Morten Harket’s Voice: The Technique Behind “Take On Me” and 40 Years of Singing
There is a moment in “Take On Me” that every singer knows and almost no singer can reproduce. The chorus climbs, and then Morten Harket launches into the line “I’ll be gone in a day or two” — a high, weightless falsetto that sounds less like a human voice than like light bending. It was 1985. He has been singing professionally for more than forty years since. This is the story of the instrument behind it: how Morten Harket built one of the most extraordinary voices in pop history, and how he kept it working for four decades.
The range everyone talks about
Harket’s vocal range has been the subject of myth-making for decades. Some sources have claimed it spans five octaves. Harket himself has always been refreshingly honest about the mythology. Asked about the rumored five-octave range in a 2009 interview, he said: “I’ve never counted, quite honestly.” It is a very singer’s answer — the instrument is for using, not measuring.
What the experts say is more useful than the numbers. NME‘s Sylvia Patterson once called his voice “the greatest falsetto in the history of pop music EVER.” Entertainment Weekly described its lower end as an “unyielding groan.” And Gerry Kitchingham, the sound engineer who worked with a-ha on “Take On Me,” described Harket as “an excellent singer” with “this incredibly strong falsetto and almost choir-boyish clarity.” That last phrase captures the paradox: power and purity in the same throat. The voice can roar and it can float, often within a single phrase.
The technical demand of “Take On Me” itself is frequently underestimated. Within a single chorus, Harket travels from a low A2 on the first syllable of “take on me” to the stratospheric falsetto of the closing line — a span of more than two and a half octaves in under a minute, delivered at full pop energy. It is a song that functions as a stress test, and it was the band’s debut single.
Where the voice came from
Morten Harket was born on September 14, 1959, in Kongsberg, Norway, and grew up in Asker. His background was not obviously musical in the professional sense — his father was a chief physician at a hospital, his mother an economics teacher — though his father had once contemplated becoming a classical pianist. Young Morten took piano lessons but, by his own admission, lacked the discipline to practice. He started writing music at the age of four. His early listening was the classic rock canon: Uriah Heep, Jimi Hendrix, Queen, Johnny Cash, Simon and Garfunkel, David Bowie, James Brown.
Nothing in that biography predicts the voice. Harket did not come up through choirs or conservatories; he arrived at a-ha in 1982, when he joined Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen, as a singer whose instrument was essentially self-built. That may be the secret of its distinctiveness. Classical training teaches singers to standardize; Harket’s voice developed around what his own throat could do, which turned out to be things most throats cannot.
The 20-second note
The most spectacular documented feat of Harket’s career came fifteen years after “Take On Me.” In 2000, a-ha returned after more than six years away with the single “Summer Moved On.” At 3:12 into the song, Harket holds a single note — in chest voice, not falsetto — for 20.2 seconds. Eight full measures. One breath.
Guinness World Records recognizes it as the longest same-pitch vocal note held in a song that reached the UK Official Singles Chart. What makes the achievement remarkable is that the song was not written as a vocal stunt. The note sits inside a sweeping, melancholic pop song, serving the emotion rather than showing off. It is the difference between an athlete and a performer: Harket had the breath control of an opera singer and the instincts of a pop star, and he deployed both at once.
Four decades of touring: how the voice survived
Pop history is full of extraordinary voices that burned out in a decade. Harket’s did not. a-ha’s career has run, with breaks, from 1982 to the present — more than forty years of recording and touring, including the band’s farewell-that-wasn’t in 2010 and their subsequent return. Sustaining a voice with that kind of upper-register demand across four decades requires more than talent. It requires technique: breath support, placement, the discipline to sing the high notes night after night without shredding the vocal cords.
Those who have worked with him consistently describe a singer with exceptional control over his upper register — the ability to move between chest voice, head voice, and falsetto without audible seams. That seamlessness is the product of decades of nightly practice in front of audiences. You cannot fake vocal longevity. Every tour is an audit, and Harket has passed every one for forty years.
He has also kept challenging the voice in new contexts: a solo career running parallel to the band, appearances at the Nobel Peace Prize concerts, and even a masked appearance as the Viking on Norway’s version of The Masked Singer — a playful reminder that the instrument works just as well when nobody knows whose throat it is.
A difficult announcement
In 2025, Harket shared difficult news in an interview with the band’s biographer Jan Omdahl, published on a-ha’s official website: he has Parkinson’s disease. He spoke about it with characteristic directness, saying he had no problem accepting the diagnosis and describing his 94-year-old father’s attitude — “I use whatever works” — as his model. He also disclosed that he had undergone deep brain stimulation treatment at a Mayo Clinic center in the United States, and that the treatment had the side effect of affecting his voice.
