If you find that your notes are getting ‘stuck’ in your throat or you experience sore throats after singing for a while, or if you find that you lose your voice after singing, then the cause is usually too much vocal tension.
In this video I’ll explain exactly what causes vocal tension and I have two super simple but uber effective exercises for you to work with that will help you sing without straining and remove your vocal tension for good.
Nicola x
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Practice Points
- Sing elevator slides with your tongue stuck out. (Stick your tongue RIGHT out! I was being a bit shy with my tongue-sticking-outing in the video)[spacer height=”20px”]
- Then try doing a structured scale or an arpeggio with your tongue stuck out.[spacer height=”20px”]
- Once you’ve done that a few times, move onto the Lip Bubble. Do elevator slides and concentrate on keeping your throat really relaxed.[spacer height=”20px”]
Did you like this video and try out the exercises? Let me know how you went in the comments below.
Video Summary
Vocal tension is primarily caused by your tongue being too tight. It is a muscle and all muscles develop muscle memory. If you experience a tight throat or you lose your voice after singing for a while then your tongue has ‘learned’ to be too tight so you need to retrain it.
Two exercises to reducing tongue tightness (and therefore vocal tension) are:
1. Sing your warm ups with your tongue stuck out.
This literally removes the tongue from the singing equation and will help your throat to relax.
2. Do the Lip Bubble.
The lip bubble is like blowing a raspberry with an aaaah tone added to it. You want to see if you can keep the lip bubble going steadily until you run out of breath.
Add these two exercises to your warm up BEFORE you start singing songs to help retrain your tongue to become more relaxed.
Great video with a concise explanation……..Had heard of the muscle memory and now I know what all falls under it…haha…….Thanks a lot for letting know how to get rid of the rigidity in the tongue to remove the vocal tension…..The video is helpful as all your other videos……..and I must also say that the email was well written too….Thanks for all the time and effort you have been putting in to make these great videos……..You are truly doing something great……….Have a good day…….Take care……
Great- thank you very much!
Greetings from Greece
You’re welcome! 🙂
Hey!! Thanks for the advice! The problem is is I can blow a raspberry but when I put my hands on my cheeks it just comes out as air! Haha, I don’t know if it’s just vocal tension or I’m not equipped for this exercise. Let me know if this is something you can help with! 🙂 thanks!
Thank you for posting this video. I am not a singer but I have voice tremors and my voice does weird things sometimes. I think this video will be a big help.
Tanks for these great tips
Helllo……Hmmm….this very insightful and educating.Am now learning how to sing.Am grateful I can across this.God bless you.
Thanks!
Nicole – Do you have any exercises to remove a “raspy” sound in a singing voice?Joe
That was great l am so impressed
How do you know whether your tongue needs to more relaxed than it is? I don’t have a lot of problem singing once my voice is warmed up; do I still need to relax my tongue more, or is that just for people whith tense tongues?
Thank you so much for these videos! I cannot find a link to video #3 in belting 🙁