Up, up (and down, down) and away!

We spent some time this talking about range and making the best of our voices by extending the range.

The top tips we talked about for extending our ranges upwards were

1. Keep your throat very relaxed - no tension!
2. Relax your jaw and let your mouth open in a North/South direction.
3. Expand your throat - (imagine trying to swallow an orange or a small grapefruit!
4. Make sure you breathe well, low down in your abdomen (front and back) and then concentrate your efforts on supporting the sound from your tummy - focus on breathing better rather than the notes and you will be amazed at the improvement!
5. Check your posture! It should be relaxed - shoulders down - hands relaxed too! Pleasant facial expression (Baritones too!) and make sure your whole body is relaxed.

Please, please remember that if you are thinking about this at home.

Always start your exercises in the middle of your range and move up in semi-tones - this will allow your voice to warm up gradually

• Move quickly through the higher notes - this is much easier on the voice and prevents stresses
• Do not sing high phrases for too long
• Don't sing too loudly - a "taste" of higher pitches stretches the range much better than long durations

We also looked at the bottom of our voices

The highlights of this part of our work were-

1. Practice gliding down - make a Mmm sound buzz at the front of your mouth on a comfortable pitch in the middle of your range and then slide down by a fifth, gradually opening your mouth as you do so. A helpful way to recognize a fifth is to hum the second and third notes of Twinkle twinkle little star, which is a familiar 5th. The third note then the second note sung in that order is the interval we are looking for.
2. Keep your throat relaxed and open!
3. Make sure you breathe well, low down in your abdomen (front and back) and then concentrate your efforts on supporting the sound from your tummy - focus on breathing better rather than the notes and you will be amazed at the improvement

Gliding down like this helps to even out the sound quality in the lower part of your voice.

• The poorer pitches start to sound more like the better pitches
• Lower pitches no longer have a completely different character from higher pitches
• You will learn how to sing more lyrically without jumping from timbre to timbre as the pitches move about.

These exercises are for everyone because as you work on the lower part of your range you will notice that the middle parts start to sound richer too!