High notes are often the bane of a singer’s life. Great high notes can make the difference between an amazing performance that brings the crowd to its feet, or a mediocre one that barely gets noticed. Even great singers like Jennifer Hudson sometimes miss the mark, as seen on a performance of the National Anthem by Ms Hudson where she was straining so much throughout the song that the final climactic high notes of the song were omitted completely, and the song faltered to a very uninspiring end, with the singer looking very embarrassed. Jennifer Hudson is a great singer and usually she can certainly sing some wonderful high notes. What happened?
Any singer can get off track sometimes, and lose the balance between lower and upper register. In this case, the issue was a result of pushing the chest voice too high, along with a very tight and high larynx position. You could see the strain in her throat as she lifted her chin, threw her head backward and really tried to muscle those high notes out.
To me, this is rather like driving a beautiful luxury automobile 90 miles per hour in first gear. Not a good use of an amazing instrument.
Great high notes are the result of good planning. It’s like shifting gears in an automobile- if you drove your car 90 miles per hour in first gear, you would probably burn out the engine. You need to shift to a higher gear as you increase your speed in a car. In the same way, the singer has to shift and release to a different vocal cord coordination as they go higher in pitch, or else run the risk of damaging the voice. The key is in knowing when to shift. Another analogy I use is the idea of being on a five-lane freeway in rush hour, and knowing your exit is coming up. You must start making your way to the inner lane in time to make the exit, if you don’t want to miss it completely (or make a lot of people really mad as you cut across traffic).
In the same way, a singer has to plan to start releasing to an “upper register” coordination sooner rather than later in a song, rather than pushing the chest voice up too high. You have to know where your bridge is (the transitional notes that connect your lower register to your upper register), and you have to make sure you enter that bridge area (like the exit on a freeway) in time so you can sing your high notes with ease and power, rather than straining while pushing the chest voice too high.
With a reinforced and strong upper register (which we call the mix) a singer will have high notes that sound just as powerful and strong as their “chest voice” low notes do, but without the strain and possible public embarrassment of trying to sing high notes in a lower register coordination, which sounds like yelling and often fails to function at crucial moments.
Learn to bridge and mix correctly, and your high notes will be there when you need them!
I wish you all the best as you reach for your dreams! Tricia Grey, MM
