It seems to be the theme this week…. What’s going on with your jaw while you’re singing… I want to talk, or keep talking, about a specific thing that causes problems for every singer...
Tension in your jaw, neck and shoulders…
Sometimes you aren’t even aware that you are tensing those muscles… but if you are having trouble hitting high notes you might want to look at yourself in the mirror while you’re singing and look for tension particularly in your jaw and neck… If it’s there, I’ll almost guarantee that it’s also in your shoulders and back.
Here are a few obvious things you can do to help relieve this tension..
Deep breathing exercises
Massage
Neck and shoulder stretches
Physical exercise, and
Get enough sleep
Another exercise that we do specifically to combat this problem is to sing and let the jaw unhinge and flap while you’re singing… drop the jaw, open the mouth and don’t articulate anything.. The whole objective of this exercise is not to understand any of the words you are singing… This will sound REALLY FUNNY… trust me you will laugh at yourself while you’re doing this.. but if you learn to rehears songs this way it will help you get rid of the tension in your jaw. You can’t open your mouth as wide as you'll need to if you are holding tension in your jaw.
Another good test is to see if you are touching or clenching your back teeth together… never, never, never hold your back teeth together… the more you can keep your jaw in that unhinged position the better it will be for you singing…
I see singers all the time that miss notes largely because they are pushing to hard and tensing their jaw and neck, trying to force the note out… the part of the body you should be engaging while you’re singing is the core… ab’s, back, legs and glute’s…
Leave the neck and shoulders out of the act… and start flappin your jaw…
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