Tenor singing above high F during lesson 

I started taking Skype lessons with Master Paul, I can only say that the teachings I received, to me are priceless, and allows me to understand his videos at its fullest, and get the very most out of them. I highly recommend, your vocal health is worth it, the videos alone to my experience are not enough, trust your true instinct, you wont regret it, and thank you master.

Falsetto is a really useful tool in voice training. If you can get the voice to move effortlessly between falsetto and chest registers then the more subtle adjustments needed to change pitch in mixed voice will be much easier to accomplish without strain. You can also use falsetto as a pre workout stretch. I would recommend finding a teacher who has a good knowledge of this as it is not easy to find pure falsetto. Most people use a constricted head voice which does not help free the voice.

I don't know if i'm a tenor or a baitone..I find comfortable both...but sometimes i get wrong in high notes and sometimes my low notes dont sound good...my voice seems to be richer with low harmonics, but it can be light too..help

First of all you teach amazing sir. Well i've got a question. My chest voice range D2-G4(comfort zone). With mixed voice i can belt up to A5 and with Falsetto/Head Voice i can go up to D6. But i still don't know my vocal type. And im really curious about how to expand my chest voice? i can belt out till G4. But after G4-G#4 my voice always gets weaken. What is the reason? I will be grateful if you answer my questions...

If you want to hit high notes, absolutely make sure you find yourself a teacher like the one in the video. I am a bass who used unhealthy belting technique and pulled chest up to G#4 frequently. I would always tell people I wasn't straining, because at the time I wasn't. I now have vocal damage and am lucky if I can sustain an F#4. My voice also becomes easily irritated and tired. Learn from my mistakes and know your limits! Not worth killing your voice to sound like a voice type you're not.

@ciociosan The exercises are designed to take the student out of their comfort zone and hopefully achieve vocal release. Matt has perfect pitch when singing repertoire so it is not an issue I need to address in his case. A vocal coach's primary role is to listen out for functional imperfections and correct them. Beauty of tone and good pitch are a side effect of healthy chord function not an end in themselves. There are plenty of bad singers who sing in tune. I've no wish to add to their number!

The truly great tenors build up vocal strength by applying this register training. Listen to any recordings pre 1940 and you will hear this. The tenors of today have very little strength. They sound big on the recordings but live is a different matter entirely.

Sounds like his modal voice ends at around Eb5-E5 (the difference between chest and head becomes less noticeable) but dang that's still really high

@ciociosan Well spotted! Interestingly, pitch is the last thing to be corrected when training a voice in the correct method. An obsession with pitch can lead to throat constriction. Most choir conductors will ask the choir to smile in order to sharpen the pitch but this leads to elevation of the larynx and hence vocal constriction. It is impossible to sing perfectly in tune when one first experiences an open throat. Good pitch will come later once the voice is totally free from constriction.

i can't believe that his voice hits that high! he's amazing!

I can't ever try to sing and chew at the same time!!

he look exactly like Lavezzi , football player, OMG

Please check out my Bass Singing Lesson video as it contains lots of information about the 'Old School' way of singing.

That was a high F#5....That's really high for us men. It's amazing how some of us men are blessed with these high notes. I'm curious at this point.....Has any operatic/classical/belcanto Tenor done an F#5 or possibly a G5? I know that you need an F5 in the Puritani aria in opera.

If nothing else, this surely helps the Iron maiden/ power metal sound.

"Support" messes people up because they mistakenly think of it as an abdominal push or squeeze, rather than an expansion that stretches the diaphragm like the head of a timpani (I know, in the singular it's really timpano). This energizes even a small amount of air so that it vibrates the vocal folds sympathetically, eliminating the need for them to vibrate themselves via the muscles of the throat. It's like the difference between setting a tuning fork on an already vibrating surface vs. whacking it on a table. A retired baritone I work with who teaches this can bend over, exhale all the air that he can without forcing out a second exhalation, stand up and still sing a ringing high C# better than most tenors--this despite his age (70+) and multiple serious chronic illnesses. Every one of his best students that I've known in the last ten years, most of whom were nothing exceptional when they first came to him, are establishing successful careers in the US and Europe.

When the laryngeal mechanism is freely functioning, then the breath becomes regulated and economical eliminating the need for "support" and all extraneous breathing techniques.

I've been looking for someone who understands this method for at least 50 years now and finally found him! I was introduced to this singing method when I was 18 years old but could not find an actual teacher until now. I retired in 2015 and since then have been trying to achieve my life long goal of developing my singing voice and now because of John Paul I can see a path to success. The old adage still rings true "It's Never Too Late". Thanks John Paul!

