SOVT exercises are awesome for quiet practice, but what if you stink at lip trills and you don’t have a straw? Try the Kazoo Pufferfish!
The Kazoo Pufferfish is a great way to warm up, cool down, stay forward, ping your support muscles, or practice quietly.
It’s part of the Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract family of exercises, which create balanced pressure around the vocal folds to allow them to re-calibrate their vibration. By their nature, SOVT’s are both extremely therapeutic AND they allow you to practice while your baby naps – win, win!
How to do the Kazoo Pufferfish
- Blow out with puffed cheeks, like you’re really exasperated.
- Sustain the exhalation without allowing the cheeks to deflate.
- Add some phonated noise – just noodle around, or try . . .
- Slide down and back up a Sol-Do interval, keeping the air flow steady the whole time (like in the Candle Blow exercise), and keeping the cheeks puffed the whole time.
You can probably feel that singing this way allows you to tap into full, low support, but without making a lot of noise. This is a much better alternative to just trying to sing quietly, which often ends up under-supported or over-tense.
You can absolutely practice repertoire like this, or just use it to get started or restore ease after a hard vocal workout.
This is a terrific exercise I learned from Melanie Tapson (Melanie Tapson Voice Care) in a class taught by Elissa Weinzimmer (Voice Body Connection). Both are tremendous voice educators, and if you like what I teach, be sure to check them out on Instagram: @melanietapsonvoicecare and @voicebodyelissa.
I’ve learned so much from both of them, and you will, too!
Also, this exercise reinforces the breath flow work we created in the Candle Blow exercise a few months ago. If you missed that one, be sure to check it out – it will really enhance your Kazoo!
Thanks for practicing, pals.
