Hi Jeff. Thanks for this great exercise. I found it is difficult to sustain high notes, so I added this one to my daily training. After 2 weeks, I have seen a significant improvement for me on these notes, as I can sing this excise without strain. Now I can even sing these long notes, while I am doing something else at the same time.
this never fails…..I was sick for a while and I had lost my voice….but doing these has brought my voice back…..love you and ur videos man….❤️… Still strong and doing vocal workout 👍
It DOES HELP!!🤘🏻 Your warm-ups have brought me back to my university vocal training memories. Muscle memory has been retained by doing these excellent displays of your talent to get me to sing!
Hi Jeff, Thanks for this fabulous video. Im a high tenor and I sing recreationally. I love singing R&B songs by Chicago, Ambrosia and Classic Motown. I still struggle with the transition from chest to head voice, while maintaining accurate, full pitch, as I ascend into the high notes, but I believe this video will help me to improve my performance. Thank you for your generosity!
Just wanted to thank Jeff and also let you know, his "High Note Boot Camp" is fantastic and well worth getting in when he offers enrollment again. It's opened up my voice to sing in ways I didn't know I could. Well done Jeff, thank you!
Hi Jeff! I am still using video. I came from your vocal agility video where someone suggested speeding it up to 1.25x for more challenge I did the opposite here and slowed it for a longer sustain. Thank you for your support. I am performing at Berklee later this month thanks to you!
Oh boy I always return to this video, this is a masterpiece for a beginner like me….I just love this video and I use this video to practice daily…I just can’t get over this …thank you so much my man 😭 This video has improved me sooooooooooo much I can’t even type it in words
This exercise is the absolute BEST!!! The exercise was difficult to start with but I focused on placement and breath control and it helped me make it through. This exercise will be my official mid-day daily trainer!!!
Also, love the range of different warm-ups you have. Your site is a really great resource. You've helped me immensely! A lot of the other youtube vocal sites are gimmicky promising one easy 'Trick" or some other B.S. baitclicky thing. I like that you just focus on really training the voice rather than some notion of instant gratification .
@@JeffRolka how long and frequently do you recommend practicing a day? I want to go through as many videos as i can per day since youve constructed them so effectively (as seen from the content + length of each video), but obviously dont want to strain my voice by going overboard.
Thanks for all your great videos. I just discovered you yesterday, and your videos will be a part of my daily practice going forward. I only discovered last year that I actually have a decent singing voice, and I'm 66. I recently began taking lessons, and now I'm joining a barbershop choir tonight! I've been practicing in preparation for tonight's rehearsal, and the big challenge I'm facing are the long-held notes that are common in barbershop style. The issue is both having sufficient breath and staying on the note without wavering. Can you recommend any exercises that would help?
Hi Jeff. I just finished going through the warm up for tenor range and found it to be very helpful. It looks like I need a lot of work on relaxing my throat to reach the top notes at a quieter volume. Would you say that going through the exercises at a speaking volume is what I should aim for? I have a tendency to get loud and it wears me out. Thanks for the lesson. And, thanks to Freya Casey for having you show us some exercises on her channel.
That's a great question. As airflow increases (really sub-glottic air pressure) on ascending phrases, it is natural for the voice to resonate more and get a bit louder. Volume, however, isn't the answer, it's the consequence of a well aligned well functioning system. If you're getting worn out, you may be trying to use volume to get the notes, which is ultimate self-defeating. Focus on engagement, volume alignment, and vowel modification. All the best! Jeff
Hello Jeff! Thank you so much for your video. I need your help with this video. Sorry for messes with language if it will. I when I go to G or G# first or second time - it's going fine, I can sing with mixed voice pretty smooth. But after 2-3 times I got it my voice starting to feel tired and shaken. I can avoid that only if I doing 2.5-5 min breaks. After a time (2 weeks) I feel that I need shorter breaks, but maybe I just should do it in one take and start to go falsetto at long G and G#? Hope you will read it. Again, thanks for your videos! It made so much for my vocal!
Great exercise there Jeff! I wanted to let you know that I'am not able to go all the way till the end in the last exercise . Should I keep practising and hope to see the results gradually ?
Great observation. Yes, but take it in stages. Go over to another video, maybe one on agility, and then come back to this video and work on it some more over the course of a few days. The acquisition of news or enhanced skills in music is rarely a linear study. Which is to say, working on other things and then coming back for review will often yield good results and less frustration. I hope that helps! Jeff
ufff...towards the end there my voice cracked so bad when i was coming down from head voice to chest voice...what exrcises do i do to ensure that transition is smooth? You are helping me make some serious progression... Thanks... bless ya! I wil surely up my patreon donations soon...
