The Bristow Voice Method Blog

In my ongoing attempt to serve the singing community I will on this blog answer subscriber questions as often as my time allows. As a subscriber, please submit your question to the email address given to you as a subscriber benefit. For starters, here is one of the most common questions:

How can I learn to sing high notes without cracking or straining?

And here is my response:

I struggled for years myself until I discovered that it doesn’t have to be that hard. The pitch – the note – is determined by the speed of vibration – in this case the speed of the vocal cords (or vocal folds). The problem is that you have never learned how to develop the small muscles that stretch, thin and adduct (bring together) the vocal cords. In fact, few people know how to do this effectively, and even less know the strategies to develop these muscles quickly. So right now, when you attempt to sing a high note, you can’t help but add more force which means you engage other surrounding muscles instead.

You might even have been taught tricks such as “open your jaw”, “darken the vowel”, “push from your stomach” etc. All these “tricks” engage help from other muscles and you never develop the muscles you really want to develop. Once you learn to develop these muscles, however, range always increases dramatically and you can sing high notes without cracking or straining. The sound becomes much more effortless, and you can sing freer and with greater passion.  

Watch the free singing lesson video for a demonstration. Just fill in your email address in the box in the right sidebar