Once you have the knack of opening up the jaw when singing high, experiment with the vowel sounds and the shape of the mouth. For many people, a wide rather than a long shape works best (try to keep the lips as relaxed as possible).

Take a song that you’re working on with a difficult high note, for example a word with an “a” vowel (“take”, “make” etc). Starting low in your range, sing gradually up the scale, changing the vowel to a rounder shape as you sing higher and higher, i.e. to an “eu” or “o” vowel. At the same time relax and open the jaw, focusing the note in the mouth. Putting a “g” in front of the vowel can also help “ga, ga, ga, geu, geu, go, go” etc.

Also, experiment with the larynx. It can help to imagine that you have a ligament within the larynx that’s moving, but the larynx itself is staying relatively still, making the changes the larynx is having to make to find the tuning of the song much more subtle.

Once you feel your technique is in place, then it’s time to focus on the jaw. By having you’re technique in place, I mean that:

1. The diaphragm is working with the tongue to control the note, jaw relaxed.
2. The note is correctly placed in the mouth.
3. The vowels are also correctly placed, body relaxed, your core energy being used to create and control the note.

You’ll know if you’re getting it right, because it will feel and sound right.

Many of the exercises focus on not using the jaw but using the tongue, to help you focus the note and use your internal energy. However, you might be having a problem when singing high. This is because the jaw has to be engaged to reach the high notes. Once the note is properly focused in the mouth, and the body gets it, then you can start using the jaw because there is enough technique in place to rely on, i.e. you’re using your internal energy so the jaw can relax and start to let go of its habit of tensing up and jutting out and so taking over.

Of course, there are rules:

1. The jaw can only moved sideways and down, either at one time or together.
2. It can never jut out.
3. It must stay as relaxed as possible.

There are times when you might want to tense the jaw slightly: at a dynamic point in a blues song, for example (a square shape at the back of the mouth can help at those times, funnily enough). However, a relaxed jaw must be the center you always go back to.

And if you’re doing it right, but your performance is flat, remember to now put your focus on the song, and the meaning of the song. Once you’ve shown your body how to do it, feeling has to take over, and the mind is merely the computer that keeps the technical stuff together for you (“a big breath here, make sure this note goes down to the chest” etc).

Once again, singing is about feeling. And relaxing and opening your jaw, especially on the high notes, can help with the feeling of “opening up”. Also, remember that the diaphragm is always the first port of call. Everything starts with the breath and opening up to the feeling of the song. And the diaphragm, especially the solar plexus, its center, is the door way to your intuition. It can be helpful to imagine that there’s a white ball in the center of your body behind the solar plexus that’s your intuition, and you’re breathing in to that place as you breathe in. Once your body knows where to go, it’ll start to go there automatically if it feels right and you’ve shown it the path a few times.

Learning to sing is all about teaching your body how it feels when you get it right, then getting out of the way and letting your body do it for you.