The Real Reason You Can't Reach Your High Notes (Hint: It's Not Your Range) — Transcript

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1. 0:00If you find yourself doing warm-ups or
2. 0:02singing your songs, and suddenly you get
3. 0:05to a place where your voice kind of
4. 0:08breaks, like you feel like you have to
5. 0:10push through it, or the voice cracks, or
6. 0:14you lose control of the pitch, you just
7. 0:16feel like your wheels are spinning. In
8. 0:19this video, we are going to talk about
9. 0:21why we have so much difficulty moving
10. 0:24through the registers between the chest,
11. 0:27the middle voice, and the head voice,
12. 0:29and what you need to do to adjust so
13. 0:31that you can navigate your whole range
14. 0:34without vocal tension. My name is Kate,
15. 0:36and I've been singing formally for over
16. 0:3830 years. It took me a few decades to
17. 0:42know that the passagio existed and to
18. 0:44understand why I felt like there was a
19. 0:47ceiling with my high notes, and why they
20. 0:49were always tense, and why sometimes
21. 0:51they just broke or cracked, or I just
22. 0:54felt like I couldn't reach them. We
23. 0:57often mistake the passagio as the
24. 0:59ceiling of our voice. In this video, I
25. 1:01am going to show you what you can do,
26. 1:04what I learned, how you can navigate
27. 1:06this passagio. I'm going to help you to
28. 1:08sing with more freedom.
29. 1:11>> [music]
30. 1:12>> Imagine that every day you're going to
31. 1:14work on your bicycle. So, there's this
32. 1:16hill that you're going up every single
33. 1:17day.
34. 1:18You get to a point in the hill where on
35. 1:21your current gear, you feel like you
36. 1:24have to push really hard. Your legs are
37. 1:27starting to get exhausted, and you keep
38. 1:30pushing and pushing through it until
39. 1:32eventually your legs kind of give out,
40. 1:35the wheels stop moving, and you get
41. 1:37stuck. That is one way of approaching
42. 1:40the passagio, and this is what a lot of
43. 1:42people do. You're basically trying to
44. 1:44push through it with a heavier part of
45. 1:47your voice, and not making the
46. 1:49appropriate changes, and so, uh,
47. 1:52you push, you feel hoarse, the voice
48. 1:56strains, the voice cracks, and you feel
49. 1:59like you can't go up the hill any
50. 2:01longer. In another scenario, you're
51. 2:03going up the same hill, so you're like,
52. 2:05"Okay, I think I'm going to need to
53. 2:06lighten my gear." But, you lose control
54. 2:10over the bicycle. You lighten the gear
55. 2:12too quickly, and suddenly your legs are
56. 2:15spinning, the wheels are spinning,
57. 2:17you've lost control. The pitch goes all
58. 2:20over the place, you move to this very
59. 2:22airy place, unsupported,
60. 2:25and you're singing higher, but it feels
61. 2:27really out of control, and it doesn't
62. 2:29feel connected to the rest of your
63. 2:31voice. This is an analogy for the two
64. 2:33common ways that people approach
65. 2:35passaggio. Now, what we want to do
66. 2:37instead is learn to navigate this
67. 2:41smoothly. So, what you want to do is
68. 2:44anticipate the signs. You're going up
69. 2:46the hill every day, right? So, you're
70. 2:48going to look for particular things that
71. 2:51will signal to you that the passaggio is
72. 2:54coming, that this gear shift needs to
73. 2:56happen. Maybe it's a tree. Maybe it's a
74. 2:59stop sign. There are some cues
75. 3:02that you can sense and notice and
76. 3:05observe. Ah, here I'm going to have to
77. 3:07start preparing.
78. 3:09And then, you learn to navigate that
79. 3:12gear change smoothly, so that your legs
80. 3:15keep moving, everything is going up, and
81. 3:19you can make it up to the top of the
82. 3:20hill. And then, you have to do it every
83. 3:22single day. You know, sometimes you'll
84. 3:24feel like, "Ah, today I made it. The
85. 3:26hill, I conquered that hill, it worked."
86. 3:29And then, the next day you come back,
87. 3:31and again you're pushing or you're
88. 3:32losing control and spinning your wheels.
89. 3:35So, part of passaggio work is
90. 3:37recognizing where it is going to occur
91. 3:40in your voice, and then making the right
92. 3:42adjustments beforehand, anticipating,
93. 3:46and then adjusting. Here's a very simple
94. 3:48exercise that you guys can do to locate
95. 3:50your passaggio. If you're a male, you're
96. 3:52going to start down on C3.
97. 3:54>> [music]
98. 3:54>> If you're female, start on C4, middle C.
99. 3:58And you're just going to sing very, very
100. 4:01lightly. Not trying to project fully,
101. 4:04but just very lightly singing.
102. 4:07>> [singing]
103. 4:13>> And what you'll notice is around
104. 4:18the voice wants to go very light. That's
105. 4:21the passagio.
