hi it's Elissa Weinzimmer founder of Voice Body Connection and it is time for
another How to Warm Up video
How to Warm Up
in today's how to warm up video
we're gonna talk about using external vibration and yes I do mean a vibrator
for your voice so this exercise falls into the category sound and for those
following along we have different categories in this how to warm up series
if you're interested in learning more about them and how to construct your own
full warm-up then go to the intro video to learn about all of that so why use a
vibrator for your voice well here's the thing vibration external vibration
both releases muscle tension right we know that we can kinda get one of those
big thumpers for our back to release our back muscles and also our voice is
vibration so when we use vibration to enhance our resonance it can help us
understand what that feels like so for this exercise today we're gonna focus on
the tension release around the throat since we are focusing on sound and the
movement and freedom of the vocal cords themselves here's what you do
we got to have a vibrator this is the one I'm recommending recently it's available on
Amazon for under $10 I hope that remains the case as you're watching this in the
future and what we do we just have two settings on this device it can go slow
you can hear that pretty clearly I'm sure and it can go fast okay now there's
many different exercises we can do with the device but we're gonna use it on the
front of the throat today in order to release the muscles along the sides of
the larynx fancy word for those muscles is the strap muscles because they sort
of look strapped like or they strap the muscles in they strap the larynx I
should say into place so there are muscles that come down from the root of
our tongue which is right up here underneath our chin they come down
towards a bone called the hyoid bone which is right about here which suspends
the larynx from it it has muscles coming down that suspend the larynx and then
the muscles come down along here so we're really gonna focus along this long
rectangle that I'm drawing on either side of my larynx by the way
that's the fancy word for your voice box it's right here it's got kind of hard
cartilaginous edges and your vocal cords are inside of it and as we massage these
muscles we're trying to get them to release down you may remember this from
when we did the laryngeal massage exercise that we're working on releasing
all of this down so the larynx can sit lower in the throat so start by turning
on the device a little bit lower and we're also going to combine something
we've done in another how-to warm-up exercise which is the humming thing so
we're gonna hum from high to low on an EM sound it'll look something like this
now a couple things to say about this first of all I haven't even mentioned
yet this exercise is part of vibrant voice technique which is a specific
technique using a vibrator for your voice and there are many different
exercises that work on tension release and also on enhancing the sound quality
and ease of your voice it was created by David Ley my former graduate school
professor and now business partner in this endeavor who had a client who said
that she really couldn't touch the front of her throat and so he thought what's
small and vibrates that could help break up that tension ding light bulb and
hence this was born so you can learn more about this whole thing at
vibrantvoicetechnique.com and also learn all of the exercises in that online course
but for now let's just talk about what you would do if you're working on the
front of your throat here so this is like I said very similar to the
laryngeal massage exercise but we're just bringing in vibration so a couple
things to know one thing is it is really important to stay on this front part
this front rectangle of your neck because that's where the muscles are and
this helps release muscular tension so we don't know so much want to come over
here to where we would check our pulse because there's less muscle over here so
we're gonna stay right in the center through here another thing to say is
that we want to be moving the device over the muscles rather than leaving it
in one place what we're trying to do is get the muscles released so they're
lengthening and so the larynx is sitting lower in the throat so we want to be
gently with gentle pressure dragging the device down now you can use any
vibration device that works for you just obviously not something much any bigger
than this on the front of your throat because these muscles are small and
finally another thing to say is that do this for a shorter period of time then
you might be inclined to want to do the first time you try it just to see how it
feels and how you feel afterwards don't overdo it you can do it for a minute
maybe two and see if it really brings some freedom to your voice
ultimately what we hope is that this exercise is going to free some of the tension in
your throat so that more of your sound can flow through if you think of your
voice like a garden hose if you will with water
flowing up through the hose then it's not gonna flow so well where the hose is
being squeezed or tangled so this is going to help untangle some of the
tension in these deeper muscles so that your voice can flow through more easily
and we have more sound so let's just try it for one more moment here
working your way down along the sides not going straight down the middle because it's a
little bumpy bumpy hmm and maybe you get a little bit of
that jittery sound from the vibration that's totally fine
make sure to leave your tongue in your jaw relaxed
and that's probably enough and then continue on with whatever else you're
going to do in your warm-up enjoy this and this one might bring up a lot of
questions so feel free to ask down below the video
how to warm up