A Simple Self-Checking Method for the Student of Voice

As a vocal coach, I use an invaluable tool which I learned from my yesteryears when I initially started training with my vocal coach. It’s the power of touch with the hand and fingers – it is specific, has purpose and gives you immediate (if your awareness is developed and if not, it will aide in the development of your awareness), bio-feedback to your brain telling you of any incorrect muscle or jaw tension and if your inhaled breath is placed correctly when producing sound. Then you can start working on eliminating this to get your voice working at its fullest potential!

The touch itself will not fix the issue – there are at least two things you have to do.
1. Mentally focus on the specific muscular tension and tell it to disappear and where to direct the inhaled air into the correct place in the body (the mind is a powerful tool in any training / learning regime).
2. Physically, correcting the unwanted muscular tension - most commonly the tongue and/or the jaw hinge (temporomandibular joint). Or perhaps you are pushing from the back of the neck and/or thrusting the chin forward (all contributors to throat constriction).

So a hand / fingers on the back/side of the neck, two fingers under the chin or front of the chin, jaw hinge, finger on side of the mouth, hand on your upper front of chest can help you immensely to become aware of any wrong tension that is constraining your voice or worse, damaging your voice. And another added bonus of having this bio-feedback to the brain is your development of the right muscle memory to get a great vocal – this will occur overtime with good, effective, regular practise.