How to Sing Higher Without Strain: Stretching Your Range, Voice Types & the Real Reason You Feel Stuck

In this episode, Sarah tackles one of the most common singer frustrations: how to sing higher without strain. She breaks down voice types, the difference between choral parts and classical fachs, and why many singers limit themselves out of fear around the passaggio (the bridge). You’ll learn why range issues are usually balance issues, not talent problems, and how gentle vocal function stretches and SOVTs can safely expand your range over time. This episode reframes singing higher as something trainable — not something you’re “just not built for.”

Miss the registration date for Group Lessons? Still want to know how to work with me? Click here to join the waitlist so you're the first to know when the next registration window opens 

Want to start working on your mental game so you're ensuring your success? You can now get the FREE Abundant Artist Audio Series!!!

This is the part that REALLY makes you a pro. It will amplify your joy, instill your peace AND keep you in the game. 
This is the literal magic guys. 🦄🧚🏾🪄. I'm not joking it's actually incredible

Prep your mind and nervous system for the success you actually want. Making sure you don't sabotage your own success. Making sure you stay in YOUR creative JOY. Operating as the artist and professional you ALREADY KNOW you are meant to be but need to REHEARSE so it actually comes to fruition. 

Sign up HERE to get the FREE Abundant Artist Audio Series 

Have you loved these episodes? Leave a 5 star written review on Apple Podcasts, take a screenshot and send it to singerspath@gmail.com to be entered to win a FREE private lesson with Sarah! Winners to be announced at the end of spring! *You MUST email a picture of your screenshot to be entered!***

Reminder- if you HAVE already submitted a review for the podcast or other products from SB Vocal Studio- send an email with a screenshot and let Sarah know so you're eligible to win a FREE lesson!

Make sure to follow Sarah on Tik Tok and Instagram @singwithbish

Questions or Topic Recommendations for Sarah? Know someone who would be a perfect guest on the podcast? Fill out the form below!

Contact Sarah HERE

Want to check out the associates at Sarah Bishop Vocal Studio? 

Learn more about associates Lily and Jeremy here!

