Forgiveness

One of the reasons the jaw can be tense is because we have set it against the people who have wronged us. Or we are clenching our teeth, trying not to say the thing we feel bitterly to be true, but we know shouldn't be said out loud.

When we go to loosen the jaw, for the first or the hundredth time, we run into the feelings that helped create the tension. They can be bigger than you might think. The jaw can be more resistant to loosening than seems rational.

Letting go of jaw tension often means letting go our ideas about who other people should be, what they should say, how they should act. It's true, we use our jaw muscles all day long, talking and eating, talking and eating. They will probably be tense even on the day we are enlightened masters. The more spiritual work we can do, though, the lighter the burden on our jaws will become.

The more we can trust that our singing is a good gift, to ourselves and the people around us, the easier it will be to open our mouths and let the sound out.

Singing well usually requires forgiving other people. It always requires we soften our relationship with ourselves.

How to loosen your jaw

Singing requires a looser, more flexible jaw than most of us naturally have, and just like your hamstrings, it's good to spend some time everyday helping those muscles find freer ways to be. Two or three minutes can be enough. Here are some things that I have tried that work for me. They are in no particular order. If something doesn't feel good, don't do it. 

1.  Hum a simple song on an “ng” sound, and move your jaw up and down, in a chewing motion. “Ng” is made entirely with the back of the tongue, so the jaw is completely free to move. This may feel strange at first, because our speaking habits tell us that the jaw and the tongue must always move together, but this isn’t actually the case. Notice how tall you can open your mouth while singing on “ng.” To find the sound I mean, say the word “sing” and hold the last sound – that’s the nasal vowel “ng.” If you plug your nose, the sound should stop completely. Feel free to make any collection of pitches that entertain you. Notice what it's like when the jaw moves and the tongue doesn't.

2.  Place your fingers gently on either side of your face, near the jaw hinge, and open and close your mouth. Watch yourself in a mirror: is the motion smooth? does the jaw move straight up and down, or does it go to the side a little? can you freely move your lower jaw in a side-to-side circle, as a camel chews? in both directions? Go slowly. Notice how smoothly your jaw can move. The muscles might feel tired sooner than you think. Try to stop before that happens. Lightly massaging the jaw hinge might help it to loosen up. 

3.  Place one tennis ball in a tube sock and take it to bed with you. Lying on your side, without a pillow, find a comfortable place for the tennis ball to nestle near your jaw hinge, on the outside of your body. You’re lying on your side with a tennis ball inside a sock under your head, in a place where the gentle pressure of it encourages the jaw to loosen. Please don’t try this on the floor – the floor is too hard. First spend 30 seconds here, and notice what you notice. Switch to the other side. Is one side tighter than the other? can you relax around the tennis ball? 

The friend who told me about this starts every day this way. Before she even gets out of bed, she lies on a tennis ball. It’s made a huge difference in her quality of life.

4.  Put another tennis ball in that same sock and lie on your back, positioning the two balls on either side of your spine, at the base of your occiput (the bony part of your skull that starts where your spine ends). I like doing this on the floor, because it gives me a deeper release in the back of my neck. I find that loosening the back of my neck also brings more spaciousness to my jaw. Try it in bed and on the floor and see what works for you. It might help to tie a knot in the tube sock to keep the balls from slipping out. 

5.  Last, but not least, sing the opening line of "Deck the Hall" only on the syllable "vo." Freely open and close your mouth each time to make the consonant "v." You might need to sing the song slower than usual (the fa-la-la's are pretty challenging when they're sung as vo-vo-vo's). Expect your jaw to be more willing to move the more times you try this. Sing in a range that's comfortable for you. Let the jaw feel active, but not clenched. Aim for puppet-y floppy. What's it like?

I throw things at my students.

Well, we throw things back and forth

One of the things humans worry about is Getting it Right – singing the right notes, being Perfect. An unintended consequence of worrying about whether we’re Getting it Right is that we sometimes try to sing without actually letting any sound come out of our bodies. We sing to a point that’s only just beyond our nose so that we can judge whether or not the sound is any good before someone else hears it.

But it’s too late for that. The sound’s already been made. We have to give up on the idea that we can make a sound and then decide whether to share it. We have to let the sound sail out of our bodies, and land where it will. Lucky for us, no one will get hurt. A great image – and activity – for this is in throwing a light, easy ball, or a small stuffed animal as you vocalize. Whoop! Whee! AHHH! 

Often in private lessons, a student and I will spend some time tossing soft things back and forth: pillows that look like soccer balls, a stuffed bear, bunny, or a duck. Whoop! Whoa! Whaa? We make some bad throws, some bad catches. No one gets hurt. Our voices loosen up, and we learn how to let the sound move away from us and into the room. 

This is part of what I mean when I say, if it’s not play, it’s not working. 
Play ball.

Embracing the Weird

Singing and speaking use the same muscles, the same breath, but very differently. Singing well, by which I mean, singing with a solid tone that sounds sweetly effortless, requires that we teach our body new habits just for singing. I say just for singing because, for the most part, these are not behaviors that are welcome on the telephone, talking to the loan officer, having that heart-to-heart with your beloved. I notice that when I ask my students to try them out, they almost universally report, “that was weird.” 

Singing better means embracing the weird. 

We have been using our voices since birth. No one taught us how to utter that first cry, it just came out, and it probably meant, “I’m cold, scared, and hungry.” After a time we learned to coo and laugh. Then, mama, more, why? We learned to form words and to make ourselves understood. We copied the people around us and kept doing what worked, and stopped doing what didn’t. We figured it out, this talking thing. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re pretty good at it. 

Perhaps it goes without saying that if we had needed to learn to scream, we all would have starved. This is part of the fundamental weirdness of studying singing. We don’t have active control over all of the muscles we’re trying to train. 

We can control some of them, though, and that’s where the fun begins. 

Broadly speaking, good singing happens when the jaw is relaxed and open, the tongue is relaxed and forward, the shoulders are relaxed and broad, the chest is lifted and wide, the breath is easy and low.

One place to start, to learn a new habit, is to place the tip of your tongue on your bottom teeth and say, “Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are!” You may sound to yourself like you’re now between the ages of three and five. As you do this, let your jaw relax, so that your mouth moves freely, sort of like a puppet, and elongate the vowels, as you would if you were singing. You might let your fingers rest gently on either side of your face, encouraging your cheeks to relax, too.  It may feel like effort to let your mouth open this much, but with repetition, the jaw does learn to loosen and singing with a taller mouth gets easier. 

Try saying something else. “Could we please refinance our mortgage with no points?” “Do you carry any Australian Pinot Noir?” “Do you think your brother’s family could host your mom’s birthday this year? I’m really tired of doing all the work myself.” 

Do you hear what I mean about new habits just for singing? And, it is great fun to read the paper, recite nursery rhymes, carry on a conversation with a good-humored friend in exactly this way. You will crack yourself up, and over time, your speech will get clearer, as your tongue learns to move differently. 

If you know the tune to “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” try singing it in this way. Tip of the tongue on the bottom teeth. Jaw relaxed and moving freely. Hands reminding your cheeks not to smile. 

What’s that like? Tell me about it!