
in the middle are important.
I don’t want to say they’re not, in fact there the steppingstones that get us up and
out of our range but I’m going to discuss something about vowel modifications in a minute.
But if we do a slider,
EEEEEEEEE.
We don’t get caught one, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE.
Right?
Now, eventually we want to do both.
We don’t want to do one or the other, and scales are actually better for us for intonation
and pitch and an understanding vowel modifications.
Now, vowel modifications, the vowel itself or the feeling in the throat of the vowel,
it changes.
So, EE….
EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE.
Goes a little towards eh, like led.
EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE.
Now let’s do those as a slider.
EEEEEEEEEEE.
Now, if you notice there, I went EEEEEEehhhhEEEEEEehhhhEEEEEE.
I’m changing the vowel.
EEEEEAAAAAAAAEEEEEEAAAAAAAEEEEE; EEEEehhhh-Eight.
EEEEeh-Eight.
Now by the way, if you notice, I went all the way to a D5, and I’ve got plenty more
range to go, for all you baritones and tenors out there you probably didn’t even come
close to that you ended around an A or a B. You sopranos, if you’re doing this up the
octave, you’re probably done too.
And altos, you were done already, too, probably around the B6.
So, anyway, but I want to point this out that you notice you don’t hear any register break,
you notice you don’t see any strain at all, right?
I’m not killing myself to get to these notes.
I’m giving myself permission, like we just discussed in one of my previous videos.
I’m giving myself permission to hit, you know how to sing a high note, well this is
how you get to those notes.So...
EEEEEEEEEEE.
Or, up an octave,EEEEEEEEEE.
Right, you can hear me go up and out, through the passaggio, which is the passageway break,
or the register break, seamlessly, in and out of those sounds.
Now, if you’re trying to do this for the very first time, I recommend you do it really
lightly, super small.
EEEEEEEEEE.
Until you can grow this area safely.
And then little by little, you can lean in, or add more brightness in the timbre, or more
resonance to the sound to start to really stretch and increase your voice.
Now, once you’ve done that, you can come back and do the scales. You go:
EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE.
A little out of pitch.
Sorry about that.
EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE.
Right?
You kind of go in and out of the passaggio…
Remember too though.
Like I said.
You can get caught on the cord, or caught in the idea of having a stairstep and not
know how to release from one stairstep to the next.
So the sliders kind of relieve that tension first and then you can come back and get the better
intonation using the scale itself.
OK?
Hopefully this is helpful for you guys.
Until next time, please like and subscribe to my channel if you like what you heard!
And we have more coming on your way.
Peace.
Out.