The current paper studies the thermoacoustically unstable combustion, under elevated mean pressure, of a commercial swirl stabilized gas turbine burner fitted with optically accessible windows. We study natural gas flames at mean pressures of 3, 4 and 6 bar which delivered thermal loads equal to 335 kW, 474kW and 685 kW respectively, at constant equivalence ratios and bulk velocities. In the 3 bar case, dynamic pressure bursts were observed amidst a quiescent acoustic background. The flame anchored on the shear layers of the recirculation zone and it periodically expanded in the outer recirculation zone (ORZ). In the 4 and 6 bar cases, the flame was thermoacoustically unstable with seldom requiescent events, with suppressed expansion to the ORZ. Dynamic Mode Decomposition on high speed images from the 3 bar case, showed that said expansion introduced an additional time scale, further to the fundamental acoustic timescale. A physical mechanism is suggested to link dynamics and flame shape differences on adjusting mean pressure. The premixture is characterized by a Lewis number lower than unity, the laminar flame speed increases on decreasing mean pressure and the flow imposed on the flame strain rate oscillated over a period of thermoacoustic instability. This combination resulted in local oscillations of the heat release rate, in the region of the outer shear layers. The phenomenon was pronounced in the 3 bar case, due to higher flow dilatation imposed strain rates than the 4 and 6 bar cases.