Are you envious of your favorite artists who seem to effortless hit high notes? It certainly makes it hard to sing along with their songs sometimes doesn’t it? Well, the good news is that it is possible to increase and expand your voice range and sing higher. In fact, once you know how to sing higher, you might be surprised that it wasn’t so difficult after all. Before you begin though, there are some fundamental things you should know to help you in your quest to increase your vocal range.

Do Proper Vocal Warmups

The vocal cords are like muscles and can be stretched. If you try to hit high notes without doing proper warm ups, it’s like going for the heavy weights. It is dangerous and you can seriously damage your vocal cords that way. Always do warm ups before doing any singing and also start doing it every day as well. Get your vocal cords used to being used often so you can increase your stamina in singing.

The other benefit of doing warm ups is that it helps you to work on your entire voice range. While your goal might be to sing higher notes, it is a common misunderstanding that you can just work on your high notes while neglecting the notes you can already hit. If you do this, at best you might be able to hit those notes but a more likely scenario is that you will just tire your voice out fast and possibly even lose it.

By working on your low notes as well as high ones, you will bring tonal depth to your high notes and achieve nice harmonic overtones when you sing at your lower register. If you have observed singers wih a wide singing range, you might have noticed that they display similar qualities in their voice when singing. However, a less experienced singer might sound like they were approaching a ceiling as they try to sing higher notes.

Know Your Limits

You won’t be able to stretch your limits without knowing what they were would you? Find out what is your lowest and highest register and start to do vocal exercises that works your entire range daily. Once you are used to that, start pushing the boundary and aim for a gradual increase in the lowest and highest note you can reach.

Another test would be to sing a note and see how long you can hold it for. The note should remain strong and steady when you hold it. It is worthwhile to do exercises that help you hold your notes because while you might be able to reach high notes, you probably won’t be able to sing songs where majority of the notes are high.

Part of knowing your limits is knowing when to rest your voice. Sometimes, people get overzealous in trying to sing higher and overtax the vocal cords. If you feel any pain or unusual strain in your throat you definitely must stop and take time off to rest your vocal cords and just be silent.

Use The Right Muscles for Singing

Many people are unaware that they are using the wrong muscles for singing. In fact, they think it is natural that as you try to reach higher notes, you ‘push’ more. This couldn’t be further from the truth because when you do this, you tense the muscles in your throat that actually make it harder to sing higher.

To illustrate this point, try to gently place your entire hand over your throat as if you are trying to feel the sides of your throat. Now swallow and feel the movement of your throat. Right at the moment you swallowed, what you felt was the movement of more than 3 dozen muscle groups working in tandem to help you swallow! These muscles help make sure the food you eat doesn’t go down your windpipe and return to resting position once their task is done.

Unfortunately, these same muscles that are so useful when eating are practically useless when it comes to helping you to sing. Quite the opposite, if you engage these muscles when singing, they waste energy and work against the muscles that you DO need to sing higher. What’s more, since these muscles are not meant for extended use, they actually wear you out faster.

Hopefully this article has given you a good start in learning how to sing higher. Of course, you won’t be able to do this simply by reading article after article. You will need to practice and learn how to master the coordination of your vocal muscles and breathing techniques. This comes through listening and repeatedly practicing vocal training exercises and plenty of singing. It definitely helps to have a vocal trainer or have the benefit of a good singing course.

Tags: Artists, Benefit, Fundamental Things, Harmonic Overtones, Heavy Weights, how to sing higher, Lower Register, Misunderstanding, Muscles, sing higher, Singers, Stamina, Ups, Vocal Cords, Vocal Exercises, Vocal Range, Vocal Warmups, Voice Range, warm ups