5 Secrets to Singing Better High Notes With Confidence

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5 Secrets to Singing Better High Notes With Confidence

To sing with more confidence, practice and perform regularly to improve your vocal skills and technique, as confidence often comes from preparation and experience. 

Additionally, visualize yourself performing successfully and focus on positive thoughts to help overcome nerves.

To sing high notes with confidence, focus on proper vocal techniques such as raising your soft palate, keeping your tongue down in the back of your throat, and maintaining an open jaw shape along with mapping the notes of your song into your muscle patterning. 

Regular practice of these techniques will help you achieve better control and strength in your high notes.

Here’s a quick outline of the topics covered in today’s blog:  

• Expand Your Range
• Raise Your Soft Palate
• Tongue Down 
• Open Your Jaw 
• Mapping the Notes 

I teach vocal techniques for high notes inside of my Cole Vocal Method. Click here to: Learn more about the Cole Vocal Method

Let’s dive in!

1. Expand Your Range

The keys to accessing more range is the using the right positions for the head, the chest, and the soft palate. 

Try this:  

• Head position: Keep the head balanced over the spine and don’t reach forward or lift your chin as the notes get higher as this chokes the throat and limits range.
• Chest position: Keep the chest lifted high to support your high notes. 
• Soft palate lift: Keep the soft palate lifted to provide room for the high notes to ring inside the cavity of the mouth. 
• Voice building techniques: 

I teach all of these techniques and positions inside the Singers Gift Vocal Warmups. Learn more here.

In addition, the stronger your voice is in the middle (the weakest area of the voice) the more expanded your range will be. 

Learn the Master Voice Building exercises inside of the Cole Vocal Method.

Learn more about the Cole Vocal Method here.

2. Raise Your Soft Palate

In order to access more range you want to practice lifting the soft palate. A sluggish or low palate will result in less access. 

Try this:  

• Locate the soft palate by tracing the roof of your mouth with your tongue starting at the front. 
• Notice where it goes from hard to soft? The soft part is the soft palate. 
• The soft palate naturally raises when you yawn or when you open the throat to drink or eat. 
• Bring an imaginary glass to your lips to drink.
• Do you notice movement on the roof of the mouth (and the tongue drops as well). 

This is an easy way to feel the lift in the soft palate.In vocal exercises we practice this movement to make it happen naturally in our muscle patterning to open up the throat to sing better high notes.

Learn the method: Learn more about the Cole Vocal Method here.

3. Tongue Down

Ever notice when some singers sing a high note that their throat opens so much that you can almost see their tonsils? That’s a trained movement of the tongue dropping which helps to produce better control and power when it comes to high notes! 

Try this: 

• Hold the jaw down about 2 inches. 
• Say KAH with an open jaw while looking into a mirror. 
• Use a flashlight app to see the back of the throat clearly. 
• As you say KAH, do you notice the back of the tongue dropping a bit? 
• Now keep the jaw open, bring an imaginary glass to your lips to drink. Watch the tongue – does it drop? 

This is a natural movement you do every day. The goal is to get control over the back of the tongue so you can drop it on cue. This will give you access to more control and confidence over your high notes. 

We practice these movements inside the Cole Vocal Method. Learn more here.

4. Open Your Jaw

The more open and relaxed your jaw is, the easier it will be to sing high notes consistently and with confidence.

If you have a tight jaw (common) or TMJ (Temporal Mandibular Joint DIsorder which is just a fancy word for a tight jaw, you’ll want to do exercises to release tension. 

Try this:  

• Hold your jaw with your hand. Keep the mouth closed.
• Then let the jaw fall open and pull a little down a bit more opening the jaw. 
• Your jaw should be open about 2″ or so. Don’t over open. 
• Sing AH. 
• Keep your lips in an oval (long) position instead of wide. 
• This will help to open your jaw and keep the larynx down to stabilize your high notes. 
• During singing, practice opening your jaw a little more than usual on your high notes and see if that helps!

5. Mapping the Notes

To improve confidence singing high notes use the technique of mapping the notes into your muscle patterning. The more your voice technically knows the note, the easier it will be to sing. 

Try this:  

• Map the notes to each song on the piano. Even if you don’t play much, learning the notes of the melody line on the piano will help your brain map the patterns of the vocal lines and program them more solidly into the voice.
• Then concentrate on the phrases before, during and after the high notes. 
• Mpa those notes singing on an AH vowel into your voice. To map them, find the corresponding note on the pian and sing AH while slowly playing the phrase. 
• Slowing it down helps to map the pattern more effectively. 
• Once you have it, then try mapping the notes one half step higher and then return to the original key. This is a quick trick that helps solidify the original key. 
• If you find yourself straining too much, consider lowering the original key by a half step. Works wonders. 

Join me on YouTube – where I discuss content on the blog, voice, and artist development. Feel free to leave a note or question in the comments that I can circle back to. 

This post helps you get started, but it’s only the beginning. What would it feel like to finally reach your vocal potential and feel an actual transformation in your voice in 8 weeks? Come join the thousands of singers who have already transformed their voice and vocal health with the Cole Vocal Method™. Set your voice free in only 20 minutes a day with these transformative vocal techniques found only here! Click here to find out more.

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