How to sing a high note.
Hi, guys.
I’m Ken Tamplin, and I’ve been known to sing a high note or two in my day, and I thought
I’d kind of discuss this very important subject, because it’s not really as it seems,
and let me explain…
A lot of people think of the high note as this "mountain" that they’ve got to get to,
and it’s this, you know, "if I could only get to this next pinnacle of my voice", so
to speak.
Well, it turns out it’s really about the way you look at the voice that helps you achieve
these high notes and not necessarily, or not the brute force, and how you climb the ladder
to get to those notes themselves.
Now, there’s different kinds of high notes.
There’s high notes that can be in your chest and there’s a certain registration for that,
there’s high notes in your head voice or falsetto and there’s a certain registration
for that, and then there’s mixed voice, which is also can be challenging to get to.
So I won’t be able to cover all of that in this one tutorial, but I want to give you
guys some very helpful hints on how I view high notes, okay?
Now when I was younger, I was classified in the German Vocal Fach system as a Baritone,
so I was told I should never sing above an F#4, which is actually a fairly low note for
me now, but back then, they were right.
I believed that about myself and I was just like ohh, ohh!
I was just struggling to get an F#4.
For those of you that don’t know what that note is, it’s a pretty low note, okay?
So, the reason I bring it up is because I want to tell you a kind of funny little story
that you might appreciate, and then I’m going to get back to the high note, okay?
I’ve coached a fair amount of soccer in my day and my son grew up playing soccer,
in fact he’s graduating here with the full ride for playing soccer.
We got to play, we moved to Argentina to play soccer, we moved to Brazil to play soccer,
our family moved to Italy to play soccer, so soccer was a very important part of our
home.
And when I was teaching soccer early on, coaching soccer early on, I remember about age 9, 10,
right?
Nine-year-olds, and we were going after a goal team, I was coaching this goal team,
and the kids there were trying desperately, there was an American sized field-goal, football
field-goal, so there was a field-goal like this but then underneath the field-goal was
the soccer box, the soccer goal itself.
And all these kids were running up and they’re trying so hard to kick it over the top of
the bar into the field-goal line.
And there were about 28 kids or something, we were going to whittle it down to about
15, and none of them could do it.
It was so cute to watch these guys, you know kick.
And I walked over to them and I said hey guys, you’ve got to get your foot under the ball,
and you’ve got to kind of chip it with like, a snap to get it up over the line.
The minute I did that, every single one of those kids, with one exception, every one
of them, maybe not the first time, were able to walk up, bam!
Right over the field-goal, right into the field-goal, the top of the goal box line.
Why do I bring up this story?
Well it’s because they couldn’t "see themselves" doing it before, and then after they saw themselves
doing it, when they saw someone do it, then they could see themselves doing it, they were
able to do it over and over and over and over again.
Now this is extremely important because this is very, very true for the voice.
Now, I have a phrase that I like to talk about.
It’s called don’t sit in the strike zone.
The strike zone.
Well the strike zone is surfing language.
By the way I live in Hawaii and I’ve done a lot of surfing in my day…
Is there’s several breaks in waves, and the first break, or what’s actually called
the third break, is the little break that’s on the shore, and there’s usually another,
a second break where kind of the teenagers and younger guys kinda go out there to do their
boogie boarding and surfing, and then there’s first break which is the one that’s way
out in the water.
And that’s the one you’ve got to kinda watch out for, because if you don’t know
when the swells are coming in and how big the swells themselves are, you can get pretty
beat up and you can get put in "the washing machine".
Okay?
So what you do is typically when you get out to first break you get a lay of the land and
make sure where they’re coming in and instead of waiting for that wave to catch up to you
and crash right on top of you, you go out and you swim past the wave and then you come back
and you ride the waves in like such.
So it is with the voice.
We don’t sit in the strike zone.
We don’t panic and go “Lah, Ah , AHHH!!!!”
Oh, My gosh, we hit the strike zone!
No, we think about the note in advance.
Now the notes I want to discuss those, too.
Remember I said there’s different timbral sounds, so we’ve got your chest
registration, you’ve got mixed voice, and you’ve got head voice, okay?
I’ll do a demonstration in a second to show you what I’m talking about.
But for the most part a high note really truly is the ability to have a strong abdominal
support, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about go watch my video on diaphragmatic
breathing.
Our relaxation response between the chest, the neck, and the throat, and good vowel placement.
Now, also believing or visualizing…
I hate to use that term but it’s really true.
Visualizing the note before you get there, and not even thinking of that note being “the
high note”.
Now, I’ve used this analogy before, but I want to use it again.
If you’ve ever seen someone sing the national anthem, you know, they’ll go “the land
of the free”, and they’ll go hit the note and they’ll invariably choke.
Right?
Well, someone forgot to tell them that they actually sang that note, “rockets red glare”
they already sang that note one time before, but when it gets to the end, the anticipation
and apprehension you know, and just freaking out at the end, they blow chunks because their
body closes down and they don’t give themselves permission to get to that note.
Now this is also true with The Power of Love, Celine Dion “I’m your lady, you are my
man.
Whenever you reach for me I’ll do all that I can, we're HEAD-ing for something” right?
That “HEAD” is the same note as power of LOVE!
And if you’ve ever been to a karaoke bar you hear them get all the way through the
song, and they’re pretty much able to muddle their way through it, and they get to the
end, and they blow chunks.
Why?
Because their body closes down.
Now let me give you an example of this real quick.
I’m just gonna sing a couple of octaves here.
LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Right?
I just sang a couple of octaves, a G to a G, and what’s interesting about it is you
notice I didn’t freak out, I didn’t have a lot of stress, it’s a lot of range for
a baritone that shouldn’t even be singing that note, much less over an octave above
it.
Well, what it is, is, by the way, you heard me go through, in and out of the passaggio,
or the area that should have been the register break or the yodel, right?
And you didn’t hear any break.
Let me do it again: LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Right?
I can go in and out of a lot of register because I’m giving myself permission on how to get
to those notes.
Now, it is true that there are specific vowels, and those vowels change as you go in and out
of the scale, and I cover all this in my singing course, "How To Sing Better Than Anyone Else".
But I want to encourage you guys one thing, and I’m going to leave you with this.
When you first start to practice your high notes, I want you to do them in falsetto.
Even if they’re kind of low high notes, and even if there’s something that you’d
normally sing in your chest.
I want you first to practice them in falsetto to get the feeling and the ease in the throat
itself first, and then I want you to gradually build up if you’re trying to hit a, belt
a chest voice note, gradually build up and remind yourself of what it felt like to sing it
in falsetto for the ease and gentleness of falsetto, and then you can gradually build
strength and stamina.
Now, this comes incrementally, it doesn’t happen overnight.
Don’t get upset at yourself and say I just can’t do it.
We build these things up over time.
So anyway, thank you guys for joining me if you like what you heard please like and subscribe
to my channel, and I’ve got more on your way.