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    • Practice Exercises

    PLACEMENTS

     

    Correct

    Loose Facial Muscles on Vowels a (face), oh (gold), ah (father)

                     

     

    Incorrect

    Tight Facial Muscles on Vowels a (face), oh (gold), ah (father)

                     

     

    Tight facial muscles equal a tight throat.   The longer you sing in this condition, the weaker the muscles inside the larynx become.  This gives preference to the development of the outer muscles of the larynx causing numerous vocal dysfunctions.

     

    FIXING OUTER MUSCLES

    I.  Jaw Jutting

    Jaw jutting is the act of protruding the jaw for­ward creating excess tension and introducing the outer muscles of the larynx into tone pro­duction (see BOX A).  To fix this habit, do the exercises on an open "ah" sound while gently holding the jaw back as in BOX B.

     

    2.   Digrastic Muscles

    These are the muscles under the chin (see BOX C).  They, along with several other muscles, are activated in the process of swallowing, but should never be used in the tone making process.   The fingers should be placed under the chin with moderate pres­sure to give a slight resistance against the digrastic muscles.   This should be done very gently and you should never press so hard that you actually feel pain.

                  

     

    3.   Larynx Positions

                 

    Incorrect                                   Correct                                 Incorrect

    High (swallowing)              Medium (normal resting position)            Low (yawing)

     

     

     

    TONGUE


    A.    Tip of Tongue resting on the back of the bottom front teeth.
    B.    Tongue resting somewhat flat with slight groove on vowels "a" (cat), "eh" and "ah"

           

     

     

     

    VOWEL TREE

     

    Below is a visual example of how every vowel proceeds from either 'oo' or 'ее.'   The expla­nation of the significance of this fact will be explained in lessons.