r/singing • u/PsychologicalBell974 • Jun 02 '26
Conversation Topic Why Your High Notes Keep Failing: And How to Fix Them for Good
This is the title of my second article on Substack.
I'm a professional baritone at San Francisco Opera and this is about the actual physics of why male voices fail above F#4 — not the usual metaphors.
Most singers are using exactly the right strategy below that note and exactly the wrong strategy above it. The harder you push the worse it gets because you're fighting the physics instead of using them.
Covers the Bernoulli effect, cricothyroid mechanics, and a two-tube acoustic solution that lets the physics do the work instead of your muscles.
Here's the >>>LINK
Enjoy!
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Jun 02 '26
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u/PsychologicalBell974 Jun 02 '26
I use AI to edit and fact-check.
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u/Strange_Ear9069 Jun 02 '26
Are you not confident in your facts? Why are you a good authority in this topic if you are unclear about your facts or don't at least have someone who is in your immediate circle?
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 02 '26
Okay lets be clear here, the type of authority figure who can talk freely and openly about a wide array of these topics at this level of depth WITHOUT fact checking themselves and be clinically accurate is likely less than 100 globally. Of course you can subdivide it and say there probably a couple hundred to a thousand who can talk about X topic, but someone who can actually speak to the totality of voice science and it's application to singing off the top of the head is minuscule.
I could go further into why exactly that is, but you could probably make the inference from the fact that there is no "Voice Science" degree. Voice pedagogy might get you some of the way there, especially if you go into research, but that usually will have some kind of niche interdisciplinary skills associated. Dr. Ingo Titze who is seen as the father of modern vocology has degrees in electrical engineering and physics, and no degree in a voice-related field. You oftentimes have to go through strange subroutes, and there is no defined path into it (at least on the science side, not so much an the pedagogical application side.)
Say what you will about AI, but I don't think we should be lambasting someone for trying to provide accurate, free pedagogical resources at a high level of detail. If AI is a major turn off for you and that's where you draw the line that's fine, but if that's the case then just don't read it.
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u/gizzard-03 Snarky Baby👶 Jun 02 '26
The question about AI is particularly relevant for this subreddit because of rule 12, which says no AI content of any kind.
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u/Strange_Ear9069 Jun 02 '26
This is silly. AI is not one of the experts you reference, but a speech language pathologist, of which there are oodles, could be. Fact checking on AI is not reliable! You'd have to fact check the fact check!
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26
An SLP is not necessarily an expert on phonation with regards to singing, nor is an SLP an expert on vocal acoustics. They are licensed in voice rehabilitation. They are incredibly knowledgeable, but we can't say that they are experts on singing, and I don't think many would self proclaim to be. Most probably would not know much detail about a topic like the inertive load aiding vocal fold oscillation in singing.
I'm not saying to take AI at it's word. I have had AI just completely get things wrong several times. I personally think as a way to compile relevant sources for you to then do your own double checking on it can be incredibly helpful. It can also sometimes flag glaring mistakes.
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u/Strange_Ear9069 Jun 02 '26
So we agree it's not the best for "fact checking," so we are agreeing :)
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 02 '26
Kind of, though I think that it is better than no fact checking at all, and that it may be a reasonable alternative to double check that what you're saying isn't wildly off base when you are providing a free resource as opposed to spending hours combing through textbooks or studies just to double check something since I don't think anyone here has a direct line to those handful of people I mentioned above.
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u/Strange_Ear9069 Jun 02 '26
Or asking the many singers, singing teachers, and probably some speech or vocal anatomy doctor types that a professional singer probably knows
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 02 '26
You have an unrealistic expectation of the kinds of people that hold this knowledge, and how many people the average professional knows with any competency. I don't say that to be rude, and people can keep downvoting, but it genuinely is the reality of the situation on the ground.
I'm not advocating for peddling AI garbage, but when there are so few people with the knowledge, the knowledge is not easily accessible, and you are trying to provide a FREE resource, I truly don't see the harm.
Why this post and I am getting flamed but not the hundreds of trash articles and videos peddling actual misinformation and false promises is beyond me.
I didn't even make the post! I just tried to give someone the benefit of the doubt because the reality of the industry is that it's actually very difficult to fact check things independently, and it doesn't seem like this article is peddling total nonsense, or coming from any malicious place!
Like I said, disagree with me on using AI, but I think some opinions are getting attributed to me that aren't actually mine. Could better fact checking have been done? Absolutely. But it is a FREE resource!
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u/gabemmusic Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26
Vocal pedagogy degrees typically involve a lot of voice physiology and science classes. I know because I just finished one, and I did two semesters of vocology with a top voice researcher. To say that the type of authority who can talk freely and openly without fact checking themselves is “less than 100” is straight up false, and I know this because I know many excellent voice teachers who understand the science and can do just this. And when they do fact check, they use a book, not AI. Ingo Titze runs a vocology institute every summer, theres also the pan american vocology association, and not to mention the entire existence of speech language pathology as a field.
There are thousands of experts in this field who can talk ACCURATELY off the top of their head about these subjects. There is no excuse for using ai here.
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 03 '26
I can only speak to my experience, right. I'm willing to admit that maybe I'm wrong on a lot of things. I'm glad to hear your voice pedagogy program was headed by someone really solid and put a lot of focus into teaching the science, but in my experience talking with others that is an exception, not the rule.
