Happy New Year!
Most singers would have a common new year resolution – to increase their vocal range. Or in other words, to extend their vocal range.
So, that’s exactly what I’m gonna address today to help you kickstart your vocals this year 🙂 How to increase your vocal range and extend your voice into the higher and lower notes easily!
It’s very simple, all you need is a keyboard, and not even necessarily a physical keyboard. You can just use a keyboard app on your phone, for instance, the Virtuoso. We’ll use the keyboard to play a couple of notes as we hum and expand our vocal range. You can actually do the humming without the keyboard and expand your vocal range anyway, but having a keyboard sort of helps you keep track of your progress and pitching; you can actually take note of how high and how low you’re singing and also make sure you’re singing in pitch 😉
With the piano, we’ll just play a 3-note-scale – there’s no need for complicated musical scales at this point because we would only usually sing tougher or wider musical scales more so to work on vocal connection (in making sure that you can sing seamlessly through your transitions in all your vocal registers) so that your voice doesn’t crack or have any uneven tones across your vocal range. But even then, singing endless musical scales is not the only way to improve your voice.
What we’re aiming for in this exercise is only to extend your vocal range gently – there are other vocal exercises you can try, but this one is good to start with. It’s easy, and quick – perfect for people with busy schedules.
So here we go…let’s play 3 notes, as in 1-2-3-2-1 (do-re-mi-re-do) and hum along, and we’ll go one tone up as we go.
How to Increase Your Vocal Range into the Higher Notes
As you are doing this exercise, wherever it is you feel like your voice starts to get stuck, or you feel like you’re choking, or straining, or the sound is just flat (lower than the actual note you’re aiming for) no matter how hard you try, just add this little something: a whimper!
As in how a little puppy would whimper. If you whimper a couple of times with me (as in the video), you’d realise how amazingly easy it is to reach high notes just by whimpering. So as we resume with the exercise, whimper out those high notes of which you’re struggling with, individually first and then connect them together. Follow my example in the video.
It is that easy! You shouldn’t feel any strain, discomfort or pain. If you do, you’re not doing right. Send me a video of how you’re doing it or let me know how you’re coping and I’ll help you troubleshoot the problem 😉
Now, how about reaching the lower notes?
How to Increase Your Vocal Range into the Lower Notes
Once again, using the same musical scale, 1-2-3-2-1, we’re gonna play it downwards on the keyboard this time (stepping down one tone at a time) and hum your way downwards on the keyboard/piano/piano app 😉
Once you feel like you’re reaching your limit, like your voice disappears or you just can’t go any lower, try adding a little sigh into it. If you don’t quite get what I mean, check out the example in the video.
When we sigh, the larynx is lowered slightly, which can help us sing low notes more easily, almost effortlessly, in a nice full deep tone. Do note however, this doesn’t mean, however, that you should sing with a lower larynx all the time. Check out the video to get a better idea how to apply this sigh into your voice 😉
I hope that helps you increase your vocal range this year! Remember to practice this a little everyday to see the changes in your voice. Vocal range is important not only for singers, but also for speakers, because if you can use a wider vocal range, you can improve your vocal intonation when you’re speaking. And vocal intonation, is extremely important in making a speaker interesting and magnetic – to have his/her voice sound almost irresistible to listen to 😀
I’ll be talking more about that in my upcoming Masterclass Session, Power Talk, on 20th February 2016, a masterclass dedicated to help people improve their voices for Public Speaking. If you want more information, or wanna register now, click here:
POWER TALK™ – A Public Speaking Masterclass
And of course, if you’ve got any questions at all on the vocal tips I’ve just shared with you here on how to improve your vocal range, ask away below!
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