Let’s talk tongue

Dear Singer,

The jaw and tongue are their own kind of creature when it comes to how we sing. The tongue alone is amazing and made up of 8 muscles that are all intricately intertwined creating a highly flexible body part that can shapeshift and do all the things we need of it to form language! Tongue muscles are the only muscles, in the human body, that work independently from the skeleton! This magnificent part of us is more responsible for healthy sound production than you might think.

First let’s address the role the tongue plays in how we sound, the tongue acts as a room divider between the throat space and the mouth space, and where this “room divider” moves in the body, influences the acoustic spaces. Meaning that what your tongue does has a strong influence on the color of the sound you are making.

To explore this concept, with a speaking voice and the same pitch say “Uh” 3 times as if calling upon Beetlejuice. Notice how the tongue dropped in the back and then do the same thing on an “Ee” using the same pitch. Notice how the tongue lifted up against the top teeth towards the back of the mouth and how this might have moved around some vibrations in your body. Observe the sound. If you’re using the same pitch, the “Uh” sounds darker while the “Ee” sounds brighter. This means that the quality of vowels has a strong influence on sound as well. That tongue of yours has 8 muscles intertwined together and those 8 muscles can shapeshift into all kinds of positions that will vary depending on what pitch you’re singing.

The root of the tongue sits right on top of your larynx (which is the house of your vocal folds) so if there’s a lot of tension in the tongue it’s going to influence the muscles surrounding it aka the larynx and the muscles responsible for manipulating the thinness and thickness of your folds. Tongue tension was my biggest culprit when it came to accessing my high notes.

It’s such a sneaky place for tension to live that singing may not feel as easy because, as my teacher would say, “the jaw and tongue are in cahoots together”. The most obvious signs of this for me were that my jaw was pretty closed when I was singing with my mouth practically shut. The way that worked to work this out of my singing for me was disconnecting my sound from jaw movement and from the tongue.

I created separation from these two parts by over-opening my mouth when I vocalized because that was the easiest and most accessible coordination for me to start to take my power back from the tension. I slowly started to stretch my face and tongue before I sang. Singing vowels on one pitch while making sure the jaw is solid and in an open position can also help with the separation so check out the exercises below.

e x e r c i s e s

1. Stretch that baby out as far as you can and do so with the face relaxed and gently let it out of your mouth. Stretch it as you would stretch your legs after a long run. Feel the stretch.

2. Now stretch the underside of the front of your tongue by taking the tip of your tongue and touching the soft and fleshy part of your mouth in the back (the soft palate) and with that stretch perk your lips together and open up the jaw gently like you’re trying to get your chin to touch the floor without moving your neck down of course. This will also stretch your jaw a bit too.

3. Tongue twisters! Try your best to keep that jaw in a relaxed and open position while your tongue, teeth, and lips do all the work articulating.

4. Sing — Ah, Eh, Ee, Oh, Oo on one pitch. Feel how the tongue moves and shifts for each vowel. Feel on each vowel how the tongue interacts with teeth and how lips change shape to produce clear vowels! How easy or hard is this for you? Typically, that tip of the tongue is going to be resting against your back bottom teeth. Find your ease and flow.

As always, I hope this helps you learn and grow more into your singing practice.

xoxo, Taylor