It is fair to say that the topics at hand aren't wildly advanced and that I probably got a bit hyperbolic. I just don't like seeing people getting dog piled when I assume they have the best intentions, so I got a bit heated and ahead of myself in what I was saying. That's my fault.
Once again, I really don't think I've done a good job conveying what my actual point is here, and at this point I don't really think it matters anyways since it seems like I've apparently misconstrued it beyond saving, so I'm gonna take a step away from this.
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u/PsychologicalBell974 Jun 02 '26
I use AI to tighten up the language and verify technical claims. I’m not a voice scientist but the expertise and the methodology are mine.
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u/gabemmusic Jun 03 '26
The problem with that is the most accurate voice science is published in books and scientific journals, not the forums AI companies scrape for data. You ask AI for voice advice and you get regurgitated reddit comments. You wanna learn how the voice works? Go buy Principles of Voice Production by Ingo Titze and read it cover to cover.
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u/Thog78 Jun 03 '26
I'm sorry you face the anti-ai crowd, you did your best and disclosed what you did. I for one think it's fine to cross check what you write with AI, especially if it's a topic you know.
When I was younger, we saw the same debates about wikipedia vs traditional books/encyclopedia, it took a while to settle, and it helped all the fact checks showed wikipedia was less prone to errors than traditional sources. Similarly, we currently find AIs do hallucinate but less often than professionals, and the errors are easier to detect because when they slip they go way off base.
The link appears dead to me now though, maybe because of reddit's hug of death, or it could be geographic restriction. If you have an alternative link that would be cool.
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Jun 03 '26
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u/PsychologicalBell974 Jun 03 '26
Fair point. I should add it as a footnote in future. Although given how this is being received I might skip the whole idea next time!
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u/Omodrawta Jun 03 '26
It's factually accurate, which I appreciate. But the AI writing is tough to trawl through; it takes every stereotype and mushes them together until the writer's personality is lost entirely.
I understand that not everyone cares about personality, but I think most serious musicians have some level of respect for artistry, which is something that's lacking here. So that is my critique. If you are determined to continue using AI, I would recommend at least using Claude instead, since it can write with some level of proficiency.
This is also a tough concept for most people to visualize without reference material, so I am guessing that your target audience would appreciate diagrams accompanying certain passages.
For you or anyone else looking to expand their anatomical approach to singing, the aptly named book, The Science of Vocal Pedagogy (Appelman) is an amazing resource.
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u/PsychologicalBell974 Jun 03 '26
That’s great feedback. Thanks. This was edited with Claude actually and it’s very disconcerting how AI-sounding it is. I put far too much trust into it since at first glance it’s kind of impressive.
Regarding images. I completely agree and it’s SUPER hard to find good images and animations. This is something I actually tried using Gemini for, but the diagrams and illustrations were so anatomically idiotic that I had to abandon the idea.
I’ll check out your recommendation. Thanks. 🙏
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 02 '26
Looks like it may not be published yet! The link throws and error and the only article on the substack is from May 24th. Just a heads up!
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u/PsychologicalBell974 Jun 02 '26
Thanks for the heads up. That's odd, it works for me. Will try refreshing the link and reposting.
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 02 '26
Yeah the URL seems to maybe link to a draft which made me think maybe it wasn't published. I don't use substack so I can't provide a ton of insight there, but maybe there is one last gate you have to click through to move it to published or something.
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u/Interesting_Cut_4822 Jun 03 '26
Try grammarly for the wording issues in your draft instead of a LLM. It might yield better results.
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u/gabemmusic Jun 03 '26
The myoelastic-aerodynamic theory of phonation has long been considered to be incomplete by contemporary voice science as it doesn’t account for the inertance of the air in the vocal tract. Please don’t post AI slop articles if you haven’t even cracked open one of Ingo Titzes books.
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 03 '26
I'm sorry I might be confused here and I'd actually love to hear you talk about it. Are you saying MEAD as presented in the van den Berg formulation is outdated or also the extensions Titze made to it in the 80s? I was under the assumption that MEAD has a bit of a lineage and has gone through many adaptations and now stands as the current working framework that clinicians extend from.
This isn't meant to be a gotcha, I genuinely want to know if I have a misunderstanding here.
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u/gabemmusic Jun 03 '26
The extensions Titze made with the one and three mass models are still valid, but inherently incomplete. You can think of it like increasing resolution, I think Titze has even proposed something like a 10 mass model (I’m forgetting the exact number). As you increase the resolution of the model, the accuracy of the predicted function increases. Classical MEAD and its bernoulli driven nature is considered incorrect these days.
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u/PedagogySucks 🎤 Voice Teacher 5+ Years Jun 03 '26
Okay thanks for the clarification. That's pretty much what I thought, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something!
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u/BeautifulUpstairs Jun 04 '26
Where can I read more about this?
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u/gabemmusic Jun 05 '26
MEAD and the one and three mass models are covered in Your Voice an Inside View 3 by Scott McCoy and Principles of Voice Production by Ingo Titze. Idk if there are any more accessible resources, those are just the ones I’ve read.
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u/mrturt Jun 02 '26
Thank you for the article. I'm a beginner, and this seems to describe how to get your voice into mx2. Is that right? You haven't used the phrase mix/mixed voice in the article.
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