Elissa Weinzimmer here I'm a vocal health educator and the founder of voice
body connection and today in my how to warm up video series we are covering
resonance again now a way that I'd like to think about resonance is that it's
how our sound cuts through space and that starts in our vocal tract which is
the tube from our glottis that's the fancy word for the level of the vocal
cords or folds up through the oral cavity and up through the nasal cavity
so in the sort of two prongs tube however the sound is bouncing around off the
walls the inside the vocal tract affects how the sound is going to continue out
into space and bounce off the walls in the space that you're in so as we know
we live in three dimensions and in the last two rounds of the resonance
exercises we've talked about mask resonance and loft resonance now mask
resonance I talked about is when we get into this masquerade ball mask area
and it's a really bright pingy sound so we can use for rock singing or
belting right and then we came to the top of the head and we talked
about getting a lofty sound which is an up and down sound right so the lofty
sound the loft resonance cuts through space on the vertical axis the mask
resonance cuts through space on the horizontal axis and now today we're
going to get into oral resonance which I like to think of as cutting through
space on the front to back sagittal axis or plane okay so we're going to start by
doing the same sort of tapping that we've done before you're going to come
to the back of your head right to the bumpy occipital ridge so you don't want
to be below it you want to be right above it where you can really feel the
bone if you look at me it's right about there okay so first part by just tapping
this part of your body in order to wake up your awareness of the back of your
skull okay now we're going to mix that with
something and I'd like to call this doing the mouthwash exercise because
it's like you're swirling mouthwash around in your mouth trying to find the
excitement and pinginess of the oral cavity okay
so on an M sound imagine you're swishing mouthwash around in your mouth
and really feel it buzzing your lips buzzing your hard palate all the way
through your oral cavity and don't push with this just see how easily you can
allow air to flow through and find this buzz okay good now combine the two
tapping the back thinking front to back that sagittal plane so we're not falling
back energetically but we're tapping the back of our skull and also doing the
mouthwash exercise at the same time ready
good okay so what that's helping us do is find the
ease with this resonance that's going to bring a depth and rich quality to our
voice and then we want to think about sending it out straight through space
out there so we're going to use the sound ooh and I like to sound ooh
because it brings the back of the tongue high
and brings the lips forward into some rounding so we're going to use that
sound we're going to move from the M to the ooh we're going to moo like cows
basically so we're going to go
mooooo and you can play around with the pitch that you're on too
and then go ahead and try to it without get your hands up mooo
you can look around the wall in front of you and spray
the wall with your moo sound Moo Moo
okay good and now let's go ahead and test out how this feels
doing a diagnostic just like we did in the last resonance exercise we're going to
count out loud up to ten here we go one two three four five six seven eight nine
ten now of course with that make sure that you don't go back into old habits
of letting go of your breath support if you go one two three four five six you
won't necessarily be able to tell what you did so make sure your air is flowing
through one two three four five six seven eight nine ten and what you may
find it with this oral resonance exercise and working the back of the
skull that you have a depth and rich quality to your voice that sometimes
is not there just too contrast now since maybe you can hear it my voice if I were
to go back to mask resonance I would be like 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 right if I were to
go back to loft resonance I would go 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 and then if I were to go
back to this oral resonance this richer deeper quality that bounces off the roof
of your mouth and pings all around the back of your skull it would sound like
this 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 yeah can you hear it can you hear it in yourself
is the important part so play with these mix them together enjoy and let me know
if you have any questions about oral resonance