There's this thing that is really bothering me and so far I can't make it work. I've taken like 10 singing lessons so far and the teacher keeps telling me that when I sing notes that start to go "high" and maybe frighten me I do not push out enough air and the sound and notes stay on the back of my mouth, without getting out with the power they should. And this is not good for the throat because it feels that I kind of hold back the sound to reach the high notes.
To be clear, I'm not talking about impossibly high notes, but it seems that when I know I have to go out of a "safe range" I hold back the air. I reach the note, but not with the tone/volume/power that I had for the others.
It's hard to explain, but I do feel the sensation of what she means: is like the sound stays in the back of the throat instead of fully going out. The problem is, I can't find a way to fix this.
My teacher is trying to tell me in different ways how to overcome this, like "do not think you have to reach a high note, don't think about the pentagram, think of the notes as one after another on a line", or, from a more "physical" point of view, she told me once to "open your mouth in vertical, open up the throat", but I really can't prevent this, it's like an automatic thing that I do because I've always sung like that by myself, never knowing the right way to do it.
Does anyone have some advice that I can try, that worked for you maybe? Both mental or physical. I'm looking for something that I can use when I practice at home, when I don't have anyone to tell me if I'm doing it wrong or not.