106. 4:22If instead you bring this heaviness up,
107. 4:26>> [singing]
108. 4:33>> it feels like you're pushing and it
109. 4:34doesn't feel good at all. You want to
110. 4:36notice, ah, this is where it happens.
111. 4:39And for males and females, there are
112. 4:41certain mappings of the passagio. For a
113. 4:43lot of women, it's going to be around
114. 4:46that A4 to C5.
115. 4:49For a lot of males, it's going to be
116. 4:52actually this whole kind of octave
117. 4:54between C3 and C4.
118. 4:56There's a lot of changes going on.
119. 4:59Because if you think about the male
120. 5:00physiology compared to the female
121. 5:02physiology, the break is going to be
122. 5:04bigger. The passagio is going to be more
123. 5:08dramatic. You go from singing in a chest
124. 5:11voice to singing into a falsetto or a
125. 5:14head voice, and there's quite a
126. 5:16difference in your sound. For a female,
127. 5:19that transition can be smoother. But for
128. 5:21men, you guys really want to pay
129. 5:23attention to this whole octave. So,
130. 5:28>> [singing]
131. 5:30>> between me, fa, sol, things usually want
132. 5:34to start shifting gears. And then
133. 5:39>> [singing]
134. 5:41>> usually around C do, as well, is where
135. 5:44you are going to experience the passagio
136. 5:46shift. In some cases, if you have a kind
137. 5:50of more tenor range, it might happen a
138. 5:53little higher. It might happen around
139. 5:54D4,
140. 5:57E4.
141. 5:59It depends. It depends on your
142. 6:01individual voice. So, what you want to
143. 6:04do is you want to pay attention and say,
144. 6:06"Okay, I'm not just going to assume
145. 6:09that it's here on this B3 or on this C4.
146. 6:13I want to keep carrying my voice and see
147. 6:16where it starts to feel unstable."
148. 6:18Especially for men, as I said, this is a
149. 6:20little bit more dramatic. So, where does
150. 6:22my voice feel like it wants to go
151. 6:24somewhere else? That's what you want to
152. 6:27pay attention to. So, another exercise
153. 6:29that you can do, male or female, is to
154. 6:32do a chromatic
155. 6:34scale
156. 6:36over an octave. So, we're going to start
157. 6:38actually at C3
158. 6:41or at C4, depending on male or female.
159. 6:43I'll do both. I'll start with male.
160. 6:45And we're going to go up to the E. So,
161. 6:48we're going here.
162. 6:52>> [music]
163. 6:55>> And then back down again.
164. 6:58>> [music]
165. 7:02>> All right. So, what you want to do is
166. 7:05you don't want to sing loudly again. You
167. 7:07just want to make sure that you are
168. 7:08breathing properly, that you've taken in
169. 7:11a deep diaphragmatic breath, where you
170. 7:13can feel the expansion underneath the
171. 7:14rib cage.
172. 7:19And you're just going to hum it. So,
173. 7:21you're going to start here.
174. 7:23This is for men.
175. 7:34Notice where
176. 7:35the hum
177. 7:37feels like it's not quite sure what it
178. 7:39wants to do, where you feel like you're
179. 7:41losing a little bit of vibration, a
180. 7:43little bit of resonance.
181. 7:45And then from here, we're going to come
182. 7:46back down.
183. 7:54>> [music]
184. 7:58>> And begin to notice, observe, where did
185. 8:01you feel a change in your voice?
186. 8:04That is the first step for conquering
187. 8:06that part of the hill. This is your stop
188. 8:08sign. This is your tree. Noticing where
189. 8:11is it? Now we're going to do the same
190. 8:13thing for females starting on C4 going
191. 8:16all the way up to E5.
192. 8:19Now, you want to make sure that that hum
193. 8:21is coming through the hard palate.
194. 8:32And as we're rising, you're going to
195. 8:33feel the hum rising with you. And
196. 8:36eventually it's going to be in the
197. 8:37forehead by the time we get to the top.
198. 8:39If it doesn't get to the forehead, that
199. 8:41means that you're having difficulty
200. 8:44getting through that passagio smoothly.
201. 8:46So here we go.
202. 8:50>> [music]
203. 8:57>> And back down.
204. 9:01>> [crying]
205. 9:05[singing]
206. 9:09>> What did you notice? What did you
207. 9:11observe? Where did your voice feel like
208. 9:13maybe it wanted to change something or
209. 9:15it wanted to go off line or you felt
210. 9:17like you couldn't go any higher. Take
211. 9:19note of that. Write it down. And then
212. 9:21you'll know, okay, this is probably the
213. 9:23passagio. Now another thing that I find
214. 9:26very helpful, I've been working with a
215. 9:27lot of people on passagio in one-on-one
216. 9:30coaching because this is actually one of
217. 9:32the most difficult areas to navigate of
218. 9:34the voice. Coming from the top down
219. 9:37through the passaggio seems to help a
220. 9:39lot of people.
221. 9:41I think again about my bike up the hill
222. 9:43metaphor. It's always harder to go
223. 9:45uphill, right? When you're coming
224. 9:47downhill, it's more about control. It's
225. 9:50more about controlling your speed,
226. 9:52controlling that glide. And so, doing
227. 9:55passaggio work from the top can also be
228. 9:57extremely useful for you.
