Remember those voiced consonants I warned you about in a previous post? Well, today I’m going to teach you how to USE them in a very strategic set of vocal warmup exercises. Done correctly, these exercises can help you erase your vocal break, add vocal resonance, loosen vocal tension, and widen your range without vocal strain! And yes, they’re weird. But they WORK!
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Transcript
Please note: While I am including the transcript here, I highly recommend you either listen to the audio podcast or watch the video to get these exercises right.
The vocal exercises I’m going to teach you today are ones I constantly use with all my vocal students. I call them the ‘Voiced Consonants Exercises’, and because they don’t require specific pitch accuracy, they work for both singers and speakers who don’t sing.
How do they work?
The exercises stretch and work the tissues and muscles of your throat channel, aka ‘vocal tract’, which is an F-shaped tube coming up in your throat from the larynx, forking at the post-nasal drip area into the mouth and the nose. Or, as an article in the National Library of Medicine describes it: the nasal, oral and laryngeal pharynx.
Doing these exercises properly will also stretch the sinuses and eustachian tubes, which open into the upper pharynx, to the point where you may experience a rush of drainage, or your ears popping. Here’s a photo from my course ‘Power, Path & Performance’:
What do they actually do for your voice?
A bit like kneading bread dough, these exercises will make the throat channel tissues and muscles more elastic and capable of more intricate movement. This will give your voice access to more interesting vocal tone colors, and will free the voice from tension in the jaw, neck, and face that limit the automatic working of the vocal apparatus. These exercises blend your head and chest registers across the passagio or register break in the middle of your vocal range, therefore mixing and extending your vocal range in both directions without strain. So let’s do this, shall we?
The Voiced Consonant Exercises
OK, for best results, it’s much more important HOW you do vocal exercises than HOW MANY you do. Here are some tips to get your form right for these:
My favorite word for vocal technique is ‘Pull’ (the opposite of Push.) Pull these exercises 45 degrees to the balcony above and behind you. It’s not a huge move, just a subtle little twist up and open.
My other favorite throat-opening words is ‘morph’, which means ‘shape shift’. As you do these exercises, actively morph and free the voiced consonants and syllables by gently circling your jaw a bit when you drop it (like chewing gum), and talking with active eyes. Also, flexibly balance your head back over your tailbone or heels. Lastly, don’t raise your chin or head-butt forward. Remember- pull. OK here we go:
Start with the ‘Vocal Cow’ sound: Raise your eyebrows, drop your jaw, pull your head back slightly and say ‘Mm’.
Now repeat after me, and don’t rush through the middle:
M-Mah, M-May, M-Mee, M-Moh, M-Moo
N-Nah, N-Nay, N-Nee, N-Noh, N-Noo
R-Rah, R-Ray, R-Ree, R-Roh, R-Roo
Now let’s cross from top to bottom, head to chest voice
Y-Yah, Y-Yay, Y-Yee, Y-Yoh, Y-Yoo
Now do a random mix of these syllables on your own. Mix it up… always dropping your jaw twice and pulling like I’m pulling your ponytail up from the balcony behind you.
What did you experience?
- Did you find the jaw freedom strange? (Good!)
- Did you experience a rush of drainage or ear popping? (Good!)
- Does your voice feel warm and open?
- Did you find your vocal breaks lessening or disappearing?
- Now sing something. What is different about the way your voice feels and/or sounds?
When to use these exercises
You can use these exercises as a preparation for any vocal practice or performance, including other exercises. Let me know how this works for you in the comments… and don’t forget to subscribe for more free vocal lessons like this!
If you really want to go the distance:
- book a lesson with me,
- or purchase my Power, Path and Performance vocal training
- or my Speaking Voice Technique video course.
If you haven’t already, subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode of All Things Vocal… the podcast for voices with messages that matter!
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