Do you feel heaviness while you sing? Do you feel vocally fatigued or have a sore throat after? Are you able to complete the exercises mentioned above without tongue interference? Believe it or not, a large portion of my teaching day is devoted to freeing singers of tongue tension and its undesirable effects. I'll take you through one student's first few steps toward freedom of the tongue.
A lot of the time students will admit that they’ll get frustrated and discouraged because they feel a major squeeze and/or a choking feeling on their higher pitches. Students would feel they had to push hard in order to engage a register or to hit the right note.
Especially with a beginning singer, it is often that one would judge his or her singing in terms of how they hear themselves and feel. I remember a student, not too long ago, told me that while singing she felt an overall sense of heaviness, felt tired, and getting sore. It was stealing the joy from her singing.
You could tell that this student loved to sing caused it showed, but her voice wasn't reflecting her hard work. She was pushing when transitioning registers thus, she had to push harder to sing any higher. The voice was strident and harsh above A4. She had one general loud volume in her chest and mixed-voice ranges, which ultimately led to no mixed voice at all. When singing in her head voice, she wasn't able to access it without a major squeeze.
This student's voice was being robbed by that common culprit: tongue tension. It's a tough issue to self-diagnose. Without trained eyes and ears, students will say phrases like "really feeling it" or "this song is too high for me." And it has to do with the tongue.
I could see her frustration, but I knew exactly how we would spend our session together…
First, we identified the problem. Indeed, she felt her tongue retract, or pull back into the throat. Not only that, the tongue was flat. A lot of trainers will say to bring your tongue forward. This is correct but there is more to that statement. But don’t worry, it is not going to get complicated.
To create great sound, your tongue needs to be just as released as the rest of your body while you sing. The tongue is a huge muscle, and if it’s tense or bunched up in the back, it blocks or it squeezes the tone, making it sound tight. Your tongue should slightly arch when making those consonant and vowel sounds.
We would want to form the back vowels ooh, OOh, oh, aw, and ah by arching the back of your tongue and creating very specific lip shapes. The tongue arches to its highest point on the ooh vowel and then gradually lower for OOh, oh, aw, and ah. The lips create a specific shape for the back vowels, but the shape is more open when you sing the higher notes.
To sing the ooh vowel (as in shoe and new ), allow your lips to pucker forward (that is, to move forward away from your front teeth) and to round to a small opening.
The OOh vowel (as in took, shook, and crook ) requires that your lips pucker and open just slightly farther than they do for the ooh vowel. For the oh vowel (as in go and no ), your lips round into a circle.
For the aw vowel (as in awful and slaw ), your lips are slightly rounded and open into a wider circle than the circle they make for the oh vowel.
For the ah vowel (as in father and gaga ), your lips are slightly rounded but without the protrusion that they made for the oh or aw.
For all the back vowels, the tip of the tongue continues to touch the bottom front teeth. If the back of your tongue feels tight when you make the back vowels, you’re pushing up the tongue rather than raising it. To fix this problem, allow the space in the back of your mouth and throat to release; then you can raise the back of your tongue without having to tighten the muscles. You’ll feel some movement in the muscles as you arch your tongue, but that basic movement is different from tension.
This is an exercise that I usually give my students to feel the difference of the slight lift. As this particular student slid up to the higher tone, she could feel the tongue trying to retract again. So we made an adjustment. She placed the relaxed tip of her tongue between her lips. (Think of it as a hum position with tongue showing.) Now we could really see when her tongue was trying to help her change the pitch. It took some practice, but she finally made it through the exercise without the tongue retracting.
Since this session, this singer has made tremendous improvements. She easily glides through her registers, rarely cracks, and has increased her range. Most importantly, however, is the newfound confidence she feels.
How about you? Do you feel heaviness while you sing? Are you tired or sore after? Are you able to complete the exercises mentioned above without tongue interference? If so, don’t worry! This is quite common. Just give the previous exercise a try. And depending on where you are on your vocal journey, you may want to investigate starting voice lessons. There are many great teachers out there. Find one in your area and get started.
Interested in taking lessons? Book here!
Until next time, Happy Singing!