Today’s exercise takes a little setting up. You have to learn how to make L and Y sounds with the tongue instead of the jaw, hold your face in a squished up position, and sing scales on “lilililiyayayayaya”. And then it’s easy! I know this might sound like a lot of work, but here’s the thing:
You do all the work (and thinking) BEFORE you start to sing. This is key! For most of us, once the noise is coming out of our face, we’re too overwhelmed by listening to ourselves to think, “is my resonance high and forward?” or more importantly, “HOW can I move my resonance higher and forwarder?”
So, take a few minutes to learn how to set up this exercise, and then you can just zoom up and down throughout your range with optimal resonance and emerge warmed up with a relaxed and nimble tongue, and having given yourself a facial massage to boot! You’ll love it. This is one of my favorite “one and done” exercises, for days when I want to crack on with my repertoire but I know that it is important to always warm up because I’ve heard myself say it so many times.
Enjoy!
Start with the pitches. Five note scale: do re mi fa sol fa mi re do. Now on “words”, li li li li ya ya ya ya ya. Just get that mentally digested before we move to the tongue stuff because, believe me, you might need every cell of gray matter to control your tongue (he is a wild fellow).
Ok, now look in the mirror and make some Li’s by moving the tip of the tongue up behind the top teeth and then down behind the bottom teeth. Only use the tip of the tongue for that L, and you’ll find that you’re able to say “lilililili!!!!” without moving the jaw up and down. The mirror is very helpful here.
Time for Ya. This is not exactly a normal Y, where the middle sides of the tongue come up to touch the top molars, but it’s similar. First, put the tip of the tongue behind the bottom teeth, touching those teeth. With the tip anchored to the back of the bottom teeth, push the middle of the tongue up and forward til it touches the upper teeth, and then release it back down. If you’re voicing, it will sound like a sloppy Y. It feels like folding the tongue forward and back, forward and back. This is terrible to describe, so the video may be of use. But here, as with the Li, no jaw motion is needed, just the tongue.
Are you with me? Say “Li li li li Ya ya ya ya ya!” Success? Now, squish all the soft parts of your face FORWARD into a kissy face (not a hands-on-cheeks “oh my” face), say it again.
And now sing it. Sing it over and over, going higher by half steps throughout the range. You’re doing it! The jaw is not moving! The sound is automatically (after much set up) going right up into that third-eye/Zorro mask zone!
The logistical set up takes a bit of time, but once you have the hang of that tongue stuff, this takes no time at all – you can just squish your face and go, so have fun. Thanks for practicing!
