In this video, we are talking about straw phonation exercises.
Oren, the creator of this straw called OB1 SOVT straw will share his favorite
SOVT exercises with a straw. And if you stay until the end, he will even share
the future of this fantastic tool for voice users. So stay tuned.
Hi, I am Katarina, speech language pathologist. And here on this channel,
I share practical tips about using your voice in a healthy way. So if this is a topic that
interests you consider subscribing to this channel and hitting that bell notification
icon so that you don't miss any of my future videos. Last week, I sat down and talked to Oren,
the creator of a tool for voice users. We talked about the benefits of straw phonation,
about the science behind it, and about different types of SOVT exercises you can do with a straw.
If you haven't seen that video, I will put a link to it in the description below,
and I will also leave a link to Oren's website so you can check out what he's doing.
This video is part two of our discussion about straws. And let me tell you, I
learned something new. Oren is going to share his favorite straw exercises with us and
more. So let's learn something new. Shall we? So there are hundreds of exercises you could be
doing with this straw. What is your favorite one? Do you have one favourite exercise?
Um, I don't have one favorite. I have two, I have two that I really like. But even
that's a bit cheeky cause one of them has like two components. But the first one is breathing drills.
And the reason why I say that is because if you kind of strip away everything else
about the voice, you know, the stylistic requirements, the acoustic requirements,
if you strip everything away, it fundamentally comes down to a power source interaction. So
just like a computer or a phone is powered by electricity. And if that electricity diminishes,
then the device becomes unstable. It might need recharging. It might not have enough power,
that kind of thing. So I strip all of that away with the voice. And I look specifically at the
airflow and the breathing and respiratory mechanisms, cause that is
fundamentally the thing that powers the sound. So my favorite go to exercise, one of my favorite
exercises is breathing drills. And so for me, I know I need to take the attachment off because
otherwise it's too much pressure, so I've just taken that off. But what I do is I cycle through
different patterns of breath to engage and energize the core systems and the
respiratory systems before even adding a sound. So it looks a little bit like.
It's like a one, two, three, four, one, two, just blasting some air through the straw. What you do
there is between, as you switch between, the quicker breaths and the long sustains,
you allow the vocal folds just to get used to different airflow requirements
across different back pressures or different back pressure sustains as well. And then from here,
I mean, you can do anything you could do like, it's like a one, two, three one two one two,
three, one two. You could even like wrap everything together so you can do,
you know, you can do a bunch of different things.
That's a very very good tip. I actually never used straws for just breathing exercises.
So that gives me a great, great idea. And I just want to say that your straw,
when someone buys your straw, it comes with a membership site. So the people who have this
can get access to some of these exercises that are on your website, is that correct?
What we have is there's a bunch of tutorials on there, of me kind of teaching the science and
how to use the device. There's then piano tracks and videos of those exercises with demonstrations
as well as a printable exercise kind of post the guide type thing. So yeah, there's, there's plenty
of content to assist in that initial step of these, are kind of like the recommended
suggested things you could be doing to build into like a daily vocal exercise regime with straws.
So what's your second most favorite exercise? So, well the second component to the first
exercise, cause I think it's really important to have that step in scale.
I would do exactly the same thing and then switch between voiced and unvoiced. So you can then do.
And so you can switch between, you know,
so just bouncing between voice and unvoiced across those same breathing drills,
and to allow the folds to get used to letting that air flow through and then using that airflow
to vibrate and oscillate and produce sound, then stopping and letting air flow through it. And then
you kind of repeat this process. So that's the second component to that, to the first exercise.
But my next sort of second favorite go to exercise that I think you can, the reason why
I've kind of selected these is because you can do anywhere. You don't need a piano, you don't need
anything else. You just need your instrument and a straw. And so revving the engine and
some people also call it Hills and accents, and essentially what you're doing is you are
riding up across a small collection of notes, then bringing it back down a little bit,
then riding up to a different collection of notes, and then you can do this on repeat.
So it's a lot harder to explain than it is to demonstrate. So this is kind of what it is.
You can go higher, you can go lower, you can bounce around different collections
and I love it because it's just so accessible. You don't need any kind of prior knowledge of
like musical playing. You don't need to play a piano, you don't need anything.
But it also gives a voice, such a good workout. It's such a good stretch
across small little collections. You get that kind of stretch and then you shift everything up
and then you get a little bit more stretch and you shift everything up and you get even more stretch.
All right. I have a question here. I have a question from one of my students and I
would like to read it to you and hear your opinion on it. Okay? So she writes:
SOVTs continue to help me enormously after I finished them and begin to sing normally.
