More easy hitting high notes when had little sleep

[Olem]

Maybe this sounds a little odd to many of you but i have found out that little sleep makes me hit higher notes more easily. It became obvious to me when i was practising "Run To The Hills" this week. Two days i had like 6 hours of sleep and felt a little tired but sang anyway. These days i could hit the Tenor E, not easily but i could. Then i had two days off and slept like 8-9 hours and i remember i was thinking - oh now i will blast out this Tenor E with no effort at all - but i couldn´t hit without straining alot. It felt like my voice was deeper and more bassy than those days when i was a little tired. Could someone explain this phenomena to me? Thanx in advance.

[ronws]

Aside from any one's body working better after suitable rest, it is psychology. The mornings where you didn't get as much sleep, you probably didn't also have the time to obsess about the vocal line. The mornings with a lot of rest and some time to think about it before hand and rack up a bit of apprehension thereby gives you the tension to hinder yourself.

Singing is mental. Where have I heard that before? Hmmm.....

[Owen Korzec]

Because sleep "cools down" the body and therefore the voice.

(real quick, by cool down here I mean entering a state of low energy and recuperation. this is a good and necessary thing, we can't survive without sleep for this reason)

So if you sleep less, you haven't cooled down as much, so you can warm up quicker. But you won't warm up as fully because you're not completed rested.

So the best thing to do is get that full night of sleep but then spend a couple hours warming up your entire body first through a healthy breakfast, then some kind of full-body exercising of your choice (great way to multi-task is to work on your singer's breathing and posture while doing it), and then lastly vocalization.

Time-consuming but that is the best way, and very consistent and repeatable.

Any approach that compromises our life essentials - sleep, eating, and exercise, is going to leave you with a voice that is going to just crap out eventually from lacking both energy and rest.

Obviously this is a spectrum, not a black and white decision, I'm just saying the way of cooling all the way down and warming all the way up is more sustainable and can get your voice to a better quality. The issue with what you experienced is you left out the warming up part, you just tried to sing amazing right after being very cooled down. Not gonna happen!

[Olem]

Owen: A couple of hours warming up? . I don't have time for this and besides it is very boring. Many of you here takes singing very seriously and maybe want to make a living out of it. I am just doing it for fun, sure i want to be as good a singer as i can but it also has to be fun. Humming and doing scales for a couple of hours just isn't for me. But i have found out that just singing alot makes you a better singer too though perhaps the progress goes slower. It makes sense that my body is already a little warmed up when i had little sleep but then maybe i don't quite have the stamina as when i am fully rested.

[Gneetapp]

Owen: A couple of hours warming up? . I don't have time for this and besides it is very boring. Many of you here takes singing very seriously and maybe want to make a living out of it. I am just doing it for fun, sure i want to be as good a singer as i can but it also has to be fun. Humming and doing scales for a couple of hours just isn't for me. But i have found out that just singing alot makes you a better singer too though perhaps the progress goes slower. It makes sense that my body is already a little warmed up when i had little sleep but then maybe i don't quite have the stamina as when i am fully rested.

Hi Olem, I can understand where you are coming from man. I cannot afford hours of warming up and practice. But I too found out that can sing to warm up. I actually start with a basic warm-up like lip-bubbles, chewbacca imitation, and doing sirens for a few minutes. Then, I start singing, light voice songs first (I sing Crying in the Rain by A-Ha a lot), and then I try to sing the harder songs, but without pushing hard or straining on the high notes. If I'm straining or cracking, I go back to Crying in the Rain, always keeping chord closure. Then, try the harder songs again. It used to take me doing regular warm-ups about 45 minutes until I could sing half decent. Now, it takes me about 20 minutes (depending on the day). But before I actually try to sing I usually do several noises to warm up and get into the light head voice. For me the trick is finding the resonance in the middle range with low power and carrying up to D5-E5. I found that I can sing the same high note (e.g. D5) without power using the resonance only, or with power (belting maybe?) using resonance and support. Keep on Rocking man!:cool:

[Owen Korzec]

if you don't have a couple hours available just use the time you have obviously. 5-10 minutes of vocalizing before singing will usually do the trick (what gneetap is suggesting is great) but only if you've had breakfast first to give you the energy. The whole couple hours thing is just for the obsessively serious singers like me lol. I've come to realize I'm the minority on this forum in this way

[bigmike092]

interesting, dio never warmed up before shows, he would just go out and sing. not saying that to argue against it though, i just read that not to long ago in an interview about him.

[Owen Korzec]

Well when your voice is that developed and experienced you don't need to warm it up as much. Same with if you have some kind of physiological or psychological advantage for singing which Dio may have had.

The reason why some singers need to warm up more than others is quite complex, but basically the more experience you have singing correctly and the less challenging to your current skill level the material you are about to perform is, the less time you need to warm up.

But then again we're all different and that just throws a big curveball to any kind of logic behind the idea of warming up. Steve Perry and Lou Gramm have been noted as warming up for about a half hour before show time (and Lou would also get a massage). According to Seth Riggs, Michael Jackson vocalized three times a day on tour - an hour at noon, a half hour in the afternoon, and fifteen minutes before the show. Then there's Dio who just jumps on stage.

They all nail it so in the end it's more about finding what works for you.

[ronws]

interesting, dio never warmed up before shows, he would just go out and sing. not saying that to argue against it though, i just read that not to long ago in an interview about him.

In addition, it was not uncommon for Dio to enjoy a beer and do an interview, such as with Eddie Trunk, 30 minutes before showtime.

[colin040]

Or smoke half a joint...atleast, that's what the guys from either Metallica or Slayer had to say when asked about how they remembered Dio. Funny, cause I was convinced the little man said he never did drugs. Probably to protect his ego though.

[VideoHere]

what ever time you need, and that can vary.

warm up up with what works for you, and that can vary.

don't forget not just the vocal part.....the muscle relaxation parts, the breathing parts, the mental visualization part.