Tight Throat? Could be your vowels are shot . . .

Many singers of all different genres (rock, pop, musical theatre, opera) come to me for help with tight throats, pushing their sound and creating uncomfortable and unattractive high notes. After we establish good air pressure and air flow habits (involving thoracic stabilization), we work on how they shape their vowels. 

Are your vowels stuck in your mouth? Do you sing with spoken vowels or sung vowels?  Did you know there is a difference?  There is . . . and it can mean the difference between a tight, uncomfortable voice that stops your career, or a big professional sound with easy high notes.  

I worked with a wonderful musical theater singer in NYC this week and the issue that came up was vowel formation. 

Many singers sing using "spoken vowels" - making the same shapes in the mouth as they would when talking. Spoken vowel shapes are too far forward in the mouth for singing, and cause tension in the throat, jaw, tongue and soft palate. Singing spoken vowels shuts off resonance, creating less vocal beauty, power, and freedom. The singer hears this unsatisfying sound and pushes for more and better sound, creating a vicious cycle of pushing and squeezing, resulting in tight, off-key, yelled or screamed (and very uncomfortable!) high notes. Over time, this leads to vocal damage.

Learning to create efficient "sung vowels", rather than "spoken vowels is a complex process, but the results are well worth it! I have a little trick that I use with my singers to make that process easier and faster: it's called The Six-Sided Room. 

(I used to call it "The Six-Sided Box", but just recently I changed it to "The Six-Sided Room" because it sounds more open and flexible. Go figure -- it's a weird voice teacher thing.) 

Imagine the space inside your mouth where you sing vowels as a Six-Sided Room: 

1. The ceiling of the room is your soft palate. 

2. The floor of the room is your tongue, mostly the middle and back portion -- with a hole in the floor being your throat. 

3. The back wall is the back of your throat. 

4. & 5. The 2 side walls are the areas around your jaw hinge and temples. 

6. The front of the room is your lips, and the tip of your tongue. 

The Six-Sided Room is like short-hand for singers. If you know what shape your Six-Sided Room needs to be in, you can solve any vowel problem. You may ask yourself: "I wonder if the ceiling (my soft palate) is raised enough? Or: "Is the floor (my tongue) doing what it's supposed to do, or have I forgotten about it?" You will quickly learn to analyze and solve complex vowel issues on your own. 

Once you learn and train the basics of the Six-Sided Room, you can more easily learn how to modify your vowel "room" for different pitches, particularly higher pitches.

This wonderful MT singer and I revisited the Six-Sided Room technique with masterful results. Even though she was suffering from slight vocal fatigue, her chest voice was big and lovely, and she had a strong high mix on her top notes. Applying the Six-Sided Room allowed her to release jaw and throat tension, and create the resonance and freedom she needed throughout the entire song. We were both very excited by the end of the lesson!