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Opening Up The High Notes (Singing Teachers)
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Wow, interesting!
So her voice is consistently getting stuck at F4. Which is bizarre, because even if she was chest voice dominant, she should still have at least a good major 3rd above that still in chest. She really seems to give up on G4. To be honest to some degree it sounds like she doesn’t even try for those notes! Or like she can’t hear them properly.One problem is that this song is really wordy and fast. Which probably makes her think she can get away with singing lower notes rather than being in tune, as it moves so quickly from note to note anyway. I mean G4 isn’t even high for an old lady mezzo let alone a young kid. This song almost entirely stays within a chest voice range other than the occasional C in the middle of the song, and the 3 sustains on C at the end, so as much as she definitely needs work opening up head voice, I don’t think it’s the only problem here. This sounds partially like a tuning problem to me. Also I would encourage her to be as soft as she likes and to really listen to the accompaniment.
PS. Wow I just heard 1:51. And she gets it! After the instrumental! Maybe this is partly a nerves thing? I would slow everything right down. I would also give her an exercise where you make up a melody sticking mostly to notes between G4 and C5 (the notes in the song she struggles with), and get her to try learning it as quickly as possible by imitating you. She needs to get used to feeling how awesome and easy it can be to be in tune on those notes so that she knows how to navigate the song a little easier.
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On point Kat
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Totally agree with Kat! To me it sounds like she’s struggling with the pitch and not even trying to reach the high notes. It might be that she is relying on the singer from the backing track, which is why I encourage my students to use backing tracks without original vocals or sing with just piano accompaniment, or a cappella, which enables them to hear better as well as motivates to aim for the right pitch.
Occasionally when a student struggles hitting a particular note, I ask them to do an exercise whereby I play a note and they need to slide onto that note from below or above. This trains their ear and also improves ‘muscle memory’ for a particular note / tone that we’re working on.
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Yes, good ideas there.
I can’t believe I have to tell my students (who are mainly adults!) to practice WITHOUT the original vocal?! And also practice in chunks and only move on when you’re confident.. I had a girl come to me saying “yep, completely fine with Warwick Avenue – if anything, it’s probably too easy for me.” So I said, “great, let’s hear it!” and stuck on a backing track. She couldn’t follow the melody AT ALL.
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Almost There is sounding A LOT better! Thank you all for your input:)
I’m still trying to strengthen the head voice – I’ve tried the opera voice but not with much success unfortunately. She just struggles to get up there and when she does, can only hold the note in head voice for 1 or 2 seconds and then it’s like her cords aren’t closing?
She is now wanting to try ‘Your Song’ by Ellie Goulding but I’m a bit apprehensive…
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