The Holy Trinity of Your Articulators

In some religions, it is the trinity that makes things work out.  Typically one is earthly, one is spiritual, and the third is the creator.  When they fight, and don’t agree, really bad things happen.  Floods, Plagues, crucifixions, and other nasty destructive things come into play.

Likewise, your articulators must work in concert or you could be crucifying your voice.  You can control your own trinity.  It includes:  YOUR JAW, YOUR TONGUE, and YOUR LIPS.  When they are working together, the rainbow appears, showing a myriad of colors and lightening up the sky.

To get the body trinity to work together we recommend the following daily exercises:

Jaw Traction:  Repeat 3 times with 2 minute breaks (light chewing) in between

1. Sit or stand with balanced body alignment in front of a mirror
2. Hook the pads of your thumbs behind your jaw and under your ears
3. Rest your hands on your cheeks
4. Open your mouth so your teeth are one inch apart
5. Keep your mouth open and push your lower jaw straight forward as far as you can comfortably
6. Keep your mouth open one inch still and pull your jaw straight forward further, using your thumbs
7. Hold the traction for 45 seconds until it feels comfortable

Tongue Thrusts

1. Sit or stand with balanced body alignment in front of a mirror
2. Envision your tongue at the back of your throat
3. Thrust your tongue forward from the place that you have envisioned
4. Hold it for three seconds and release
5. Thrust harder for 3 seconds and release
6. Thrust it one more time even harder, and release
7. When you get an impulse to cough or your jaw wants to lock up before the 3 repetitions, you have completed this exercise.

Lip Trills

1.  Let your lips touch lightly
2. Breathe out through your lips --- saying an elongated 'bbbbbbbb'
3. Vary the pitch sliding it up and down
4. Practice until you can keep the lips with a consistent buzz throughout the pitch variation

 
Steven Flam is the developer of the groundbreaking teaching technique called BreathingRx For Singers which includes diaphragm target training. For more information or to debate the content of this article please contact him at info@breathingrx.com or check out our website at:  www.breathingrx.com