The notes come out with such great facility. They sound better. They ping, they are easier
to produce. What is it that this continues to be the case after I have taken the SOVT obstraction
itselfaway? Is it that the vocal falls have learned something themselves and does behave
as if there was still the SOVT back current of their own accord, or is it that I have learned
something about how much airflow is needed and I'm actually without being conscious of it,
pushing less air through the folds allowing them to meet and act more efficiently or something
else? I thought this was such an insightful, great question. So what would your answer be?
It's both actually, there's a little bit of both at play. In that the effects do persist after
the intervention has been taken away, but also much like you go to the gym and strengthen
the body for an athletic task, the vocal folds learn to have that athleticism built into them.
So it's a little bit of both. Yeah. This student, this person has so much
insight into her own body, her own voice when she's using this straw.
Which is actually a key component as well. It's because these are essentially subjective measures.
It is really good to have that physical connection and that understanding of the
sensations that the body is feeling so that you can be more in tune with how well they're working.
You are very passionate about the science behind it. And I know you've been working away
on improving this fantastic tool. So what's next, what's in the future? How are you
going to improve the experience even more? Because I know you've been working on it.
I have, yeah. There's a few things I can talk about. And there's a few things
I can't talk about, which actually I think is even more exciting. There's stuff like, Ooh,
you know, this things in the works that nobody can know about yet, just because there's like
certain patent and legality things around it. But all of the things that I can talk about.
The first thing that I have been doing is creating a fully mathematical model of how the straw works
across every single possible resistance setting. So people can come and they can look at
a nice looking graph and say, okay, this size, tube or straw or configuration of our SOVT straw
offers this in terms of resistance. And then they can scale it all the way until,
you know, infinity, I guess, and they can decide what configuration suits them best.
So that's kind of like the sciency stuff that we're working on. Informed by that,
then we are getting set to release for new attachments that go onto the SVT straw. So
the way we designed it is so we can continually upgrade and offer new features and benefits. So
it comes with obviously a three millimeter, what we call ARA aperture, reducing attachment. And so
the new attachments that would fit onto the end of the device. The first is what we call a VR, a
variable aperture reducing attachment. And it kind of is exactly as it sounds, you will be able to
twist the device in order to open or close more of the aperture. And so it goes from four millimeters
down to zero. So you can, you can basically tune it to get an insane amount of resistance if that
is what you want, which is like, it's cool. So that's one of the new attachments.
The other two of them are actually pretty simple. One of them is just what we call a J bend. And so
one of the problems we've noticed is when singers use the straw with water, they're going like this,
so that they're bringing their whole head down and moving the straw. So it's straight just so
they don't spill the water everywhere and going like this. Obviously you can hear immediately,
this has changed the way I sound, but it's also restricting how the larynx is able to
move in the vocal tract and a bunch of different other things. And so the J bend basically has an
attachment that goes on the end. That just brings it up to an almost 90 degree angle. So you can use
it in this orientation to make some bubbles in the water without having to compromise your posture.
I think that's a fantastic advancement of it. The Last time when we spoke, and it wasn't that
long ago, you told me about one attachment and now we are into four. So you've been really busy.
One of the other attachments is, okay, this is, this is a weird one. It's a balloon attachment,
actually. So it's a piece, this is this isn't it. This is a little bit of a prototype
of it. But it's a piece essentially like this, the SOVT straws will thread onto here. This is huge in
comparison. It will not be this big. This is the prototype. And a balloon will be able to kind of
come onto the end here, grip the end, and then inflate outwards, which allows us to change
the fundamental dynamic of the exercise. But I think it's going to be a really,
really cool addition that is just gonna allow people to be more in tune with their bodies,
but also train specifically the respiratory systems in a more athletic program.
I always learn so much from you and I love how you know, I feel your passion
just through talking and you're showing us what your straw can do and will do in the future. So
thank you very much for talking to us and we need to have you back when you can tell us more about
the one thing you can not share with us today. So hopefully we can do this again in the future.
Okay. Yeah, absolutely. It would be my pleasure. I, hopefully sometime soon I'll be able to talk
about it and you'll be the first to know, and then we'll jump on here and we'll talk
about it and we'll get people really excited. Okay. That's a great idea. Let's do that. Okay.
Thank you so much for having me today. It's been so fun talking and I love when we get together and
have a chat about the nerdy science stuff that you know, students perhaps don't want to, don't want
to talk about. So it's nice to actually talk about it with somebody that is as passionate as I am.
Oren. Thank you again for sharing your passion with us. I really look forward
to seeing all of those attachments to this straw, and I'm definitely going to try the
breathing exercises with a straw that Oren introduced to us. What about you?
What was your biggest insight? Let me know in the comments below, and if you found this video
useful click the like button and shar it with friends who may benefit from this information,
check out my other videos on the topic of straw phonation, and I will see you soon. Bye.