5 Best Exercises for Hitting High Notes

What can singers do to sing high notes easily? Wow, this is a million dollar question. Not just you, every singer including me had this painful question, until I found a few exercises for hitting high notes! I believe it is absolutely necessary to develop the power, techniques and voice control when you try to sing high notes. This gives you the required support. Now any singer can without doubt accomplish thi with a few vocal exercises for high notes.

If you don’t take no chances, then you’re not a performer. Performers always take chances. You go see a singer, they’ll hit the high note. They’ll hit that note, they’re not afraid, they’re gonna exaggerate the fact and make me enjoy it, make me say, ‘Wow, I wish I could do that!’ – Evander Holyfield.

What’s more arduous than singing high notes? Well! Holding them for a few seconds. And so, I will be sharing methods and 5 best exercises for hitting notes with you in this text.

Why Vocal Exercises?

Vocal exercises for high notes can help singers of any level who want to enhance their high notes or even beginners who want to widen their vocal range. Always keep that in mind. It’s important to warm up your voice adequately before trying to hit high notes. So that you avoid strain without harming your vocal chords.

Singing exercises for hitting high notes helps enable you to strengthen your vocal muscles and makes it relaxing. Some of the vocal exercises for hitting high notes like lip trills, sirens, and humming are perfect ways to warm up your voice and ease up your muscles to sing without strain.

Understanding High Notes and Voice Anatomy

Now before you try to do exercises for hitting high notes, you should know how your body works. This should help you engage your muscles to get a clear tone.

Vocal Cords or the Vocal Folds, are two tissue folds in the larynx that vibrate as air flows through them. The more loose and expanded it becomes, the easier it is to sing high notes.

Did You Know?

Larynx is called the Voice box of the human body.

The throat, mouth, and nasal cavity, are the passageways that create the sound that the vocal cords make. Checkout Anatomy of Voice to study how vocal cords work.

What are the Techniques required for Singing Exercises for High Notes?

Control Over Pitches

As vocal cords get longer and thinner when you try exercises for hitting high notes, you must have good control over the pitches you sing. Pitch control is an absolute requirement for producing high notes with ease.

Sufficient Breath Support

Sustaining high notes requires sufficient breath support. Insufficient breath makes me anxious and end up ruining my high pitches. A controlled inhale gives the vocal cords the airflow they need to reliably produce high notes.

Direction of Your Voice

Strong resonance enhances the sound of the high pitches with richness and intensity. You need to have an idea about direction of your voice for clear tone while practicing vocal exercises for high notes

Did You Know?

Your lips, teeth and tongue helps in the shaping of the vowels and consonants while talking and singing.

Understanding Voice Registers

To comfortably do vocal exercises for high notes practice and prevent strain, you must be aware of the four vocal registers (chest voice, head voice, mixed voice, and falsetto). This will help in using head voice to produce clear cut high pitches and low pitches

Core Support

To hit and sustain high notes without strain, the diaphragm must be engaged. My tutor calls it the core support. It needs sufficient air support using Diaphragmatic breathing. The trick is to maintain a correct posture without creating tension in the muscles and spine.

I think now you have a fair idea to begin vocal exercises for high notes. Without further uh-doo let’s look at the 5 best exercises for hitting high notes

5 Vocal Exercises for Singing High Notes

Below are the list of top 5 exercises for high notes I have practiced consistently to achieve the goal of singing high pitches with ease.

1. Lip and Tongue Trills

Undoubtedly, Lip trills are one of the most proven exercises for hitting high notes. You must make sure that your lips are relaxed and loose. Lip trill, a singing exercise for high notes helps you to engage your face muscles and direct your voices at the right places to resonate perfectly.

How to do a lip trill?

Start Your Day Like a Singer! | Tutorials Ep.1 | Vocal Exercises – Lip Trill

Begin with inhaling sufficient air and buzz your lips. To make lips relaxed you can lift your cheeks ever so slightly with your fingers as shown in the video. You may feel a little itching around your lips. Don’t stop! You’re on the right path. Now gradually try to buzz thought pitches and widen your vocal range with these exercises using lip and tongue trills.

Lip/ tongue trills help you quickly Warm up your voice and relax your vocal chords. I always start my warm-up routine with lip trills.

2. Octave Jumps

Octave is a musical concept which spans out for 8 notes. With that being said octave jump is literally jumping from tonic to 8th note. It was a little difficult for me to avoid nasality when I initially started practicing this excellent vocal exercise for high notes. So keep an eye out to not engage your nasal tone.

You can try these vocal exercises for high notes in the sounds of vowels, or using solfege( Do re mi fa sol la ti do) or even numbers (12345678).
Humming the notes and making sure you feel a buzz in your cheek area is one of the effective ways to do vocal exercises for hitting high notes.

You wouldn’t believe that octave jumps in the descending order have helped me resonate my sound in the right places. Here is an exercise for you to try.

3. Arpeggios- Up and Down

You must have heard this word thrown around a lot. So let’s begin with what is an Arpeggio? When a chord’s (chord is two or more notes played together) notes are played or sung one after the other instead of all at once, it’s called an arpeggio in music.

Let’s start with an easy progression of an arpeggio in C major.
The image shows an arpeggio in an Ascending order. Now try to sing it on a comfortable vowel sound (such as “ah” or any vowel sound”).
For now connect all the notes when you practice this one of the best exercises for high notes

Sing the arpeggio gradually and evenly, paying attention to your tone and pitch the entire time. You can try reverse arpeggios for better results.

4. Sirens

Sirens are simply one of THE best exercises for high notes. Any vocal tutor would agree with this.

Yes, you are thinking right. It is exactly like what we hear from an ambulance or a factory.

A “siren” sound is produced by starting at a low pitch, smoothly sliding up to a high pitch, and then sliding back down again. Keep your tone constant throughout the sirens and concentrate on coordinating your head and chest voices.

5. ‘Humming’ and ‘Nga’

When I start working out a piece, I hum through the entire piece to check for a consistent tone in high and low notes. I stop at high notes and ‘nga’ those notes to check for any tension in the muscles. This can be one of my best exercises for high notes.

You can start by humming a basic scale at your comfortable pitch, and start your way up to higher pitches. This would be the best place to start if you are new to humming.. As you get more comfortable, you can progressively increase the keys and try to extend your vocal range

While you hum any vocal exercises for high notes, feel the vibrations in your face and in your cheeks. By maintaining a relaxed jaw and neck, you can really get a nice resonant sound that freely resonates in your sinuses and nasal cavities..

Whenever you feel that there is a tension in your jaws or neck muscles, immediately try those high notes with ‘Nga’. this will help you relieve the tension and open up to keep practicing exercises for hitting high notes.

Closing Thoughts

Always analyze your body movements while practicing vocal exercises for high notes. If you feel any pain or discomfort, stop right away and get advice from a voice coach. So, enroll with us today!