How to jump to high notes and making runs sound smooth

 Hi! I was wondering if there's specific exercises I can use to practice my ability to jump from a low note to a high one (switching my register in the process). For example, in the song Bad Idea from Waitress, the chorus jumps to an F5 on the word "worse" then goes back down. It always sounds so breathy and struggling when I do this even though normally I can hit an F5 fine, it's just the jump for me. Also along the same vein, I switch to head voice at C5 and in the same song there's a run at 1:40 that I'm struggling to make it sound smooth, since the break from chest to head voice is very obvious. Any tips on how to smooth that out? (I'm on lesson 20 of the beginner course so apologies if you'll address this in a future lesson). Thanks so much! 

Hi, Well! For large leaps, I recommend the following:

1. Memorize your "placement" on that high note: where do you feel sensation, and how does it sound?

2. Slow down and just isolate the jump from low to high. Pause in between to give yourself time to think about the high note (and your "placement").

3. When that becomes smoother, speed back up. You should be thinking about the high note's placement before you even sing the low note!

As for smoothing out a run over a vocal transition, you've got three options:

1. Sing the whole run lighter (so you're using more head voice from the start)

2. Stretch your chesty mix higher (so you don't flip into head voice)

3. Use the "flip" stylistically! We call this a "pop flip" or falsetto flip and it's a really cool effect. 

Hope that helps, and let us know if you need more help! Our Youtube channel has lots of new lessons as well on mixed voice, agility, and more.