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Before you get to the yawning like a lion bit (I know that's why you're here!), remember last week when we released our tongues and felt the throat relax, too? Let's take it a step further. With one hand on your throat and the other on your solar plexus (high abdomen just below your sternum/ribs), exhale and release your throat downward. Did you notice your solar plexus drop and soften too? Cool, isn't it? Notice how you feel when you let go that way? Most people I have asked have said they feel peaceful, safe, and relaxed. Can it be that easy to let go of stress and feel immediate effects? I guess so! Just let go of your throat - you know, where you hold all the junk you want to say but don't.
Now here's the superfantabulous part: if you can learn to drop and release the throat and solar plexus on your inhale, it will set you up perfectly to sing well. Low larynx, open vocal folds, soft belly, high soft palate, all on a bed of peaceful physicality. What's not to like?? Go on, give it a go.
Try this!Yawn. Yeah, just do it, for real. No faking! Feel how your soft palate lifted up really high and your larynx dropped way down? That's awesome for singing! However, did you also feel your tongue squash up in the back of your mouth, or pull down into your throat? Not awesome for singing. Felines have got it right: yawn with your tongue all the way out of your mouth, and THAT is the right feeling for the space required to sing well. (And it's nearly impossible for humans - the tongue almost always pulls back in - but a good exercise nonetheless.) Practice accessing that openness, and you'll easily be able to find it when you need it to sing, whether for a high note, some help smoothing your register transitions, or just a little extra beauty and resonance.
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Heard that before? Of course - growing up, there are things that just 'aren't said', and we hold them in by 'holding our tongues', quite literally. How often, as a grown up (which I assume most of you are), do you hold your tongue, literally and figuratively?
A lot, right?
All of that subconscious holding creates tension in the voice. The tongue is connected to the larynx via the hyoid bone, so whenever your tongue has tension, it affects the larynx. For example, I hold a fair bit of tension in my tongue; if I'm not completely conscious of it (and I'm certainly not, most of the time), every time I swallow (try it with me...) my tongue decides to stay attached to the roof of my mouth. Does yours? Try it again, let it get stuck there, and then feel the front of your neck as you release your tongue. Feel how your neck/throat/larynx released downward when you let go of your tongue? Yeah. So, if you're a tongue tension person - and there are other ways to be that way besides the stuck-to-the-roof way - your larynx is probably USED TO being in a slightly tense/lifted position. So...
When you start to sing, you're going to need to consciously release your tongue and larynx to get at your free voice.
Try this!Oh, how I love this fabulously glamourous stretch! Stick out your tongue as far as it will go, and bite down on it pretty firmly. Still biting your tongue, lift your chin up and forward, like a turtle sticking its head out of its shell. Feel the stretch in your throat? You're actually stretching your tongue, from the bite point to the root! Often, we just stretch our tongue by sticking it out, but then we're using the tongue muscles themselves to accomplish the stretch. This stretch releases the muscles passively, which helps us to get a more released tongue for singing.
Now THAT's sexy. :) |
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January 11, 2012
Let's assume you recognize your own voice as a unique gift and accept it totally. Your voice moves freely through your body, acting as an open conduit for expressing your deepest truth. Your breath moves right down into your low belly - your emotional centre - and sails right up your spine and our your mouth, encountering zero tension as it moves. The breath activates your vocal folds and they are able to do all their amazing, tiny, finesse-ful adjustments to create a wonderfully free, easy, expressive sound.
Awesome! ...and it's not enough.
There's a little piece of wisdom (I learned from my dear friend Katherine - thanks K!) that goes: Life is a potluck. If you don't bring a dish, someone else doesn't eat. Let's extend that to your voice...
Someone in the world needs to hear something of great importance, and they can only hear it from YOU. Yes, your voice, with all its bumps, jumps,'flaws', and whatever else you perceive as inadequacies, is THE PERFECT INSTRUMENT to carry a message to someone, or maybe, many someones.
Whoa. Big, right? Yup. Bigger than your fear that your voice isn't pretty, or smooth, or high enough or low enough or anything enough. So step up, move through the junk, let it all go, and bring your dish. Someone else is hungry.
Try this!Got tension? Yup. We all do. Life hits us and we harden, here and there, to protect ourselves from the pain of it. Tight jaw, anyone? Hold your tongue much? Carry stress in your shoulders? Breath gets stuck in your chest? Yup. That's normal. Part of having a voice is learning how to let it all go, over and over, every day for the rest of your life. (It gets easier, though - the body remembers and slides into ease faster with practice.) Look in the mirror while you breathe and sing. Observe your body - what moves and what doesn't? If a certain part doesn't move, move it on purpose and see how your voice feels different.
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