VOICE TRAINING to produce the sound I want in my voice
Our muscles are connected in a domino effect. When I tense my toes, this is immediately transmitted through our muscle chains – and we also have micro-muscles – right through our body to the state of tension in our vocal cords, our vocal folds. (The vocal cords that we always talk about only refer to a small part of the vocal folds. We actually mean the vocal folds, which encompass the entire vocal production area with muscles and mucous membranes).
It’s smart to be smart
It would be smart, optimal and healthy if we actually applied what we already know. And that also applies to the voice. Our body is our instrument! Our body is our voice car that we drive around in. And when we move something somewhere, something usually moves with it. Have we ever obtained a driving licence for our body? Can we lean into a bend at high speed without tensing up – i.e. in a figurative sense: when we speak quickly, can we stay relaxed and speak with a good sound – because that is often a challenge! So it’s clever to be able to relax or activate areas of the body in different ways, but a lot of this happens subconsciously, which in turn restricts us.
When we open our mouth wide to produce a fuller vocal sound, for example, we also pay attention to the position of the tongue and the tip of the tongue. If we release our lower jaw downwards, our subconscious is startled. If we open our mouth wide, we become more vulnerable, emotionally insecure and put ourselves in the ‘beware’ position in order to be able to flee quickly. In order to protect ourselves, other muscles immediately tense up: the tongue retracts backwards, shoulders harden, the centre of gravity shifts upwards and forwards, breathing becomes smaller and faster in order to be able to act more quickly, i.e. to flee or fight! The Stone Age brain means this very nicely, but unfortunately it is extremely counterproductive for the sound of our voice and any verbal communication situation!
And so we move through our everyday life, through our lives: from one tension to the next – but we usually don’t want to relax and release our muscles, because we are afraid that we will no longer be able to perform, that we won’t be able to do everything we set out to do, that we will become slow and boring and so on and so forth … but that’s not so clever for our voice!
Thoughts, feelings, body positions, muscle connections are all interconnected
Being aware of ourselves, reflecting on ourselves is challenging and also exhausting in our daily autopilot.
Being able to diagnose and treat yourself vocally is an art that can be trained. That’s what voice and speech training does!
VOICE TRAINING TIPS super.simple.effective.
As strange as it may sound, notice the tip of your tongue often: where is it – at the bottom of your mouth, in contact with the upper palate, hanging freely in the air, in contact with any teeth? If you can feel it, place the tip of your tongue against the bottom of your lower incisors: this immediately loosens up the entire vocal apparatus, including the vocal folds/ligaments, giving you more space in your mouth, which in turn can produce a fuller sound. It can also be easy!
Taking the time to become aware of the tension in your own body already loosens it up: if we do it, it can happen very quickly. It’s just smart to do it! That’s the challenge! So good stamina for such crazy and efficient things!
Yours
Voice expert.