“I don’t feel like singing, and for me that’s a sign,” he said in the interview, adding that the question now is “whether I can express myself with my voice. As things stand now, that’s out of the question. But I don’t know whether I’ll be able to manage it at some point in the future.” It was a frank, unsentimental statement from a man whose identity has been inseparable from his instrument for half a century — and a reminder of what that instrument meant. For forty years, Morten Harket’s voice did things voices are not supposed to do. The falsetto that launched a thousand imitations, the 20-second note, the choir-boy clarity at dog-whistle height: whatever comes next, the record of what the voice achieved is permanent.
The voice in numbers
| Measure | Detail |
|---|---|
| Reported vocal range | Around five octaves — exceptionally wide for a male pop singer, spanning deep baritone lows to soaring falsetto highs. |
| The “Summer Moved On” note | A sustained note of roughly 20 seconds, widely reported as one of the longest held notes in mainstream pop-chart history. |
| The “Take On Me” climax | The famous falsetto peak on “I’ll be gone” — sung, not screamed, which is precisely why it has survived four decades of live performance. |
| a-ha studio albums | Twelve, from Hunting High and Low (1985) to True North (2022). |
| Solo albums | Six solo records between 1993 and 2014, alongside his a-ha work. |
| Years as a recording artist | Over 40 — from a-ha’s 1982 formation to the present day. |
Morten Harket’s career timeline
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1959 | Born September 14 in Kongsberg, Norway. |
| 1982 | Forms a-ha in Oslo with Magne Furuholmen and Pål Waaktaar, then moves with them to London to chase a record deal. |
| 1985 | “Take On Me” hits number one on the US Billboard Hot 100; debut album Hunting High and Low makes a-ha global stars. |
| 1986 | “The Sun Always Shines on T.V.” reaches number one in the UK. |
| 1987 | a-ha record “The Living Daylights,” the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name. |
| 1991 | a-ha play Rock in Rio to a reported audience of nearly 200,000 — a record for a paying concert audience at the time. |
| 1993 | Releases his first Norwegian-language solo album, Poetenes Evangelium. |
| 2000 | a-ha reunite; Minor Earth Major Sky and the single “Summer Moved On” — with its legendary sustained note — mark the comeback. |
| 2010 | a-ha’s farewell tour ends and the band splits, before reuniting in 2015 for Cast in Steel. |
| 2015–17 | Serves as a coach on The Voice UK, introducing his voice to a new generation of television viewers. |
| 2022 | a-ha release True North, accompanied by a Norwegian-filmed concert movie. |
| 2025 | Harket publicly announces his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, revealing he had undergone brain surgery in an effort to manage symptoms. |
What’s next for Morten Harket’s voice
The 2025 Parkinson’s announcement reframed everything about Harket’s future as a singer — and he was characteristically direct about it, saying he did not know whether he would ever be able to perform again. Parkinson’s affects the voice as well as movement, so the question is not only whether he tours, but whether the instrument itself can be preserved. What is beyond dispute is the legacy: very few singers in pop history have maintained a voice of that range and control for forty years, and “Take On Me” will outlive every debate about technique. Whatever comes next, the recordings are permanent.
FAQ
What is Morten Harket’s vocal range?
His range is widely reported at around five octaves, from baritone lows to a powerful falsetto — one of the widest ranges in mainstream pop. It is the reason “Take On Me” sits so high and why few cover artists attempt the original key.
How does Morten Harket hit the high note in “Take On Me”?
With controlled falsetto (head voice) rather than a belted chest note. Singing the climax in falsetto is what makes the note sound effortless on the record — and what has allowed him to reproduce it live for four decades without destroying his voice.
What is the 20-second note in “Summer Moved On”?
The 2000 comeback single features Harket holding a single sustained note for roughly 20 seconds — widely reported as one of the longest sustained notes in pop-chart history, and a deliberate showcase of his breath control.
Did Morten Harket have vocal training?
He is largely self-taught as a singer, developing his technique through years of performing rather than formal classical training. His discipline as a live performer — decades of near-nightly singing on tour — became its own form of training.
Does Morten Harket still sing live?
He toured with a-ha into the 2020s, including the True North era. Following his 2025 Parkinson’s announcement, he said he did not know whether he would perform again; no farewell has been announced.
What solo music has Morten Harket released?
Six solo albums, from the Norwegian-language Poetenes Evangelium (1993) through Wild Seed (1995), Letter from Egypt (2008), Out of My Hands (2012), and Brother (2014) — plus his long-running work as the voice of a-ha.
Sources & Further Reading
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