How to Sing High Notes

Succeeding in your high notes

"Finding your high notes means extending your range with a greater vocal length." That is how Adeline Toniutti defines the gesture in her method Anatomy of Singing.

High notes are the notes above the second break. Men, in particular, often struggle to find how to stay in chest voice as long as possible.

Reaching these high notes consistently and confidently is first and foremost the result of applying the pivot points. Certain thoughts and physical sensations can also help produce them. The first step is to program your imagination. You can listen to a singer who succeeds in producing these sounds, imprint them mentally, and then summon that execution in your own body.

1. Tilt your larynx while supporting

The characteristic laryngeal movement takes the form of the "laryngeal tilt": you have to think of the larynx rising as it sweeps along the cervical vertebrae, as if starting a somersault, in a dynamic way, engaging the abdominal muscles.

Place your hands on your neck and feel the movement.

3. Watch your ribs and abdominals

At the moment of producing a high note, most people release the rib pressure, letting the floating ribs open back up. By letting go on the note itself, they reduce the pressure required to produce the high note.

So, if you are sure of your laryngeal movement, you must keep the pressure.

The larynx can be compared to a car's steering wheel, and the ribs and obliques to accelerators.

In practice: high notes

Aim: train the production of high notes.

A high note is healthy when you can approach it in every way. You must be able to attack it from below, sing it staccato or legato, bring it with agility, at every dynamic, in every register.

Vocalises dedicated to the high range in the method (see Anatomy of Singing, p. 128):

• Octave leaps legato, to check that the larynx stays mobile.
• Trill with octave leaps legato.
• Staccato arpeggio.
• Attack on the high note and trills.

Breathing in: the "Vocal Everest class"

Faced with a high note that feels like an impossible mountain, we exaggerate the inhalation, as if a large reserve of air would keep us from "falling off the mountain". On television, the cue is known internally as the "Vocal Everest class".

I have found that by asking singers to inhale very little, twice, very quickly, as if smelling a flower's scent, they find the right movement and the right placement sensation much faster.

And coming back down to the middle register?

We often see a drop of the larynx that leaves the middle register unfocused. Adeline advises her opera singers in particular to lightly tone the tip of the tongue to avoid this while descending the interval.

And if the vowels distort?

When you sing in the high range, the vowels can distort. Vowel intelligibility drops slightly in the high range. This is a normal acoustic phenomenon.

This exercise must be performed while respecting the five pivot points. If you have a vocal cord pathology, consult your specialist first.

Do not try to hear yourself

Your ears are protecting you!

When you sing a loud sound, the main mechanism at work is a reflex called the stapedius reflex, which protects the inner ear from very intense sounds, typically high ones.

Its purpose is thought to be protection from the subject's own voice, since in nature sounds of very high intensity only rarely exist.