The Jaw – Do’s and Don’ts

The Jaw – Do’s and Don’ts

As you practice, you might find tensing the jaw, especially as you sing higher and higher, is having a real effect on your tone. It can make it sound thin and strained.

By now you’re hopefully practicing 10-20 minutes 4-5 times a week, and have started creating your own singing lessons.

If you are in this process, let’s say 2 weeks in, you should be seeing and hearing real changes in your vocal strength, and tone. Sometimes it can take even less than that.

Relating to jaw issues, by “having you’re technique in place”, I mean that:

1. The diaphragm (not the throat) 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.

4. You’re using your core energy to sing, not tensing up your body as you prepare to sing, while breathing in, or singing. In other words, you’re focusing your energy, using it more efficiently, when needed.

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 gets engaged and tenses up the higher you go, the vocal cords pulling together, getting “adducted”.

Once the note is properly focused in the mouth, and the body gets it, then you can start placing the jaw because there is enough technique in place to rely on.  As in, 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.

At the same time, when you become aware of the jaw, consciously relax it, letting it form a smile shape, reflecting the shape at the back of the mouth (like you have “a hot potato” in your mouth, your jaw is stretching, relaxing and widening to get away from the heat).

The analogy here would be that the rest of the mouth is trying to get away from the note, the “big bang” feeling.

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”, give the note to the diaphragm ).

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 doorway 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.

Related articles:

Create your own singing lessons

How to practice with the vocal exercises

The high notes

Focusing the breath

Focusing the note

Finding your pure note

How to breath properly