Organs of speech

A to Z Voice: C is for Clarity

A lot of clients come through the door chasing clarity, feeling like they are mumbling or loosing their thread when they are talking.

Earlier in this A-Z Voice series, I talked about Articulation. This work concentrated on the relationship between the soft palette and the tongue. This time I would like to concentrate on the Jaw.

The jaw is one of the most powerful muscles in the body. Think what we put our jaws through! How we might clench our jaws or grind our teeth. These things put unnessary strain and energy into a part of our body that we need to be loose and soft. Not sure? Try speaking throigh clenched teeth and you can hear our locked your voice is.

It may seem that your voice is fixed just because of a locked jaw but if you try and move you tongue up and down with a fixed jaw, it’s fairly immobile compared to when the jaw is soft and flexible.

Our tongue is one of our main articulators. If this is restricted in any way that our diction is not so hot. The root of the tongue is also anchored into a piece of cartilage called the Hyoid bone. Also suspended from the Hyoid bone is our vocal chords. We need our vocal chords to move up and down. So if we have a locked jaw and a fixed tongue we have restricted vocal chords, this all contributes to a flat, dull voice that sounds like it’s uninterested in the ideas it shares or the audience it speaks for.

The good news is that this is something that can be worked on. One simple way to combat Jaw tension is to have a really good yawn. Something that I am sure we can all do!

AtoZ -Voice: A is for Articulation

This is the first of a series of short blogs that will introduce folk to new ideas/ exercises about their voice.

Good articulation needs strength, flexibility and calm! The fluffing of words or tripping over our sentences when we nervous are a good sign to your articulation needing improvement.

The Soft palette is like the unseen articulator as it is right at the back of your mouth. The palette is the roof of your mouth. Its in divided into two areas. The hard palette which has almost no give and the soft palette which is a fleshy bit of tissue. Improving flexibility in the soft palette will not only improve articulations but it will also help with colour and cadence in the voice. Opera Singers have incredibly flexible soft palettes and Beat boxers can achieve amazing sounds through clicks and tongue placement using their soft palette

If you make a ‘k’ sound you can feel the back of your tongue raising to meet the roof of you mouth, but what you may not feel is that your soft palette is also coming down to form this closure the ‘k’ sound is made when this join comes apart like a tiny explosion. In fact ‘k’ is a sound belonging to a group on consonants called plosives.

So if you repeat a ‘k’ sound your are working the two articulators -your tongue and your soft palette. ‘g’ is made in exactly the same way but this time in stead of the sound being carried out solely on air. The vocal folds come engaged and their is now sound with it.

Try this repeating the following:

k-k

k-k-k

k-k-k-k-k

Velar: A sound produced with the back of the tongue near the soft palette

k-k-k-k-k-k

g-g-g-g-g-g

g-g-g-g-g

g-g-g

g-g

Play around with strength of closure

tempo, volume and rhythm.

k-k-g-g-k-k-g-g-k-k-g-g-k-k-g-g

k-g-k-g-k-g-k-g-k-g-k

k-g-g g-k-k k-g-g g-k-k

g-k-k g-k-k g-k-k g-k-k

So there you have it A is for Articulation!