Thank you for watching and singing along! The important thing is that you're making the transition. Some exercises are better at working on this than others, but if you're making it happen, focus on your engagement as you descend. By engagement I mean breath support. When you start the descent, make a conscious effort to re-engage or refresh your effort. With a little practice that can help. Best, Jeff
Hey Jeff, In the last 3 exercises 8:00 I tend to sing it sort louder the higher it goes,…I don’t know how to stop or how to sing it quietly (when I sing it quietly it becomes airy and is a head voice)…any suggestions?
Great question! Thanks for watching and subscribing! It depends on how you're singing it and your intention. We need more subglottic airpressure and a bit more airflow as we ascend. If we have release in the aural cavity (mouth and soft tissues there) resonance is going to increase. You will get louder. But if you're belting, and that isn't your intention, then there's still too much tension around the vocal folds to allow for a smooth transition to voce piena in testa (the sound of chest voice in head voice) which is the goal of much of my teaching. The airyness is the vocal folds separating. Cool if that's what you want, not cool if not. Generally it's a good sign that you don't have enough breath energy or that there's too much vocal fold engagement for the elongation to occur. Or, it could be both. I hope that helps! Best, Jeff
So, I have no problem with holding high notes, even very high ones(Full voice D to E); what I need is to learn how to sing higher with less voice pressure and or got to pianissimo from loud high notes. What specific exercise or instruction can you point me to?
I primarily advocate making the incremental adjustments through the zona di passaggio in order to facilitate a smooth transition over the secondo passaggio. The location of your secondo passaggio will dictate how much or how little of that is appropriate at a given range. I'm sorry for being so technical, but the language in your question gets used differently by different schools of pedagogy. As I have no idea what your frame of reference is, I've used the default descriptions taken from bel canto, which are fairly standardized. I hope it helps!!! Best! Jeff
@@JeffRolka I think I get what you're saying. Pretty much, I shouldn't stay in one register until I physically can't because that'll make the register switch very noticeable and jarring. Instead, I should start to switch before it's absolutely necessary to make it all smooth. That sound right?
I release that info along with the PDFs on patreon, here's a link: www.patreon.com/jeffrolka Alternatively - you could work on your ear training at the same time as doing your vocal warm up, by using a free piano app. There are numerous free piano apps for mobile devices or you can try this website: www.musicca.com/piano Just so we're clear, I have no affiliation with that website. When you come to a note in question, just pause the video, but keep singing the note. Pluck around on the piano until you find it, and then of course, you'll know the note. Doing this at the beginning of a sequence, and then again when I turn around and start coming back down will give you the range. It is important to make these associations as vocalists, so that we come to know the physical feeling of the range that notes are in. All the best, Jeff
I did this one today as well as a few other ones. During the warmups I felt pretty okay. Afterwards though, I was struggling with the G in Ich Grolle Nicht and the one in Anthem from Chess. I know my passaggioss are both higher than a baritone passaggio (at least according to the teacher i’m studying with next year, Mark Oswald, he considers me a lower lyric tenor) but the high notes never feel too easy. My F feels very different than my F# and G. Any advice? or would just doing this exercises and your other range ones daily help after a few weeks whenever I explore rep like the ones I mentioned? I also find it’s hard to maintain steady vibrato up there. Perhaps I’m not truly crossing the second passaggio very well?
Great question. Excellent observations on your singing voice! It's hard to say, and I would imagine your teacher has more to say about the whole thing, but from the way you're describing it, between the lack of vibrato and experience around the f above middle c it does sound as if there's a bit of an imbalance. The lack of vibrato is a pretty good giveaway that some amount of vocal fold engagement is in excess of the what would be the best balance. That engagement, however, must be balanced with adequate sub-glottic air pressure in order to work properly. In other words, if your 'support' isn't quite right then slight difficulties over the secondo passaggio can occur. This is not to say that you need to re-invent the wheel, just that it sounds like it's just not quite in balance. I hope that helps! Perhaps try the phrases in your repertoire with the super lip trill and see if you notice any difference. Best, Jeff
Can u please please please make a video which goes more higher than this, pleaseeeeeeee at least consider making one. Like I really am trying to mimic my fav singer to improve my voice like Ik I can never sound like him cus am not him but ur wat I mean right It would be realllyyyyy cooooool if u consider making a video which goes higher than this Thank you :) and as always this helped a lot ❤️
I'm happy to do that, but there are already quite a few on the channel. For example: ruclips.net/video/LRwkwCgjSco/видео.html ruclips.net/video/sMVLdNOsiZw/видео.html ruclips.net/video/WrJcsAOHo10/видео.html ruclips.net/video/AMwHzX56eLg/видео.html And you can always use an alto or mezzo video from a series you like. The exercises are the same, but keyed higher, and the exercises will only give consideration to the registration events in those fachs, but if you're singing that high anyway, your registration event technique should be good enough to manage it. Best! Jeff
Such a kind teacher. (Glad he can’t hear me though!)
