VOCAL SKILLS AND HOW TO IMPROVE

• Support your voice properly with your breathing, as breath is the energy of the voice.
• Use your mouth effectively for speech sounds to shape the energy of the words you use.
• Work on discovering the resonance of your voice.

Exercise: Finding resonance in different parts of your body

Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your weight balanced on the centre of your feet.

Start humming with your lips closed but not pressed together and your teeth apart.  While you hum, do all the actions below to stimulate the feeling of resonance through your body.  Listen to the sound and you will hear the changes.

Chest

Firmly pat and message around the chest area. 

Lower ribs

Rub and massage the lower ribs at the front and the sides. 

Lower Back

Rub, pat and massage the back of your lower ribs and the top of your pelvis. 

Abdomen

Bounce and shake the humming down into your abdomen. 

Legs and feet

Shake the humming out of each leg and foot.

Spine

Shake and bounce the humming through your spine. 

Stand still again.

Face

Drop your head down towards your chest and hum into your face – the forehead, nose and lips.  Gravity will help to release the sound. 

Lift your head as you hum. 

Move the face muscles around and move your voice around so that you are sliding through different notes.

Head

Hum into the top of your head using a high-pitched, gentle voice

Exercise: Resonance through the whole range of your voice

Still humming, slide down slowly and smoothly through your voice from the highest note to the lowest.  Don’t strain or reach for the high notes.  Allow the voice to start the slide quite gently.  Don’t worry if you hear a jump in the middle of your range.  It is quite normal.

 

• As you slide, gradually, think the sound forward and away from you in the distance.
• Repeat several times.
• Allow a few slides, try speaking something – you could just count to 10.
• Is your voice beginning to feel freer?
• Does it sound more resonant and colourful?

 Exercise: Opening the voice – releasing the sound and exploring your range.

 Rib Stretch

• Take a wider stance and bend your knees a little.
• With your right arm up, stretch over to the left side, with your left arm wrapped around your body to hold the stretched right side.
• Drop the top hand on to the top of your head and relax your shoulders.
• Breathe a couple of breaths into the stretched side and feel the ribs swinging out.  Try dropping the lower arm.  You will feel more stretch.
• Drop the right shoulder and elbow forward and you will feel the stretch opening up the back of that side of your rib cage.  Take a couple of breaths,
• Come up, drop your arms and take a breath, you will feel how the ribs move more freely on the stretched side of your body.
• Repeat the whole exercise of the other side.
• Finally, stand up straight again and bring your feet back in under your hips.  Be aware of the movement of the sides of your ribs as you breathe normally.

Throat stretches

 

Yawning

Yawning is a great way to stretch all the areas involved with speech: the throat, tongue, lips and face muscles.  If you stretch your body in response to the yawn, you will open up the ribs and shoulders as well.

 

Stifled Yawn

Try another yawn but this time don’t open your mouth – as if you were trying to stifle the yawn.  Do you feel that big stretch at the back of your mouth?

 

Standing straight again, let the breath fill the sides of your ribs, and be aware of the movement of the diaphragm down into your abdomen.

 

Exercise: Exploring the range

This exercise is to open up your voice using the whole range,
from high to low.

 

• Breathe in, then release your voice on a long slow Ha, sliding from the very top of your range down to the bottom.
• Don’t push up the high note at the beginning.  Take it from that gentle, child’s voice you used in Exercise 3.
• Repeat as many times as you like, but always choose to breathe into your lower ribs, diaphragm and abdomen first.
• Send your voice away from you into the distance.  Look at a spot across the room and focus the energy of your voice to that point.  Try to keep the vocal energy up and out without pushing it.
• Choose to keep your throat and mouth open all the way to the end of the sound.

Articulation – exercising the muscles of your face and tongue.

Wake up the muscles of articulation in your mouth to ensure that the words you speak have energy and clarity.

 

Prepare by giving your face muscles a workout.

• Scrunch and stretch the face but be careful not to tighten your neck.
• Move your tongue around in your mouth and with the tip explore every corner.
• Stick the front of your tongue out of your mouth – just as far as it’s comfortable.
• Make a point with the tip, then flatten it.  Alternate between pointing and flattening a few times.
• Make small circles with the tip in both directions.
• Make big circles using the whole tongue.
• When you have finished, relax the jaw and connect to your breathing.

Exercise: Tip of the tongue

 

• Make a rolled R, moving around the whole range of your voice.
• Make fast, repeated D sounds.
• Make fast, repeated T sounds.

Exercise: Sides of the tongue

 

Repeat Yoh yah, Yoh yah several times.

Repeat red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry several times.

 

Exercise:  Back of the tongue

Open your mouth enough to get two fingers between your teeth, one above the other.

Put the tip of your tongue behind your bottom teeth.

Take your fingers out but keep the space.

Try to move only your tongue at the back and not the jaw.

Make fast, repeated G sounds.

Make fast, repeated K sounds.

Repeat kiggley koo, kiggley koo, kiggley kiggley kiggley koo several times.

Exercise: Lips

 

Lift your top lip off your top teeth like a sneer, then let it drop down again.

• Repeat several times: up and down, up and down.
• Now try that with your bottom lip, dropping it down off your bottom teeth.  Try not to tighten your neck.
• Repeat several times: down and up, down and up.
• Now one after the other: lift the top lip then return your lips together.  Drop the bottom lip, then return your lips together.  Top, together, bottom, together, top, together, bottom together.
• Blow air through your lips and enjoy making them flap.
• Make motorbike engine sounds with your lips by blowing your voice through them.
• Make fast repeated B sounds.  Bounce them around the room.
• Make fast, repeated P sounds.  Make them sharp, popping sounds.
• Make fast, repeated W sounds.  Work the lips quite hard.
• Make fast, repeated M sounds. Enjoy the buzz on the lips.