So you want a wider range when singing? Welcome to the club. 

If you feel you could use higher and lower notes in your little vocal cords - I've got you. In this article I will explain which vocal exercises to increase range. Of course, we also have a tutorial you can sing along to.

This article is part of my Singing Techniques & Exercises guide, where I break down the skills that make your voice easier to control and more expressive. Here, we’ll zoom in on range.

How to increase your vocal range, in short

Your range grows when you stop forcing it. Every exercise below rests on the same simple idea, done in this order:

1. Free your airway. Release the jaw, neck and shoulders.

2. Gently close the vocal cords. Aim for a clear sound, not a breathy one.

3. Support the sound with steady breath.

Then take whatever feels good in your comfortable range and do the very same thing as you head higher or lower, just a little bigger and a little quicker. That's the whole secret. The exercises are how you practise it.

Don’t do a vocal split right away!

Before doing these range exercises, I recommend that you do a short bodywork session and a light vocal warm-up first. Like a smart dancer, you don't want to go directly to a split before doing some gradual and basic stretches. Your voice needs to be a little bit warmed up before we can expand our range.

The real challenge with vocal range exercises

Anyone can press play and sing along to the exercises I gave you. But here is what will be difficult, yet critical: 

1. Patience: no straining. If the note is not comfortable, do not sing it. We’ll talk about how to eliminate straining a bit later.
2. Pay attention. While singing, mind how the throat feels, where the air goes, where the vibrations of the voice are, what is the body doing when it feels good. You want to learn that. 
3. Insist on the mechanism which feels good as you go through the range. If it’s not it - stop. Go back a step, do it again. Don’t continue the wrong way, don’t just push or force it. It will not get you far.

Ok, here are my four favourite exercises to expand vocal range.

0:25 in the above video. If the lip trills are hard, you can also do a rolled R or use the NG, as in 'tongue'. First make a sound, without a certain pitch. Go from a low pitch area to high and back, with a slide. Don't jump up and down. Imagine a siren noise. We'll go a whole octave: 1-8-1. To prevent ourselves from tightening muscles in our throat in the upward motion of the slide, we can throw our hand back, as a nice trick for releasing the muscles.

5:48 in the above video. The vowel i is a good one to start on. If this is challenging you can try it on u, as in You. I recommend having a vertical opening of the mouth for the i, instead of most people's default which is to stretch the lips to the sides and barely open the mouth. Work with a mirror if you don't know how to do that yet. Think of opening the jaws in the back as I show in the video (also for the u). 

8:44 in the above video. As you say the baby sound waaa, make sure you have nice lifted cheeks and a dropped jaw. I call it the bad-ass face. Your voice has a bit of squeakiness in it - that's the twang (the professional word for squeaky!) and it helps with closing the cords and keeping the clear, connected quality as we go lower and higher in the range.

10:57 in the above video. The less you think about going up and down, the better. You can think sideways, or backwards. Just replace that up-and-down motion with a different direction (the more often the better, on every note is best), this way you will be able to go higher AND lower without straining. 

The real secret: do the same thing, just bigger

Here's the part most singers miss. A wider range doesn't come from doing something special on the high or low notes. It comes from doing the exact same thing you do in your comfortable range, and simply scaling it up as you head for the edges.

So pick one thing that feels good in your easy range. Maybe it's the hand throw from Exercise 1, maybe it's opening the jaw in the back, maybe it's keeping that bit of twang. Then, as you go higher or lower, don't change it. Do more of it. The higher you go, the further your hand drops, the wider you open. And, importantly, the quicker you start the movement.

Why quicker? Because the further you get from your comfort zone, the more your old habits want to sneak back in. Starting the movement fast doesn't give them the chance. You just do your thing, like a friendly robot, and let the note happen.

That's it. Bigger and quicker, same action. This one idea will do more for your range than any single exercise.

Meet 'George' (stop reaching for the notes)

There's a part of your brain whose only job is to set your vocal cords to the exact length each note needs. Longer and thinner for high notes, shorter for low ones. I call him George, and he's very good at his job.

The trouble starts when we try to do George's job for him. We reach up with the throat for high notes, or push the head and tongue down for low ones. None of that actually changes the pitch. It just adds tension right where the voice needs to be free.

So as you do these exercises, leave the notes to George. Your job is only to free the airway, close the cords, and support. Make the space, and let George find the note. You'll be surprised how much further you can go once you stop helping.

Don't forget the low notes

Most range talk is about going higher, but the bottom of your voice deserves attention too. And the mistake down low is the mirror image of the one up high: instead of reaching up, people push the head and tongue down to chase low notes. Same problem, opposite direction. It adds tension and it doesn't help.

Low notes come from shorter, looser cords, and that happens best when you're relaxed, not when you're forcing the voice down. Keep the same free, supported feeling you use everywhere else, and let the note settle on its own.

A lovely way to find your true bottom is vocal fry, that low, creaky morning sound. Start there, then let it bloom into a gentle low note. It shows your voice the basement without any pushing.

The bridges: keep going when the sound disappears

As you move through your range you'll pass over bridges, the connection points between your low, middle and high registers. We all have two of them. For a lot of people this is where the voice cracks, thins out, or briefly vanishes altogether.

Here's the thing to know: that wobble is normal, and you don't have to stop for it. My own mother always told me she hit a ceiling at a certain point going up. So one day I had her keep going with the warm-up even though, for a few notes, no sound came out at all. She kept gently going, and the voice came back on the other side, higher than before.

So when you reach a bridge and the sound gets shaky or disappears, don't panic and don't push. Keep doing your same gentle thing, trust the voice to return, and more often than not, it does.

A quick word on registers

All of this lives inside your registers: chest down low, head up high, and the mix that blends them. A big part of widening your range is letting your voice shift between these gears smoothly, instead of dragging your chest voice up until it shouts. I go deep on this in my guide on how to sing high notes, including the mix voice that makes the top of your range feel easy.

Once your range feels free and connected like this, the next thing singers usually want is expression — and the most-asked-about is vibrato. When the voice is relaxed and supported, it tends to appear on its own; here's how to develop a natural vibrato.

When will I hear results?

These exercises will expand your range over time. Don’t expect immediate results: the vocal cords are muscles, after all, like any other. No one session will change your muscles, but they are capable of stretching and changing. 

Is there no magic trick, really?

Okay, okay, I have something for you. If you want more range quickly, and to go easily to lower and higher notes, there is a way which will speed up your progress times 20. And that is yoga. Have you ever tried singing while doing yoga? You should start, you’ll know what I mean. In general, you’ll give this range tutorial its best chance by eliminating muscle tension around your instrument. So give these poses a try! 

Where in my practice session should these vocal range exercises go?

As you may know, I advocate for a 4 part practice structure, which is both motivating and effective: 

1. Bodywork
2. Warm-up
3. Vocal technique
4. Sing-through

You can read more on the article: how to practice singing at home.

This tutorial counts as the technique part, as in part 3, vocal technique. As I said, don’t skip the vocal warm up. You can do this tutorial as your part 3 or in addition to working on your song. And don’t forget part 4 - singing for fun, that’s also very important!