Transcript

0:03

If you are tired of not making progress and you're ready to be the artist, you know you're meant to be, you are in the right place. You are listening to the Singers Path podcast. The path or performing artist training hub will cover everything, including singing tips that actually work, advice from top industry professionals, and life-changing mindset shifts out with the starving artist and in with the Thriving Artist. I'm your host, Sarah Bishop, professional, singer, actor, educator, and entrepreneur. I'm not afraid to speak the truth and stop the gatekeeping of quality information. So you can actually become the artist you dream of being. So let's get on the path, shall we? Even though we're all on our own journeys, it always helps to have a guide. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Singers Path podcast. It's me, your host, Sarah Bishop. We're on a marathon here recording on live, bringing you a very special four-part series where we're answering the most asked questions that singers have dire questions. The last two parts very, very compact for me. I mean, talking how much I like to talk. Packed full of information, technical information. The first question, uh, if we ha if you've not gone back and listened to parts one and two, um, the first one being all about breath support. How do you get better breath support? What if someone asks you to have better breath support? What does that mean to do well at that? The whole debunking of singing from your diaphragm and the use of breath. And then the, the other episode we talked about resistance and how to not sound. Airy, how do I not sound like an airy singer? And it had to do with that breath support. Okay, so now we're gonna talk about another element to this, and we're just getting more in depth as we go along. And this one is, I get asked a lot, how do I learn to stretch my range? How do I learn to sing higher? And actually a lot of this is also paired with how do I know what my voice type is? That's a really big question that people have because I think we all like to feel like we're part of some community. We like to feel where we belong. We like to feel what's gonna, like, I did a whole thing, like what's my color analysis? Like am I a true spring or like I'm a Sagittarius or like I, my human design is. Generator or like, there's so many, like you're, you're, what is it? The like IQ score or like the personality test? There's so many ways we like to categorize ourself and I think it's find a sense of community and feel understood. So let's address that right off the bat.'cause then I think it leads really well into like, how do I stretch my range? Right? So. How do we find our voice type? Okay. Before I say that, if you like anything that I'm, that I'm putting down, make sure you check out the Discover Mini course. This is going to basically teach you to be your own voice teacher. Okay? All the information I'm saying, punch, packed up, ready to go. People fucking love it. People watched it all over the world. It's helped a lot of fucking people. I hope it helps you. It's a lot of fucking information. Very expensive. High quality information at a very accessible price. Um, done so to help connect with other people and be of service to the best of my ability. So go check that out. Um, the other thing I'll say, unfortunately, if you're listening to the podcast, this pro this time has probably passed, okay? But if you wanna work with me, the window of applying is now to join group lessons. You can register. This is the only way to work with me at this point, and it's also the most affordable way. To work with me, um, and get this type of one-on-one time information actually on the live. I have a student here that's done it, who is coming back, so I'm excited to work with them again. Um, actually a lot of the students do come back. Um, these are pretty intimate containers. They're very small and so that's why there's only a couple spots left. Um. If you're listening to this and you're bummed, you're like, fuck, I missed it. Like, well, I can't do it this time. Then make sure you join the wait list and you get the prereq pillars, so you're ready to go for next time. Because the one reason why this works so well is that there is a prerequisite. You do have to have the pillar series, um, the pillar series again, it, it, it basically takes discover and just deepens everything. Gives you all of the information you need to like literally train your voice on your own. But the reason we do that in coordination with group lessons, like you have to have that is so that everybody's on the same page. I don't wanna be like, yeah, Elsa said I love group lessons. I love group lessons too. I love them so much. I love connecting with you guys. It's just so cool. Um, but the reason, the reason the prereq is there, I'm not trying to like, take your money. Okay guys. It's not like, I'm not trying to like pay wall, you outta not being able to join. Like you have to get no. The reason is because in order for it to fucking work, you have to be balanced. You have to be doing what's in there. I'm not gonna just fucking talk. I'm not gonna talk about the same shit. Okay? You have to already know it. You have to already have some idea of what we're talking about so that we can work on your song. Okay, so we can actually like coach you and not have to fucking explain to everybody again. That's why, and that's what works. Everybody, like people improved a lot. Like actually shocked me. Like I actually went going into it was like, I don't know if this is gonna work. Like how is this gonna be as good as a group or as good as privates? It was, and I think Ilsa can vouched for me, like there was some fucking wild transformations we saw in growth, like. I got emotional about it actually in both classes. In both the pro and the intermediate class. It was insane. Anyway, the system works. It's gorgeous. We love each other. Everybody's singing. At the very least, if you just want a spot to sing, worth it. Um, anyway, that's group lessons. Check it out. Unfortunately, if you're on podcast again, you'll have to join the wait list. But if you're watching this live on TikTok, make sure go to the link in my bio. You can still register if there's only a couple spots left, I hope to see you there. Make sure you have the prereq. Okay, let's get into what I'm saying. Okay. First of all, let's do voice type. So. Ah, my God. Voice type. Voice type. Okay. Like I was saying, everybody likes to know the horoscope. Everybody wants to know what type of voice they are. We kind of unpacked this in another episode. Can't remember. It's been a fever dream of how many episodes I've recorded at this point, but we talked about operatic singing. Oh, it was maybe the breast support one. What's the TH one? Maybe it was. I don't remember. It doesn't matter. Um, one of the reasons why voice types, right? So there's a difference between choral parts, okay? I know this before someone fucking comes for me. There's a difference between alto tenor, soprano base, like lines on a staff, if you're reading choral music or soprano one soprano, two alto, one alto, two. I know. Okay. There's a difference between that. So it's like identifying like, I sing this line. Okay, cool. And then there's a fox, which is a voice like category from studying classical music and. People to understand the difference. Like when I go make these videos, I have, I have a video that's like 6 million fucking views. I don't know how many, fuck to let you know how unintended it was for that to be the video that got seen by six. Million people is insane. I am not even showered. I don't think I have fucking day old makeup on. I look wretched. I'm wearing a distinguished young woman green shirt. I my po, my hair's all fucked up guys. The amount of people that have seen that, I think like a half a million people have liked it or some shit. It's been insane. Okay. Anyway. In this video, I talk about how most people think that they're an alto, they're the wrong vocal part, mostly because they don't wanna get through the paggio. We're gonna break down all of what that means, but if you've seen that video and I've triggered you, sorry, it's just, listen, we're gonna, we're gonna uncover some fucking facts, and I didn't expect a video that I made very carelessly in my fucking living room to be seen by a fucking percentage of the human population. Okay? So. When we are talking about voice type, it's first important. Just so you to