Maestro Paul, I am a tenor from Nicaragua and I have 23 years old. I would really like to know where are you from or where can I see you to get some classes with. One of the best things a tenor have know is to get those hight notes you teach in an appropiate way..!! Greetings and blessings..!!

I can harmonize with him in some of the falsetto-head voice exercises. But I've never trained to sing in this way, in fact, I've never had a vocal coach. People tell me I'm a tenor, a lyric tenor, but feel I need to practice more my high notes. I uploaded a video here of my "vocal range" but some of the notes are yelled, I don't know how to mix. My lowest note is a G#2, and my highest in chest is A4 (F#4 is more comfortable for me and I reached a C5 in what I think is mix, but sounded a bit falsetto-ish). Falsetto is from G4 to G5 (A5 in a error mine hahah but I don't count it).

I also love how you commented that most people use a "constricted head voice." I call it "squeeze registration." Instead of laryngeal pivot and the healthy rocking of the larynx to stretch the cords longways and keep the thin edges relaxed and free, most singers use a shrill "light and bright more forward" approach that instead constricts and tenses the edges of the cords to raise the pitch by making the edges rigid. It's a distinctly different shrill sound, and it's jaw dropping how you can hear vocal health deteriorate ON THE SPOT as the cords swell!!!! While you were getting a little ambitious with the super high in this video, the actually useful range was coming along beautifully!!!

This is the perfect exercise to blend for a countertenor or any voice type tbh. It works so well, the top down technique.

I had to come back a few weeks after seeing this video and thank you. That ooo-ahh-ooh exercise has clarified so many things for me and make high notes so easy. I've always been able to get up to those B and C notes, but never really knew the right way to do it. And at the end of even a bit of singing, I would lose my lower notes due to inflamed cords. Now I finally understand the appropriate configuration for those higher notes. Now they are shockingly easy. And I've actually gone up to a D5 in full voice, with a similar timbre to the singer above. So I know I'm doing it much more appropriate than I was before. Finally feel like I now am on the right path. Years of sorting out all the confusing messaging, and then I finally found this. I can sing from C4 to C5 without losing/straining my voice. :)

Awesome! I have some health issues in the way at the moment, but it won't be long before I get it straightened out. I will be looking you up for sure.

YES, YES, YES. This is spot on, Jussi. So good to see that there are teachers who have held onto or discovered the proper listening and exercises for addressing functional registration issues before aesthetic ones. Great job!

Hello! I'm an italian student who's studying vocal technique for the first time. My teacher said that I'm a tenor because he found my passaggio around F#4, but maybe I begin to feel a bit strange already on F4. On the lower register I can sing quite easily down to C3, but on B2 I start to feel I'm going into depth. I can sing also an A2 or even a G#2 giving to them almost a normal sound (almost, but not at all) but on G#2 and more on G2 I'm not in my voice. I can sing down to F2 at my best but it's really really bad. Oh, it's important to say that I'm studying modern singing, with a technique called EVT training. Anyways, I feel that high notes are hard to me, and at the moment I can use a voice that I believe is mixed register up to Bb4 or even to B4, but it is not really my voice, 'cause it's really weak... however, it is not falsetto yet. But when I try a C5 I feel that I must use falsetto. Before I started to study singing I could reach B4 shouting but I couldn't keep it for much time. When I speak I have a voice only a bit higher than most of my friends, not that much, but when I sing I usually can sing much higher than them and with a much lighter sound. Furthermore, my teacher told me that I could be suited for R&B but also for pop music. So I'd like to ask you if you believe I'm a tenor like my teacher believes, or if I'm a high baritone or a low tenor like maybe I think. I'm sorry for my English, 'cause I don't know if I made mistakes in my message! And if I'm a tenor, can you tell me which kind of tenor do you believe I am? Thank you for attention!

Your student's voice is great by the way! I love the feel of release you get when you get up around B4 and up

I love the first exercise. The first high pitch is falsetto and the second is in head voice. I might try that one with my high school choir after a yawn-sigh passagio exercise.

Am I a high baritone or tenor? For in the ordinary choir, I think now pragmatically that if such "high baritone" manages to thin out enough so all high notes come out and it blends all well too, then one is good enough as choral tenor,whatever some further reality.

