How to improve vocal range. Well, again this is another one of those subjects
that’s really elusive, and I’ve seen a lot of tutorials on this, and I want to just kind of share how I’ve increased my range, and hopefully this will help you. Now, there’s a tendency to think of, you
know, if I just do this one scale and I stretch my voice enough in this scale, that eventually,
if I can do it just before I feel like I’m going to crack or break or before my throat
gets sore and then I can go in and take a breath or break and then come back and do
it again, that that’s good vocal health and technique for practicing how to stretch
your vocal range. Well, in fact it’s not. I want to recap a couple of things that we
discussed already. Again guys, remember, we have to have good
diaphragmatic support, if you don’t know what that is, please see my video on diaphragmatic
support. We have to have a good relaxation response
in the chest, the neck, and the throat. We have to have open throat technique, relaxing
the throat, keeping it nice and open, to where there’s a lot of agility and space in the
throat itself, and let me explain why scales can be a little problematic and some other
exercises that we can do to come alongside and buttress or support scale exercises. Now, the first thing is when we think of a
scale, let’s do a simple Triad scale: EEEEEEEEEEEE. Right? Because we think of it incrementally, EE,
EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE. We’re starting to think of it like a stairstep,
like oh climbed the stair, oh, climbed this stair, oh, no, oh I made it to the top step! OK. Now I’m going to run back down the stairs. Then we move up. EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE. And then all of a sudden we think, gosh, if
we just stretch that as high as we can, then everything’s going to line up, and if we
do that enough times you know, it’s all just going to work out. Well, Einstein’s definition of insanity
is trying the same experiment over and over again and expecting a different result. And you’re going to find that if you try
that same experiment over and over again you are probably not going to increase your range
very much at all, if at all, and there’s a good chance you could hurt yourself if you
push yourself too hard because you want it so bad that you start to strain and you start
to lose control of your voice. So a good way around this is doing some stretching
exercises via sliders. So, in a slider, I want you to be able to
feel the sensation of, by the way the notes in the middle are important. I don’t want to say they’re not, in fact
there the steppingstones that get us up and out of our range but I’m going to discuss
something about vowel modifications in a minute. But if we do a slider, EEEEEEEEE. We don’t get caught one, EE, EE, EE, EE,
EE, EE, EE. Right? Now, eventually we want to do both. We don’t want to do one or the other, and
scales are actually better for us for intonation and pitch and an understanding vowel modifications. Now, vowel modifications, the vowel itself
or the feeling in the throat of the vowel, it changes. So, EE…. EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE. Goes a little towards eh, like led. EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE. Now let’s do those as a slider. EEEEEEEEEEE. Now, if you notice there, I went EEEEEEehhhhEEEEEEehhhhEEEEEE. I’m changing the vowel. EEEEEAAAAAAAAEEEEEEAAAAAAAEEEEE; EEEEehhhh-Eight. EEEEeh-Eight. Now by the way, if you notice, I went all
the way to a D5, and I’ve got plenty more range to go, for all you baritones and tenors
out there you probably didn’t even come close to that you ended around an A or a
B. You sopranos, if you’re doing this up the octave, you’re probably done too. And altos, you were done already, too, probably
around the B6. So, anyway, but I want to point this out that
you notice you don’t hear any register break, you notice you don’t see any strain at all,
right? I’m not killing myself to get to these notes. I’m giving myself permission, like we just
discussed in one of my previous videos. I’m giving myself permission to hit, you
know how to sing a high note, well this is how you get to those notes.So... EEEEEEEEEEE. Or, up an octave,EEEEEEEEEE. Right, you can hear me go up and out, through
the passaggio, which is the passageway break, or the register break, seamlessly, in and
out of those sounds. Now, if you’re trying to do this for the
very first time, I recommend you do it really lightly, super small. EEEEEEEEEE. Until you can grow this area safely. And then little by little, you can lean in,
or add more brightness in the timbre, or more resonance to the sound to start to really
stretch and increase your voice. Now, once you’ve done that, you can come
back and do the scales. You go: EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE. A little out of pitch. Sorry about that. EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE, EE. Right? You kind of go in and out of the passaggio… Remember too though. Like I said. You can get caught on the cord, or caught
in the idea of having a stairstep and not know how to release from one stairstep to
the next. So the sliders kind of relieve that tension
first and then you can come back and get the better intonation using the scale itself. OK? Hopefully this is helpful for you guys. Until next time, please like and subscribe
to my channel if you like what you heard! And we have more coming on your way. Peace. Out.
