Vocal Tension Rescue: Tongue Slides

Here’s the exercise I’ve been using every day this summer to finally root out some long-seated tongue tension issues. And it is paying BIG dividends.

You see, most tension exercises, including many of those I teach and stand behind, help to locate and temporarily relieve tongue tension.

But as soon as we move out of warm-up and into singing repertoire, the tongue goes back to its necessary work of making vowels and shaping text. And because the tongue is an incorrigible busybody, before you know it, it’s trying to also help out by controlling runs and high notes and registration breaks for you again. No thank you!

A more lasting fix is to re-train the tongue to stay loose and uninvolved while those other things – high notes, fast-moving notes, and registration breaks – are happening. The exercise I’m showing you today addresses all three of the major trouble spots at once.

*if you want to work specifically on decoupling tongue tension from high notes, try the Tongue Slurp – it is terrific, but today’s exercise is more of an all-rounder.

This exercise has SO many benefits. Because it works range, facility, and you can move it around over your breaks, it will gradually build up your ability to address those areas with less default tension in the tongue. So breaks are smoothed out, runs can move faster, and you can extend the range with one of the major obstacles out of the way.

Give it a try!

How to do Tongue Slides

This is another two-part exercise. Doing both halves of the exercise at each key modulation will force the tongue to toggle between stretching and working, stretching and working, so that eventually it learns that it can do all the work it needs to do without pulling back and tightening in the throat.

1. Begin with the tongue out and down as far as you can. You can probably stretch it farther than you think!
2. Slide down and up – Sol-Do-Dol – on a kind of “Haaa” sound, keeping the tongue out the whole time. As you start working with this exercise, it’s likely the tongue will want to pull back and tighten even on this portion of the exercise, so pay close attention and use a mirror!
3. After you’ve done the sliding portion of this exercise, now take a breath and let the tongue come back into the mouth. In the same key, sing “Ah-eh-ee-oh-oo” very quickly on Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-Fa-Mi-Re-Do.
4. Now, modulate up or down by half steps through the range. I like to do first modulate up mid-range to high and then down, mid-range to low.

Doing it Right

As ever, there are many things to focus on to upgrade your tongue sliding and get the maximum benefit from this exercise:

1. On your “Haaa” sound, you should feel very active, fast air moving across the upper palate the whole time. Try imitating a cat hiss – the location and speed of air should be similar as you’re sliding your tongue.
2. On the slides, be sure to really smear the pitch all the way down and back up. No “teleporting” from high to low and back, especially if you’re hoping to work on registration issues. You must slide as goo-ily as you can.
3. On the vowel scale, go FAST.
4. Throughout, keep in touch with the direction of your breath, actively moving air up and out of the body on sliding/singing and letting the breath drop into the body on inhalation.

That’s it! I hope you’ll love this exercise as much as I do, and thanks for practicing.