Woah. I hope you get bigger and get more students. Modern Vocal Pedagogy is pure *bullshit* . Too many wimps are produced. We need singers with core, darkness, and huge sounds.

I think I have a similar voice to this guy when I try Classic Singing. I always thought my singing was bad since I lack the strength of Great Tenors but I can reach higher notes. I didn't know it was an "accepted" technique. Thank you for the video. I will apply the tips you gave on it.

First he goes straight to the note in falsetto and then goes the "in maschera" way to the same note, especially in the last one. keep practicing like this. Fabulous!!

After six minutes the singer even got little rasp/compress to some highest notes? Or what it is?Funny looking chin gymnastics also. Nice teaching and straight to the point advices.

I make my throat relax to open throat, i can easily hit high C with chest and high D5 with behind nasal voice (mix). But in some vowel it's being hard cause i can maintain my throat to relax.

이렇게.하면 안되요! 목에.의지하고 있잖아요! 잘못된 레슨! .발성입니다!

Is these excercises good only for tenors, or can these be done with lowers notes for lower voices?

How cool! This has been really helpful for maintaining & expanding my tenoric capacities. More videos to come I hope!

Sometimes I watch this...and realize I'll never be able to hit that high ever lol. He sounds great.

I'm 15(turning 16 in two months) and I'm pretty sure I'm a tenor. The lowest I can comfortably go is an a2 while the other notes below that are growls. I can easily stay in the range of c4-f4 pretty frequent and the highest I've been able to go in full voice is an a4-Bb4(but without warm up it can be pretty sloppy). In falsetto I've been able to hit notes as high as the A5 in Bruno Mars' "Gorilla" comfortably(if warmed up I can hit a b5-c6 in falsetto, but it sounds pretty strong). I wanna be given some points on how to possibly extend my full voice range into the c5-d5-e5 range(also help me to find out do a mixed voice) and also help me clean up my a4-b4 notes so they come out cleaner and less constricted. Also, my falsetto range can sometimes be light when it comes to the b4-d5 range. Could this be a sign of my ability, if I practice, to be able to hit those notes in a more full, richer voice?? Thank you sir if you respond!

Good question! Brett does seem to be aware of the work of Herbert-Caesari who was certainly old (ish) school. I worked with two teachers who were pupils of Caesari so I suppose there is a similarity to the two approaches. A lot of modern classical singing teachers advocate a lowered larynx which I totally disagree with so my approach is probably closer to speech level in that case. I've been very fortunate in having worked with teachers who have a direct link to the great singing of the past.

Ganz oben fehlt die Deckung und der Ton ist zu tief. Aber sonst interessant.

Both teacher and student are great. I wish I had a teacher like him.

Love the vabrato

This is the weirdest vocal exercise I have ever seen. Strange.

I have Problems with my Passagio. i can Hit a A4 Clean, and a B4 but with A#4 i have huuuge problems, i use either to much force or simply mess it up. i have huge larynx problems in my opinion and i think thats why i can't hit higher than B4. what would u guess i am? i have practiced for long time and i can't get the C5 to properly work without pure force. then its half nice and half bad. i cant hit it clean. Larynx raises to high. i don't have Jaw Tension or Tongue tension. but i don't know how to lower my larynx. i have tried everything and every exercise but i have lack of patience over all this time. what vocal fach would you put me in? by the way im 22 years old and i sing PoP,RnB, Soul etc. would love to get some help on this. thank you in advance!

Jussi, very good technique. I have to try it out. Tell me what you think of my A Te O Cara, or A Mes Amis that I recorded at- www.cdbaby.com/cd/eliezerkepecs2

hoowha hoowha , low high no problem for this singer

You're welcome!

Falsetto is a gimmick. They don't make teachers the way they used to.

what is the functional point of these specific exercises? what does it train ?

omg , the way he swithes scales, using falsetto. And his belting is great.

i love watching these lessons and seeing others vocal lessons. I have a question though. I'm a baritone and my highest note on a good day is F4 or F#4 and it always feels like that's as far as I go naturally as far as range, but several classical pieces are written with baritones singing G4 and beyond and I can't see myself going that high ever. Is there anything I can do to help me take out this weighty feeling I get at the top? Something to experiment with outside of lessons?

Brilliant lesson! I started taking lessons about five months ago and I'm loving it, and I appear to be a lyric tenor of sorts. I can sing a C5 comfortably and go higher up, up to G5 and one semitone higher, I am sure it is a very very heady mix or falsetto. How would I be able to tell the difference and is this normal or is this a high voice for a tenor?