Lol! Tell me about it…
Hi Jeff. Thanks for this great exercise. I found it is difficult to sustain high notes, so I added this one to my daily training. After 2 weeks, I have seen a significant improvement for me on these notes, as I can sing this excise without strain. Now I can even sing these long notes, while I am doing something else at the same time.
this never fails…..I was sick for a while and I had lost my voice….but doing these has brought my voice back…..love you and ur videos man….❤️…
Still strong and doing vocal workout 👍
Big love back at you! Thanks for watching and thanks for posting this! Keep it up!
Jeff
It DOES HELP!!🤘🏻 Your warm-ups have brought me back to my university vocal training memories. Muscle memory has been retained by doing these excellent displays of your talent to get me to sing!
Awesome! Thanks for watching and thank you for subscribing! Enjoy!
Jeff
Hi Jeff, Thanks for this fabulous video. Im a high tenor and I sing recreationally. I love singing R&B songs by Chicago, Ambrosia and
Classic Motown. I still struggle with the transition from chest to head voice, while maintaining accurate, full pitch, as I ascend into the high notes, but I believe this video will help me to improve my performance. Thank you for your generosity!
Oh boy. That's hard. And just what I need. Thanks Jeff.
Just wanted to thank Jeff and also let you know, his "High Note Boot Camp" is fantastic and well worth getting in when he offers enrollment again. It's opened up my voice to sing in ways I didn't know I could. Well done Jeff, thank you!
Yay! Awesome!
Jeff
Really enjoyed this one! I was sick last week and stopped singing for a few days. Getting back to your workouts makes my voice feel great again!
Wonderful!
Hi Jeff! I am still using video. I came from your vocal agility video where someone suggested speeding it up to 1.25x for more challenge I did the opposite here and slowed it for a longer sustain. Thank you for your support. I am performing at Berklee later this month thanks to you!
Awesome! Break a leg!
I'm now a subscriber to your website and will be making a donation soon, thank you for the wonderful training!! Greetings Cedric
Oh boy I always return to this video, this is a masterpiece for a beginner like me….I just love this video and I use this video to practice daily…I just can’t get over this …thank you so much my man 😭
This video has improved me sooooooooooo much I can’t even type it in words
You're welcome! Glad to be of service!
Jeff
Thank you Jeff. I really enjoy. As a guitar teacher, I appreciate quality teaching . From now on, you are my n. 1 Teacher.
Great, allways...Thanx
Excellent stuff Jeff.
You're one of the best on RUclips, I'm a fan of your work
Thank you! much! I appreciate it!
Well helpful as always, I like em. Good for me I can do all of em :D
Thank you so much. Won’t forget u !!
Thank you for your lesson
Now I’m feeling much better while singing
This was really difficult to me, but I'll keep training. Thanks a lot for sharing your videos.
Great lesson Jeff! This is perfect for improving breath management. Thank you, Matt
Awesome! Happy to help!
Thank you for sharing your videos. They are a huge help:)👍
This exercise is the absolute BEST!!! The exercise was difficult to start with but I focused on placement and breath control and it helped me make it through. This exercise will be my official mid-day daily trainer!!!
Cool, very useful. And first comment, nice! Enjoy your videos, Jeff, they're so helpful! Thank you!
great excercise! thanks!
Desde colombia, ¡gracias!
Thanks
More like this! Great video.
Also, love the range of different warm-ups you have. Your site is a really great resource. You've helped me immensely! A lot of the other youtube vocal sites are gimmicky promising one easy 'Trick" or some other B.S. baitclicky thing. I like that you just focus on really training the voice rather than some notion of instant gratification
.
Ridiculously useful vids. Do you have vocal range extension tutorials?
ruclips.net/video/erFjTGWia5U/видео.html
ruclips.net/p/PL2mQP7sE6PHjHyIC-q4iZYjTUYnu5Nd9o
@@JeffRolka how long and frequently do you recommend practicing a day? I want to go through as many videos as i can per day since youve constructed them so effectively (as seen from the content + length of each video), but obviously dont want to strain my voice by going overboard.