know. There, there are two different things. There's fuck, and then there's fucking coral line. I am kind of talking about a combination of both. I'm talking about whatever you are thinking it is. Okay. A lot of you're like, I'm an alto. Like those are your fucking words, not mine, bitch. And when people come and attack me, these no such thing. Alto's a cho part and contra alto is a fuck. I'm like, I'm just repeating what you said. Okay, I'm just answering the question. Most people wanna know if they're an alto or they're a soprano or they're a tenor or they're base. Okay. Most of the time they're a baritone and they want, or they wanna be a tenor and they're not. It's so interesting 'cause it's, I feel like the lower voices, the bases and baritones wanna be tenors badly, and I think that's mostly because of the fucking range of the songs. But the altos want nothing to do with the Sopranos. Nothing to do with the Sopranos. They're like, get fucked. Uh, no, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get flagged on fucking TikTok life for bullying. Nobody, again, just by saying course language. Um, but literally, literally the altos. And that's why I think the video blew up. And like, I noticed this over the holidays, actually, Kyle, my husband Kyle has some family that they all sang. We did karaoke and it was fun. But like some of them just so. Vehemently vehemently identify as an alto. I can't sing that. I can't s I'm not, and this is where we're getting into the question, how do I learn to sing higher and actually feel good about it and not feel like I'm gonna crack and die and fucking fold into myself? And this is the part where a true alto. The term of fuck. Not just someone, anybody can sing Alto line. In fact, I actually recommend it. I recommend that everybody sings every vocal choral line.'cause it's good for your ear, it's good for you. You're a good musician. You can sight read, you can hold harmony. Love that for you. No one's telling you what fucking vocal line to sing in a choral arrangement. Do whatever the fuck you want. Okay? Where it gets bad is when you're limiting yourself because you're not allowing yourself to sing this whole other half of your voice, because really you're afraid of getting through the pistachio. In the video I go A episo what? And then the, the text corrects to a pistachio. No. Okay, so, so that's the first distinction. A true alto, a contra alto. Very rare, and I believe like there's many schools of thought, like how, what determines your actual voice type? It has to do with like vocal timur, fullness, the largeness of the instrument, the size of the folds, right? And the color, the timur basically. Where do you spark? Where does your voice sound like It could cut over an orchestra. Okay, and where does it feel the fullest and most rich and sound? Just decadent, right? Sometimes people will have like really warm voices. And then they'll have a really high extension or they'll ha like in the bo, in the top or the bottom. So again, that's why like fuck at the end of the day doesn't really matter 'cause we're not trying to cut over fucking orchestras anymore. You have your sound, your sounds cool. Sing wherever the fuck you want. Okay? We just don't wanna limit where and what else you can sing and what else you're capable of, what other colors you can do. Okay? This is another reason why voice teachers are so obsessed with mix and pastos 'cause it's basically addressing the same thing. It's addressing a lot of people's fear to go higher in their voice because what ends up happening, the reason a lot of you feel like you can't sing higher is actually because you feel so unsteady. There is a, um, disruption of your ability to balance muscle and air in a couple pockets of your voices. You get higher. Those are the P the what was almost like, those are the pistachios. Those are the pistachios and, and another word, if you never heard of paggio, you're like, what the fuck is that? Okay, another word for that, the bridge. The break in your voice? Oh, it's right on my break. It's right on my bridge. That's actually when altos are just, they're just fucking, their whole entire personality is identifying with it. It's really, I believe, a reflection of shame and embarrassment, and I know that's a strong statement. Again, I'm not trying to trigger anyone, but I think somewhere along the way, as you tried to go higher in your voice, you actually hit that break in your voice, one of them. And. It felt so unsteady and so unsafe, and so vulnerable and so weak. It's embarrassing, and it shocked your system. Your system didn't like it, and then you somehow proclaimed in some story that you would never do that again to yourself, and you just couldn't. Or maybe you got fucking mocked, or you watched someone get mocked for being squeaky or X, Y, Z reason, and so you self proclaim some subconscious story. You went, Hmm, well I'm not gonna fucking do that to myself anymore. I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna sing down here because this feels good. This is speaking, this is easy. This is where I'm comfortable. What you're saying is, this is where I'm comfortable, not this is what I'm capable of or so I'm best on. You don't actually know if you're refusing to use half of your voice, what you sound good on. Okay. Speech over this is not meant I don't give a fuck. Like some people are like, uh, like real altos exist in real. I'm not saying that they don't, I'm just saying like, you could do more if you wanted. Do what you want. I don't give a fuck. Wait, what do you think? I care. People get so pressed, like I just care that you know that you're capable of other things too. And now this, this doesn't always mean hire is always better. I, I also know we get sensitive because a lot of music is unfairly written kind of high. And that's not fair. That's fucked up. There should be lower stuff. There should be more stuff for you. Yeah, I agree. You're right. But that doesn't mean you can't stretch your voice. Okay. You need to do it. Sorry. If you wanna be a versatile singer, you wanna, you want it to be healthy, you gotta learn to stretch. So let's go to the second question, which is, how do I learn to sing? How do I learn to sing higher? Well, first step, make sure you're going to discover, because probably a big reason that you can't sing higher is probably because of a balance issue. Again, singing is the rule of opposites. I can't do something, something. The opposite needs to be addressed. Okay, so doing discover, learning how to balance your voice so your voice feels steady enough to get up higher, right? There's even like head voice exploration stuff in there, but you probably feel like you hit a cap because you're not, you feel unsteady at the, like the middle points. Okay. So that's kind of how you sing higher. The other thing we're gonna do today is actually very functional. So besides going to watch Discover, which will really give it to you, really help you understand what exactly your voice needs and then what to give it to it. So that the after effect the cause is identifying what's causing it to be messed up. And you're giving yourself the effect, right? Giving yourself the medicine, the neutralizing thing that will make it work, align it in a way. The other thing we'll talk about are vocal function stretches. Now what the fuck is that? Okay. Vocal function. I'm saying fuck so much today, guys. Sorry. Vocal functions are like little stretches that we can do on the daily that are going to increase our range stretching over time. That plus balancing work and working through those pasts, so everything starts to feel a little bit more steady, blended good. All of those are gonna help you sing high and strong overall. Okay? But let's give you this functional thing. Vocal functions. We could do this a couple ways. We talked about this in a whole SOVT lesson like a week ago when I released this. We're gonna do that blowfish element to that. Okay? So on the live, you're gonna put a lot of pressure in your cheeks with a little hole in your mouth, and you're gonna put a lot of pressure in there, and you're gonna really sing into the front of your cheeks, okay? There shouldn't be a lot of sound that comes up, okay? Now, in this vocal function, you're gonna do this stretch three times, okay? Three times, actually. Three times one direction. You can. Okay, we'll do it. We'll do it boring. Do it one time from the bottom. One time from the top, actually. Oh God, I'm so tired. Two.

