8 Things You Must Do Before Reaching High Notes

The question that is asked by many people is how to reach the high notes and how to make them better, more powerful, and more impactful. Well, singing is one of the physiological battles, and to sing the high notes, it is required that you prepare your physic to reach there. The high notes, low notes, the music form that you want to adopt, more and every other thing is all inside you, but you have to prepare your mind to do that well. So, all you need to know is, you own these skills, and you can do it. However, when you have this zeal and are mentally prepared that you want to reach the higher notes, these are the things you should do before you reach the high notes because they will make you reach their stronger and more potent. So, let’s see what are the things, you need to do.

1. Know Your Current High Note Range

When you are just starting to hit the high notes, you need to understand that every person has a high note range. So, before you start to practice for the higher notes, you need to see what your current high note range is, and you need to know that you can’t squeak out of your current range immediately. You will have to practice a lot to reach the higher notes. Generally, the vocal range ranges from one and a half octaves to two, but professionally trained are prepared to sing on more than two and maybe on three octaves as well. So, know the highest range you have currently. When you know your limits, we can start working on the same to push them higher.

2. Breathing Exercise: To Back Your High Notes With Ample Breathe

Now, when you are preparing to reach the high notes, they are sung with more impact and need a lot of power to hit there harder. That power comes through your voice, but the voice’s power is backed by the breath. So, having control over your breathing will make you have an impactful and strong voice there on the high notes. Also, having control over breathing is one of the crucial factors in singing high notes.

3. Warm-Up & Stretching 

Athletes do warm-up and do stretching before they are on the ground to avoid strains, pains, stress on muscles, and to give a smooth performance. Similarly, vocalists, whether they are singing any type, they need to warm-up every day to keep their vocal cords used to the singing and to not let them get strained when you start to sing. 

The exercises that you can do regularly are:

· Lips Trilling 

· Siren exercise

· Exercises with vowels and consonants 

· Solmization

These exercises can help you a lot with your daily warm-up. 

NOTE: To expand your range, do not overexert your vocal cords. They can give you sore throats and make your voice fatigued. It can also damage your vocal cord if stressed too much. 

4. Vocal Health

When reaching high notes is your target, taking care, in fact, good care of your vocal health is necessary. To take good care, you need to do the following:

· Take adequate rest to avoid stress in your mind.

· Do avoid citrus juices and fruits, alcohol, too cold water, and things you're allergic to.

· Over spicy food or drinks can cause irritation in your throat. You need to avoid them!

· Keep yourself hydrated, well. 

· Keep yourself away from the flu, cold, and cough to avoid the strain in your throat. 

If you do these things mentioned above positively, you can maintain your vocal health and hygiene correctly.

5. Set Small Vocal Goals 

Everyone knows that there is nothing in this world called magic. So, it is sure that you can’t get an entire octave added to your range magically. To add the same, you will have to practice the same a lot. With practice, you should set only realistic and achievable goals. 

To start with, take a target to add half-step to your range in the bottom and top notes. Initiating small goals and reaching there will only help you to obtain the bigger goal. However, if you dream to take a big leap and increase your range drastically, it might damage your vocal cords. 

6. The Right Techniques

Not having the right techniques to sing high notes puts the high range reach in doubt. So, when you want to reach high notes, keep these basic techniques in mind:

· Let your larynx stay at rest. 

· You will need to sing with an open throat. If you hesitate while singing high-notes, they might get spoiled. 

· About the position, when you are singing, try standing straight. And if you are sitting, try keeping your body relaxed, chest high, and shoulders to the level of butts. 

· Make sure to breathe from your diaphragm and not from your neck or shoulders. Fill your tummy with the breath, and then sing from the power that now your core has. 

· Also, when you sing your high notes, keep your tongue on the top of your bottom teeth and keep the jaw relaxed. Singing like this will let higher notes come out better.

7. Let’s Work On Larynx

The larynx of vocalists rises automatically with the increase in pitch. However, if you make this your habit of raising the larynx in a high pitch, it can damage the vocal cords. So, it would help if you practice to hold down your larynx and tuck it down to sing the high notes to avoid strain. 

8. How About Practicing Every Note With The Sound “Nay.”

Now, this is a bit weird, but you can try this to reach the high notes easily. When you think that hitting that high note of the track is difficult, and you have to make your voice thin or husky, then sing all the notes in the song slowly with the sound “Nay.” A “Nay” sound that any naughty or bratty kid would make to tease the other kid. So, make this sound on every note one by one. Maybe you can try reaching with the light voice, and then when you feel confident that you can hit that high note with a powerful voice, and not that lean and cranky voice, do that. This Nay sound might sound erring, but this really helps to reach the higher notes more intensely. 

Well, Nay's sound does not sound right. So practice this only when you find it difficult to reach those high notes. Once you reach the high notes, you can avoid practicing this. 

If you always wanted to reach the high notes but were worried about how you will make it, you can follow the above steps and techniques to reach the higher notes.