Perfect perfect!!!
wow great!!! thank you from México
Great vid as always thanks!
Thanks for all your great videos. I just discovered you yesterday, and your videos will be a part of my daily practice going forward. I only discovered last year that I actually have a decent singing voice, and I'm 66. I recently began taking lessons, and now I'm joining a barbershop choir tonight! I've been practicing in preparation for tonight's rehearsal, and the big challenge I'm facing are the long-held notes that are common in barbershop style. The issue is both having sufficient breath and staying on the note without wavering. Can you recommend any exercises that would help?
I would defer to your private teacher's analysis, but you might try this warm up:
ruclips.net/video/QLQCXXlPvP0/видео.html
Jeff
Sweet!!!
Hi Jeff. I just finished going through the warm up for tenor range and found it to be very helpful. It looks like I need a lot of work on relaxing my throat to reach the top notes at a quieter volume. Would you say that going through the exercises at a speaking volume is what I should aim for?
I have a tendency to get loud and it wears me out.
Thanks for the lesson. And, thanks to Freya Casey for having you show us some exercises on her channel.
That's a great question. As airflow increases (really sub-glottic air pressure) on ascending phrases, it is natural for the voice to resonate more and get a bit louder. Volume, however, isn't the answer, it's the consequence of a well aligned well functioning system. If you're getting worn out, you may be trying to use volume to get the notes, which is ultimate self-defeating. Focus on engagement, volume alignment, and vowel modification.
All the best!
Jeff
@@JeffRolka thanks so much for answering my question. I'll work on that for sure.
Have a good one.
Wallace
@@JeffRolka can you explain what you mean by engagement and volume alignment?
-Jeff, an advanced musician: Take really good care of your voices.
-Me, a rookie: LOL. I'mma die hitting those high notes and I cannot care less.
Hahaha that's me karaoke night just give it hell! Air supply and Bon Jovi's hahaha
Hello Jeff! Thank you so much for your video. I need your help with this video. Sorry for messes with language if it will. I when I go to G or G# first or second time - it's going fine, I can sing with mixed voice pretty smooth. But after 2-3 times I got it my voice starting to feel tired and shaken. I can avoid that only if I doing 2.5-5 min breaks. After a time (2 weeks) I feel that I need shorter breaks, but maybe I just should do it in one take and start to go falsetto at long G and G#? Hope you will read it. Again, thanks for your videos! It made so much for my vocal!
Im an alto but this was fun
Can ya tell me the highest note your hitting is ?
Great exercise there Jeff!
I wanted to let you know that I'am not able to go all the way till the end in the last exercise .
Should I keep practising and hope to see the results gradually ?
Great observation. Yes, but take it in stages. Go over to another video, maybe one on agility, and then come back to this video and work on it some more over the course of a few days. The acquisition of news or enhanced skills in music is rarely a linear study. Which is to say, working on other things and then coming back for review will often yield good results and less frustration.
I hope that helps!
Jeff
@@JeffRolka Copied that Jeff. Much love from India!
0:52
ufff...towards the end there my voice cracked so bad when i was coming down from head voice to chest voice...what exrcises do i do to ensure that transition is smooth? You are helping me make some serious progression... Thanks... bless ya! I wil surely up my patreon donations soon...
Thank you for watching and singing along! The important thing is that you're making the transition. Some exercises are better at working on this than others, but if you're making it happen, focus on your engagement as you descend. By engagement I mean breath support. When you start the descent, make a conscious effort to re-engage or refresh your effort. With a little practice that can help.
Best,
Jeff
Hey Jeff,
In the last 3 exercises 8:00 I tend to sing it sort louder the higher it goes,…I don’t know how to stop or how to sing it quietly (when I sing it quietly it becomes airy and is a head voice)…any suggestions?
Great question! Thanks for watching and subscribing!
It depends on how you're singing it and your intention. We need more subglottic airpressure and a bit more airflow as we ascend. If we have release in the aural cavity (mouth and soft tissues there) resonance is going to increase. You will get louder. But if you're belting, and that isn't your intention, then there's still too much tension around the vocal folds to allow for a smooth transition to voce piena in testa (the sound of chest voice in head voice) which is the goal of much of my teaching.
The airyness is the vocal folds separating. Cool if that's what you want, not cool if not. Generally it's a good sign that you don't have enough breath energy or that there's too much vocal fold engagement for the elongation to occur. Or, it could be both.
