What A Tight Tongue Can Do To Your Singing

Your tongue is connected to more than you think. Use it the wrong way and it can cause trouble.
That sounds like something your mother would tell you, doesn't it:) Well, here's how speaking or singing with a tight tongue can affect your voice:

1. A tightness in the root or base of the tongue will cause or accompany a tightness in the jaw which will tighten and stiffen the soft palate, preventing the lifted palate necessary for an open throat. This will cause all kinds of vocal problems.
2. A tight tongue grabs the hyoid bone and lifts the larynx. This will cause thin, choked sound, limited vocal range and vocal strain.
3. Dr. Lance Robbins, DC, CPT, suggests we also check the digastric muscles. This set of muscles runs along the sides of the bottom of the jaw. Tension or spasm in either muscle can interfere with flexibility in the tongue, leading to the tight tongue we do not want.

So can we solve the tight tongue problem?

• Certain jaw exercises and tongue stretching can help relax these muscles, as well as manipulations by an intuitive chiropractor. 
• Put two fingers up under the jaw and check for a bulking, tight tongue base. Try talking or singing again, holding those two fingers against the tongue and willing it to relax.
• Articulate, or form words, with the tip and front sides of the tongue at the front of your mouth instead of back in your jaw. A deaf person should be able to read your lips for the lyrics. 

Your comments and feedback are always most welcome. If you are a student of Power, Path & Performance, focus on the exercises for tongue and jaw flexibility.

Taming Tongue Tension

A question about tongue tension was asked at The Modern Vocalist this month. I thought I'd share my answer and elaborate it with you, dear reader of this blog, because it is a very common problem. Tongue tension equals soft palate tension, equals... throat tension!!

Tongue tension happens when you use the wrong end of the tongue too much! The tongue is said by some to be the strongest muscle in the body for it's size. It is literally connected by the hyoid bone to the top of your larynx. Tensing the root of your tongue raises the larynx uncomfortably. NOT GOOD. You need to be able to keep the mighty base (or root) of the tongue relaxed while you use the tip and front sides of the tongue to articulate.

Some things I suggest that have helped my students loosen tongue tension:

1. Wake up the face and do tongue tanglers, trying for clarity and not allowing the voice to "fall into the gravel" at the ends of phrases. Act like you are speaking to deaf people... make your lyric show in your face. This gets it out of the back of the throat and stiff jaw.

2. Speak or sing with the jaw moving in sort of a slight chewing motion. Tongue tension and jaw stiffness go together.

3. Put your knuckle inbetween your molars (not the front of your mouth) and sing. It will sound weird, like trying to speak with the dentist's hand in your mouth, but your jaw and tongue will experience having to relax.

4. Sing only on the vowels for a while, again allowing the back of the mouth and throat to fall open. This is harder than you think, you have to concentrate on NOT forming consonants. Then allow yourself to slightly let the consonants sneak back in, but keeping the back of the tongue feeling the same and letting the jaw relax flexibly.

5. Put two fingers under your chin. You are feeling the base of your tongue. Speak or sing, telling yourself not to tense there (bunch the muscle up).

6. DO NOT OVER-WORK the tongue in specific vocal exercises. Sometimes I find that exercises designed to stretch out and loosen the tongue can have the opposite effect. If you do these, be sure and note how they actually affect your tongue root's ability to relax.

By the way... some people can do tongue trills and some people can do lip trills and some people can do both. Just like rolling the tongue, forming French or German syllables, for some people it is easy and some hard, because there is a learning curve that makes it easier in childhood, and I believe, subtle muscle coordination differences in people. It doesn't matter if you can do these things or not. The main thing is to get your articulation out of the back of your throat, and there is more than one way to accomplish this goal.

Let me know what works for you!

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