@ciociosan You're welcome.

I absolutely adore your comments addressing other comments. I could not agree more with you or applaud you more that pitch follows technique and breath "connection" follows function. The matter of breath connection is properly managing the breath to hold unnecessary breath pressure. If the function isn't lined up right first, the voice will be demanding more air than it will need once it IS lined up, and you'll just be wasting your time because the breath will have to be retrained later!!! This whole politically correct idea of "more abdominal push for 'support'" is a bunch of crock and bull. I applaud you on teaching concepts that WORK!!!

@JussiPaul, I think it's a good method. As a second stage you (or we :) ) need to add and build better (and more) voice breath support. But as I understand you know it, and a little deepen the voice (but not the way that the a,e,i,o ,u will not be clear). Tenor voices are somehow built on a falsetto (on a falsetto muscle), it's the fact. But it doesn't mean if you do a spectral analysis (Fourier transformation) of the sound, but it doesn't mean the sound as a result isn't correct. What you do here, you want him to better use the falsetto muscle. Then better voice support and a little bit deepening the voice and he'll be a professional. There are many misconceptions about falsetto. We need to disgusting falsetto feeling and the real sounds that goes from us. Slight falsetto feeling doesn't mean we sing in falsetto (falsetto spectral sound). The falsetto (falsetto muscle) is just a connection to the rich spectral sound and this is what many professional don't understand.

My vocal range is a C2 to and F5. Chest/Head Voice. I need to practice a lot more though. Where would that vocal range put me?

@hiyadroogs Do you have any links to hear Ben's singing? Only managed to find a Gramophone review of one of his recordings. Where does he teach? Thanks for your comments!

Connection comes later in the training process. If you connect the voice too soon then it is common to experience difficulty in cord mass elimination ie. thinning out the vocal folds. Modern voice training often over concentrates on 'Support' without any knowledge of registration and so the majority of singers today struggle with their high notes. Listen to any recording pre 1940 and you won't hear any strain. True 'Support' will develop once the registers are strong enough to blend throughout.

Love it 😍

@JussiPaul There is a difference between obsession with pitch and simply addressing that, well, to put it simply, the student is not singing on pitch. What is the correct method? We can argue all we can but if the student does not improve or continues to sing off pitch all the time then clearly, there is something wrong. Just my two cents.

I am a female always thought I was Alto but I am beginning to think maybe I am a tenor. I can sing the lowest and also the highest. Is it possibly for a woman to be a tenor?

Awesome!!!

I do not understand the teacher neither addressed nor corrected the student's pitch. Sadly, he just allowed the student to sing.

WOW !!!! Wonderful moment ! Well...the guidance from the trainer is excellent too, we must say

Hey I've got a weird problem^^ I'm not that sure anymore if i'm a baritone... I can hit a good f4 in full voice, sometimes a g4 and a4, but i can't go on any further without my voice timbre changing, i got some "bassy" lows down to e2... There is a weird thing going on around g4, a4, i can go up to a c6, but everything above a 4 sounds very heady, even when it feels connected it sounds like falsetto, but it's loud and very strong, my tenor c is very easy to do, but i'm not sure anymore if i'm baritone or leggiero tenor... I have a very strong head voice and well.. How can i test if i'm leggiero?

is this old-school italian bel canto or a classical approach to speech level singing (Brett manning style ) ??

I was wondering where high notes for a tenor voice strart. My teacher told me they start at an A4 which is where I feel mine start, but she probably said A4 because she noticed that I felt quite low below that. I also wanna know this guy's vocal type, cause it might be the same as mine, probably. Is he a full lyric?

Hello! I am a tenor singer in my church though I am quite new to singing, I have difficulty holding my breath and also in between a song I just loose my voice

Damn, I couldn’t even sing the first oooaaaa

Hello sir, I really enjoyed your video it was very educational. I hope you could maybe give me your opinion on as to what my voice type might be. I was told by my chorus teacher that I was possibly a lyric baritone, because I have a warm voice but it's also agile, and I believe that it is very light. These characteristics lead me to believe I may be a leggero tenor with an underdeveloped voice.I am about 17 years and my range is about B1 to C7. I can sing in chest voice up to about G5 (I think I don't know exactly if I am mixing or if just really light). I can sing into my head voice extremely high and do melisma. My whistle register is only really high on good days. I can tell the difference between my falsetto and head voice, so when I sing high it doesn't feel or sound like it does when I sing into my head voice. I need your help sir please.

