Higher octave singing

[musicloverrr]

Is there any exercise that help to develop your voice to hit high notes without straining/using false voice ? Also please suggest me some vocal warm up exercise I can do before I begin my practice everyday, if you know any...

[nri]

Not just in higher octaves, but in lower octaves too. In other words, I have problems with identifying a scale that is easy for me in higher and lower octaves. I tend to change my scale for different songs, which I wish not to do
How do I avoid that?

[musicloverrr]

awww. I personally don't have problem with lower octave notes. I sing them with ease. But I always dread singing higher notes as my voice tends to break sometimes. I wish I learn to effectively modulate my voice more. My teacher says I do fine but I feel I can do better because I love singers who sing with a full-throated voice.

I advise you to stick to the same pitch and practice regularly. Hopefully you may be able see some improvement over time.

[nadhasudha]

Is there any exercise that help to develop your voice to hit high notes without straining/using false voice ? Also please suggest me some vocal warm up exercise I can do before I begin my practice everyday, if you know any...

Upper Sthayi varisais are meant for this. Also Akaara Sadhakam(replace the swaras with an Aa sound for all the varisais) should be practised daily as a warmup preferably in the morning in the various melakarta ragas. In addition there are several different voice excercises which has been brought out by Vidwan Shashikiran in his voice management CD.

[srikant1987]

Here are a few relevant words from KVN:

Q: But it doesn't seem to have bothered your voice at all--you have been able to maintain voice fidelity despite this occupational hazard. How have you managed it ?
KVN/A: One thing that a singer shouldn't do is overdo the practice. All this stuff about getting up at four o'clock in the morning and singing in the tarastayi [higher octave] is unnecessary acrobatics. Shouting in tara stayi in the morning should be avoided totally. Early morning practice must be done in mandhara stayi only.

To answer your specific question: the teacher should develop the knack to teach girl students without straining his voice too much. He should give his voice softly and gently so that the timbre of the voice does not break. The other thing, the more important thing, is not to keep singing and yelling along with the student all the time. He must make the student sing the sangati-s many times and confine himself to correcting and guiding them. The principle is the same whether the student is a female or a male. The idea is of course to impart knowledge to someone else; but in doing this, the teacher must be able to reduce the strain on his own voice to the minimum possible. He must lower his sights somewhat and try to teach at a level which the disciple is able to understand. Say, if there's a sangati I'm teaching which the student isn't quite able to catch, I can go on singing the sangati any number of times; the student will probably keep singing it the way he has been able to interpret it. Repetition on my part would be a waste of time. Intelligent guidance is what's required in such a situation. So, I must try and spell out the sangati in a lower tempo, get the student to follow the variation at that tempo, and then ask him to speed it up. If you don't vary your speed but expect him to learn the sangati at the faster pace, he will probably never get around his difficulty.
---
http://www.narada.org/kvn/intview2.html

[srikant1987]

Early morning, just after waking from sleep, we can sing mandrasthAyi which will amaze us.

I am unable to find another interview of KVN's, where he says Ariyakudi would begin with physically simpler piDis, and gradually, gently push himself to harder ones.

We can see the feel-your-way in MMI's singing very clearly. Everything is clear in MMI's music, indeed. I think that after singing for some time in "timid" tArasthAyi or upper mandra sthAyi, we can "feel it" when it's time for open-throated tAra sthAyi.

[ganeshkant]

I think once MSS told that the more you practice mandhra sthAyi proportionately you will be able to sing in thArasthAyi also.

Also once in a DD - MalayAlam interview KJY told that you can improve your range little by little.For e.g after getting perfection to sing up to thArasthAyi M,slowly upgrade to P and like wise.See,some of the HM singers are able to sing full 3 octaves w/o any problem.We have singers like TMK here also who can do that once in a while.

[musicloverrr]

Oh, interesting insights. So what would be the ideal time to practice Tara sthayi? Also can varnams be practiced in the morning?

[nri]

Very useful tips. Thanks to all for contributing. I lock myslef early in the morning (so that sleeping beauties in my house are not disturbed) and practise varNams and Akara varisais. I also find it difficult to sing along with male singers.

[ganeshkant]

The early morning (4-5.30 a.m)will be quite ideal.As a boy I used to hear my elder sister singing akAram of the sarali and jandai varisai.It is a nice thing to hear ! U may practice akAram upto thAra P initially and may try to go further later.U can practice varnams in the above said period.

[thenpaanan]

Is there any exercise that help to develop your voice to hit high notes without straining/using false voice ? ...

This question of how to sing high notes without strain (and if I may add, with the same well-roundedness across the octaves) is a dark space in the practice of CM. You are not alone, a lot of male (and possibly female?) students in CM including yours truly struggle with such a question.

We have heard that yesteryear male vocalists sang at F (4kattai) and yet we struggle at singing tArasthAyi for C (1 kattai) today! It is clear that the mechanics of higher register singing would/should be substantially different but we do not know what they are. Sadly we do not have from those ancestral vidwAns any tricks or practices that enabled them to sing with great felicity in the upper registers.

We seem to have only seemingly unrelated practices (or related only in a general way) such as singing varnams or singing in the morning etc but nothing to help students with specific problems such as this.

A question such as this would be core to a scientific approach to voice culture. I had, with much hope, purchased SAK Durga's lessons on CD for voice culture for CM students but I could not find anything specific to this question there. I hear there are other voice culture experts in Chennai as well. Does anyone know if they have any suggestions on this point?

There are lots of books and exercises from the WCM tradition for this purpose (as a google search will show). There are also lessons for rock/pop music singers who have to hit the high notes often.

Do Indian pop singers have any special tricks up their sleeves I wonder. Some Bollywood numbers are quite high-pitched.

-tenpANan