I hope that helps!
Best,
Jeff
@@JeffRolka wow i see...this helps a ton!! tysm man ily
So, I have no problem with holding high notes, even very high ones(Full voice D to E); what I need is to learn how to sing higher with less voice pressure and or got to pianissimo from loud high notes. What specific exercise or instruction can you point me to?
What is the highest note in this warmup
Should we be belting the top notes or mixing them?
I primarily advocate making the incremental adjustments through the zona di passaggio in order to facilitate a smooth transition over the secondo passaggio. The location of your secondo passaggio will dictate how much or how little of that is appropriate at a given range.
I'm sorry for being so technical, but the language in your question gets used differently by different schools of pedagogy. As I have no idea what your frame of reference is, I've used the default descriptions taken from bel canto, which are fairly standardized. I hope it helps!!!
Best!
Jeff
@@JeffRolka I think I get what you're saying. Pretty much, I shouldn't stay in one register until I physically can't because that'll make the register switch very noticeable and jarring. Instead, I should start to switch before it's absolutely necessary to make it all smooth. That sound right?
What range are these exercises?
I release that info along with the PDFs on patreon, here's a link: www.patreon.com/jeffrolka
Alternatively - you could work on your ear training at the same time as doing your vocal warm up, by using a free piano app.
There are numerous free piano apps for mobile devices or you can try this website:
www.musicca.com/piano
Just so we're clear, I have no affiliation with that website.
When you come to a note in question, just pause the video, but keep singing the note. Pluck around on the piano until you find it, and then of course, you'll know the note. Doing this at the beginning of a sequence, and then again when I turn around and start coming back down will give you the range.
It is important to make these associations as vocalists, so that we come to know the physical feeling of the range that notes are in.
All the best,
Jeff
Can you kindy give a lesson to sing ill be there for you by bon jovi?
I'll have a listen! Thanks!
Jeff
@@JeffRolka Wow! Thank you 😊🙏
The Last two note of the AO are my downfall but it's okay I will obtain those held notes
I did this one today as well as a few other ones. During the warmups I felt pretty okay. Afterwards though, I was struggling with the G in Ich Grolle Nicht and the one in Anthem from Chess. I know my passaggioss are both higher than a baritone passaggio (at least according to the teacher i’m studying with next year, Mark Oswald, he considers me a lower lyric tenor) but the high notes never feel too easy. My F feels very different than my F# and G. Any advice? or would just doing this exercises and your other range ones daily help after a few weeks whenever I explore rep like the ones I mentioned? I also find it’s hard to maintain steady vibrato up there. Perhaps I’m not truly crossing the second passaggio very well?
Great question. Excellent observations on your singing voice! It's hard to say, and I would imagine your teacher has more to say about the whole thing, but from the way you're describing it, between the lack of vibrato and experience around the f above middle c it does sound as if there's a bit of an imbalance. The lack of vibrato is a pretty good giveaway that some amount of vocal fold engagement is in excess of the what would be the best balance. That engagement, however, must be balanced with adequate sub-glottic air pressure in order to work properly. In other words, if your 'support' isn't quite right then slight difficulties over the secondo passaggio can occur. This is not to say that you need to re-invent the wheel, just that it sounds like it's just not quite in balance.
I hope that helps! Perhaps try the phrases in your repertoire with the super lip trill and see if you notice any difference.
Best,
Jeff
I found myself going into my head voice in the higher parts.. is that normal?
That's the whole point! Good work!
Jeff
👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🎶
Can u please please please make a video which goes more higher than this, pleaseeeeeeee at least consider making one.
Like I really am trying to mimic my fav singer to improve my voice like Ik I can never sound like him cus am not him but ur wat I mean right
It would be realllyyyyy cooooool if u consider making a video which goes higher than this
Thank you :) and as always this helped a lot ❤️
I'm happy to do that, but there are already quite a few on the channel. For example:
ruclips.net/video/LRwkwCgjSco/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/sMVLdNOsiZw/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/WrJcsAOHo10/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/AMwHzX56eLg/видео.html
And you can always use an alto or mezzo video from a series you like. The exercises are the same, but keyed higher, and the exercises will only give consideration to the registration events in those fachs, but if you're singing that high anyway, your registration event technique should be good enough to manage it.
Best!
Jeff
@@JeffRolka ahhhh yesss exactly what I needed, thank you so much Jeff ur a big help is an understatement. Ily >:)
The notes are always very low, not challenging enough
Bruh pretty high for me