Read on to discover exactly how to begin extending vocal range. There are exercises that will propel you into your upper vocal range, with almost no effort at all.
Most singers are familiar with the term, “the break”.
If you’re unfamiliar with this term, you may know the feeling.
The “break” is that point in your voice where everything falls apart into a powerless, thin sound. You sing up to the break in a “full” voice”, but beyond this point, your voice is not very useful.
Getting through this so called “break” is what you must do to begin extending vocal range.
How can you do this? I’ll answer that in a minute, but first, let’s talk about what’s happening here.
Most singers break because they haven’t trained their vocal cords to “thin out” as they sing higher.
You see, in a singer with good technique, the vocal cords, “thin out” or “zip up” as they move up their range.
A good way to think about this is this.
Imagine you have a guitar in your hand. You pluck a string and it plays a certain note. Then, you think to yourself that you want to play a higher note.
How do you do this? There are two things you can do from here. You can either “bend” the string, to get a higher pitch. Or you can hold down a fret further up the guitar to get the higher note.
What does this second technique do? It causes the string to vibrate faster, because there is a shorter amount left vibrating.
What’s this got to do with your vocal cords?
Let me tell you…
When your cords are “thinning out” as you sing higher, it’s much like fretting the guitar string. You are closing off a section of the vocal cords, so there is less area vibrating with the air.
It’s now much easier for the cords to vibrate faster! And since the frequency of the note=the pitch of the note, the shorter your vocal cords are, the higher the note you can hit!
Let’s back up a little.
Earlier we were talking about a singers “break”.
When a singer “breaks” it means that instead of allowing their vocal cords to thin out and shorten the length of their vocal cords, there are allowing their vocal cords to “come apart”.
With the vocal cords slightly apart, the tone goes shallow and powerless. This vocal coordination is known as “falsetto”
If you want to begin extend or increase vocal range, you must learn to hold your vocal cords together, and allow them to thin out or shorten.
When you do this, it’s called singing in a connected voice.
Most singers don’t realize that they have the ability to sing in a connected voice higher than their current “breaking point”. This is unfortunate because if you can learn to sing through the break in a “connected voice” you will be able to sing over three octaves, and I’m not exaggerating!
The other great thing about singing in a connected voice, is the tone quality of your voice stays consistent through your whole vocal range. There is no sudden changes, or breaks or pops. It’s like your voice is now your voice is one instrument, not two or three different instruments.
All of this is fair enough, but how begin extending vocal range if you don’t know how to shorten your vocal cords?
Well, vocal exercises of course!
But not just any vocal exercises. Only the right exercises will do.
You see, you need to practice exercises that bring about the right reactions in your voice. If you are practicing the wrong exercises, it won’t matter if you practice for hours every day. Your vocal cords will never learn to “shorten”.
I can attest to this! I studied vocals for years before every finding the passage way through the “break” and into my upper “connected” voice.
The right exercises however, will produce tremendous results, and quickly too.
You see, being an incredible singer is all about learning the correct “muscle co-ordinations”, and then practicing them until they become easy.
Once all the muscles are coordinating correctly, all you need to do is practice over and over. When you do this, you will develop “muscle memory”, and your brain will automatically know how to coordinate the muscles when you sing.
But you must have exercises that develop the correct muscle co-ordinations!
If you currently don’t have the singing voice you’re after, you are probably practicing the wrong exercises---and developing muscle memory that doesn’t get the most out of your voice.
The encouraging thing is… it’s no harder to practice the wrong exercises than it is the right ones.
In fact, it’s probably easier to practice the exercises that produce correct singing technique, because bad technique encourages vocal tension among other things, which can make singing tiresome and painful…
I’d like to show you some of the best vocal exercises I’ve ever come across. They have been developed by a world class vocal instructor, and they are highly effective at extending vocal range, improving tone quality, and releasing muscle tension when you sing.
Practicing these exercises daily can really release the full potential of your voice. You can learn more about these highly effective exercises, and begin to extend your vocal range by clicking here.
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