Today, I want to share with you a great exercise for harnessing the resonance benefits of the humble drinking straw. Singing through a straw is amazingly therapeutic for the voice (if you want to know the science, check out the information at Voice Science Works). It is also the very best approach I know for practicing when you have to be quiet – and I know SO many of you are in that boat right now, trying to reconcile practicing with your family and neighbor’s schedules.
Today’s exercise highlights a third benefit of straw singing – because SOVTs have so many benefits for the voice, I’m using singing through a straw to carry air speed and forward resonance into non-straw singing. The exercise is called the Straw Blow.
Start by just feeling how it works to blow through a straw. I use the same approach as in the Sponge Breath, sipping air down and then sending it back up and out, now through the straw. Because the straw is limiting the volume of air that can move out of the mouth, you’ll feel those sponge-squeezing muscles in the low belly kicking on to support the up and out airflow. Then try blowing and adding some voice. Feel that nice buzzy resonance in the mask of the face (around the eyes)?
This by itself is a perfectly good voice exercise, and you can just practice your onset with the straw or get out a piece of music and do some music learning practice with the straw (this is the quiet practice I mentioned above). But if you want to do the full straw blow, then start that tone, then PULL THE STRAW OUT while continuing to make sound. You’ll be making a sound sort of like “WWWWWW”, so move the vowel to “ee” but try to keep the airflow and resonance up where they were when the straw was in your mouth, then slide down a fifth on “ee”.
The moment of moving from “WWW” to “EE” is the crucial part of this exercise, when you are at a decision point between allowing the resonance to close down and fall backward or keeping it open. Keep it open! If you’re not used to paying close attention to what you feel when you sing, this will be a real challenge, so get focused and give it a try. If you can get through that coordination gauntlet, you’ll fully harness the resonance benefits of the straw.
Good luck! And thank you for practicing!