Wow warm up mouth voice exercise 🥰

I emailed you today in regards to lessons look forward to hearing from you

interesting, especially the first exercise. Is there a reason to start in falsetto?

Really great guys loved watching this unfold you both have a great-sounding voice.

I hope to someday have the privilege of your training.

F is verry good. I C6 months ago

this is actually helpful!! an almost direct exercise to create that covered sound quality :D

When should we starr using these exercises? Currently I am still doing the pure falsetto (G4 -> B4 -> C2)

I'm interested in learning this. I've reached G#5 but I want more control. Can we try 1 lesson?

Hi, I'm brazilian and I THINK I am a countertenor... I can reach a high G (G5 in piano) in head voice and C5 with belting... What do you think?

Hello teacher, I live in Brazil and my dream is to sing researched a lot. and I am in doubt whether I am a tenor or baritone, many tell me that this is not so important. more I think best know for min feel more confident in what I do a teacher told me that my tone sounds like a heavy tenor my terssitura and vocal range are these lowest note that I make is a B2 and can go with him to an F # 4 with full chest voice, and veses G4 starting this note my voice breaking. will be that this is my passagio more after this f # 4 I'm going to the C6 with falsetto Warning: can not find my head voice confudo me with falsetto and I found the voice of similar tenor with my voice in acute :)

@hiyadroogs you can hit the Bb above c4 incredible!

@JussiPaul You're a very good teacher, Jussi. This is how I was taught the bel canto technique by my maestro, tenor Benvenuto Finelli. From a strangled octave & a 4th when I began trying to sing, & failing to hit Elvis's top notes, - to being assessed as a baritone by my 1st teacher, tenore robusto by the Guildhall School of music, to then finding Ben, - whose exercises you employ eventually led me to hitting the Bb above tenor high C & a full 4 octaves. Functional freedom is everything. : )

I sing tenor 1 in our choir which makes me a lyric tenor, idk, but I can comfortably sustain notes from an F#2 to an E5, after that it gets harder and it thins out up to a B5. I dont like the my mix F5 to B5. Im doing everything I was taught to, and I dont want to lower my larynx for a fake big tone. How can I belt higher without compensating the tonal quality of my voice? This is more subjective though. Lol

Umm... Im practicing to make my head voice sound like my chest, but it doesn't work well. It kind of gives me a feeling that Im stuck on high notes, and if I just go on, it will go to a whistle register. Also, my head voice goes to a hoarse sound lots of times. Unstable. What's the problem?

Andrea Fasoli Reherseal : Mix di prove Pucciniane What do you think about this, Maestro Miles?

Maestro, I saw in a comment below that you offer Skype lessons? I'm a mexican Tenor and I think (maybe, I haven't cleared it out) I have a 3 octaves range, but I would like to hit higher notes, is this possible? Also, I'm intrested in those lessons I mentioned, blessings!

Like that lesson a lot, will try that.

hi, im 16 and im a bass singer (i'm still not certain whether i'm basso profundo or just low powerful bass, but i'm not concerned about names to much) what i am wondering though, is if vocal fry is bad for the voice? i've heard so many different things about it, im not sure.

very interesting

Student sounds so good

@JussiPaul Thank you the explanation.

Very good

How much can I improve my voice in the time after the voice change. I'm 15 at the moment, my lowest note is the C2, my highest chest note about A4 and my head voice ends at A5 maybe. How much will that change in the next years?

Hi. I am 62 yrs old and my first passaggio is at f4 and my second is at a4. What type of Tenor am I?

Sounds like he's a lyric tenor to me cause it seemed like his head voice would have given out had he gone any higher than a D5, i believe he used enforced falsetto to get above said note all the way to the F#5 on that last exercise.

I keep meaning to learn how to sing .... but to me exercises like 2:44 seem designed just to make you look like an idiot.

It's very helpful to me as a begginer, Sir Paul do you have any video lesson about the positioning that needto be consider from head to toe? Is that a falsetto? Thanks for this video

I think I'm a baritone. My speaking voice is around A2 - B2, I can go down to F2, I think, without fry, head voice up to D6 (up to F7 with whistle, but C7 is more consistent), if warmed up properly. Tessitura is G2 up to probably G4, mabye A4. Hitting a C5 would be amazing for me, maybe I could learn to do it with a mixed voice. Then again, because I didn't have a lot of vocal coaching, I think I have ridden myself into bad habits of using too much compression, even for my high tessitura notes. I think, I just completely lack any technique