How do I sing higher notes without cracking?

How can I sing long notes loudly without cracking?

• I am in the musical "Working" as the character Babe Secoli. I have a solo entitled "I'm Just Movin'", and it has a bunch of long, (somewhat) high notes. When I sing it at my house or in my car without anyone else around, I sound great and I hit the notes perfectly; but during the first rehearsal of my song, my voice suddenly started cracking on EACH and EVERY high note! I don't know if it was just my nerves singing it in front of other people for the first time or what, but I DO know that if I don't get this song down I'm going to lose my part to someone else! Please help me figure out what's going on!

• Answer:

  There's a couple things you can do. One is make sure you warm up your voice really well before singing. Your vocal chords are muscles so you have to warm them up just you would do with your other muscles before playing a sport. If you are singing high notes, make sure you are really opening up your throat as much as possible. You can do that by lifting your soft pallet (the soft part in the back of the roof of your mouth, try yawning and you'll feel it go up) and keep your head straight. Don't reach your neck up when trying to hit those notes or else you will just strain your voice. One last technique is if you feel like your not gonna make the belt, you something call trick belting. Dont actually belt the note, just spread your mouth really wide and get a lot of air from your diaphragm. You'll see that that's what people do on broadway. You rarely ever hear broadway singers really belting. They use that technique and it amps your voice to make it sound close to a belt but it doesn't hurt your voice. Try those:)