229. 10:00So, you just start on this E3
230. 10:03and you want to hum. This is for females
231. 10:06hum feeling like you're like a little
232. 10:09bumblebee, like you really feel this
233. 10:10buzzing in the sinuses and the forehead.
234. 10:15>> [screaming]
235. 10:21>> And then you're going to start very
236. 10:22lightly on
237. 10:25>> [screaming]
238. 10:31[singing]
239. 10:32>> coming down chromatically
240. 10:34okay, until you get to middle C.
241. 10:37So, let's try that again.
242. 10:39So, first start with the hum, place the
243. 10:41resonance correctly
244. 10:44and then open up on an ah. Don't make it
245. 10:46loud, keep it very soft, make sure that
246. 10:49you feel the support underneath you. As
247. 10:51you're descending, you should feel like
248. 10:53the diaphragm is starting out extended
249. 10:56and then as you're going it's coming in
250. 10:58with you back into a neutral position.
251. 11:10>> [singing]
252. 11:12>> Okay.
253. 11:14And see if you can do this over time. If
254. 11:16you can come down the hill on your
255. 11:17bicycle without friction, keeping it
256. 11:20smooth, not putting on the brakes. This
257. 11:22is a very gentle way to work that
258. 11:24passaggio, to work on that coordination.
259. 11:27Because what's happening in the
260. 11:28passaggio physiologically
261. 11:31is that your vocal cords and the muscles
262. 11:34around them are going from a place of
263. 11:36being less stretched and thicker to more
264. 11:41thin and more stretched out. Think of a
265. 11:43rubber band as you stretch it out.
266. 11:46Here's a hair elastic. So here we have
267. 11:48kind of the middle of the voice and then
268. 11:50we're doing this. And so it's more
269. 11:52fragile, right? So you don't want to be
270. 11:55putting tons of pressure on that. You
271. 11:56don't want to be putting pressure from
272. 11:58your throat. You don't want to lock this
273. 12:00here. Make sure that on the ah, it's a
274. 12:02very vertical ah.
275. 12:11AH, THERE I FELT THE PASSAGIO. It wants
276. 12:13to lighten. It wants to thin around that
277. 12:15area, okay?
278. 12:17Now we're going to do the same thing for
279. 12:18men.
280. 12:20>> [music]
281. 12:20>> So starting on this E3
282. 12:22Mmm,
283. 12:26you're going to be humming up here.
284. 12:29Mmm.
285. 12:38Coming down. The resonance is going to
286. 12:40come down with you. This is the
287. 12:43passagio, okay? It means passageway. It
288. 12:46is where your voice is shifting gears
289. 12:50and it is something that requires
290. 12:52finesse, that requires practice, that
291. 12:55requires observation, that requires
292. 12:58curiosity about the shifting that wants
293. 13:02to take place within your sound, within
294. 13:05your voice, within the way that you open
295. 13:08in the face. You want to be lifting the
296. 13:10soft palate with a half yawn.
297. 13:12Around and above the passagio to give it
298. 13:14that space that it needs and to rid
299. 13:17yourself of throat tension because
300. 13:20throat tension is pushing up with the
301. 13:23bicycle on the same gear. And on On flip
302. 13:25side, you'll have throat tension, jaw
303. 13:27tension, tongue tension, the tongue
304. 13:28pulling back,
305. 13:30stretching up this way, losing control,
306. 13:32going airy, not feeling the diaphragm
307. 13:35underneath you at all, the pitch going
308. 13:37all over the place. Prepare yourself
309. 13:41for it
310. 13:42and make the adjustments. So, those
311. 13:44adjustments are
312. 13:46making sure you have the proper breath
313. 13:48support, that you're really filling up
314. 13:50the tank underneath and just keeping
315. 13:52this steady.
316. 13:55You want to be thinking everything
317. 13:56lifting. You want to be thinking
318. 13:58forehead, cheekbones up, resonance here,
319. 14:02jaw down and relaxed, tongue against
320. 14:05bottom teeth, half yawn, soft palate.
321. 14:17>> [music]
322. 14:17>> Okay?
323. 14:18And start it from the top, come
324. 14:20downhill. Once you feel like you're more
325. 14:23comfortable with that, then you can
326. 14:24start again from the bottom up as we did
327. 14:26in the first exercises and see, am I
328. 14:28able to change that gear on my bicycle
329. 14:30smoothly? And then, am I able to
330. 14:33condition myself with muscle memory to
331. 14:35do it the same way every single day so
332. 14:38that this no longer becomes a problem,
333. 14:40but this just becomes my path on my way
334. 14:43to work. So, thank you guys so much. Let
335. 14:45me know what you think of this in the
336. 14:47comments below. Let me know if you're
337. 14:48able to follow along with these
338. 14:49exercises with ease. I would love to
339. 14:52hear from you. Thanks so much.
340. 14:54>> [music]
341. 14:59[music]