2: 17:21

00 AM You're gonna do it three times from the bottom. Three times from the top. Okay. And the goal is to lean into the CSO VT so it's easy and you're just gonna try each time you're gonna get a start a little bit lower. And then try to stretch a little bit higher. That's it. Okay, so let's do it together. We're gonna do it three times from the bottom of the top. And oh my God, my voice is so tired. Sorry. It's gonna crack. Okay, two more. One more stretch, a little lower, a little higher. Those are gentle stretches that are helping your. Voice get a little thicker and a little thinner. So those are actually ways to like literally stretch your range, but to learn to sing fully through your range, that actually takes balance. Okay. Let's do it three ways. The other direction. So start at the top. Come to the bottom. Little higher. Ooh, one more. Ooh. All right. The final one I like to do is like a little loop to loop. Again, if you don't like the blow fish, you can try a different SOVT. That's fine. Can do the fist. You can do do something like that. But these little bitty stretches are gonna be super helpful. Okay, so this one, this loop to loop can help you stretch a little bit more. Even so you're gonna pretend you're on a rollercoaster. Same thing. Start a little lower, start a little higher each time. Again, one more. Okay, so those are actually functional stretches. How to stretch your range. If you want ways to actually balance the fuck outta your voice so that we're not afraid of singing high notes anymore and not permanently locked into a range that doesn't go above, gee, then maybe check out, discover, learn how to help yourself understand where you're off balance and how to get on balance. And heck, if you like that, my God. Check out pillars, that shit will actually train it in hell. You'll actually be singing higher than you ever thought. Who would've thought? Okay, so pillars is the way to go. If you like what I'm putting down, I know I'm getting delusion. Delusively tired right now, delirious, but if you like what I'm saying, like you're like, oh shit, this slick makes sense and you wanna work with me on the live, on the TikTok live, you still have the opportunity to do that. You can go to the link in my bio. Go check that out. Okay. You can only sign up until next Friday, January 17th. If you are listening to the podcast after January 17th, I saw we, you can't join. It's a short enrollment period, but you can join the wait list and learn next time. Okay? So I really hope you got some help out of this and I really hope to see you next time. Okay. I'm almost done here with podcasting. Oh my God. Um, but I really love coming on here and giving this information, and I'm really excited for this to take a new form in 2026. We're gonna see how that goes. Okay. I'm sorry, I'm, I'm patting my cat's butt. I will see you next time. Okay. If you love this episode, leave us a five star review. Send that screenshot to us and want entry to win a free lesson. Email it to singers path@gmail.com and I really hope to hear from you soon. All right. I'll talk to you next time. Bye. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star written review on Apple Podcasts. This helps me get this information out to more artists all over the world. Let's work together to spread the joys of music. Until next time, I'm your host, Sarah Bishop, signing off. From the Singers Path podcast. Thanks for listening.