Singing Lessons: Release Tongue Tension with This Exercise

Download your FREE Vocal Warm-up at on my website www.tricialeines.com Specifically designed for your voice type... soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, or bass.

Today I’m sharing an exercise that can help with tongue tension… we will go over some details about the tongue, how it may be affecting your tone, and then sit at the piano and run through a few exercises…

Tongue tension is one factor that can really affect the quality of your tone… If you don’t like how you sound, the tongue could be one of the culprits.

Here are some ways you maybe experiencing tongue tension… tone could feel tight while singing, heavy, labored, tense, the voice may not be able to move quickly to different notes… you may actually feel tightness in the back of the tongue or in the root… some clients also describe the sound as not having warmth, energy or beauty… kinda flat tone.

Tongue tension can also affect the quality of your vowels… so your tongue is moving into different position depending on what vowel you are singing… so when there is tongue tension your voice doesn’t have a consistent sound… it can feel and sound all over the place.

Tongue tension can make high notes feel hard, for as the larynx wants to tilt to allow the lengthening of the the vocal folds for the high note the base of the tongue can tightening not allowing the flexibility in the larynx needed to sigh high notes with ease.

And, When you are descending in pitch the tongue can also tighten making the tone sound unnecessarily or heavy, dark or muffled.

A couple of cool facts about the tongue… it has several layers of muscles called… most of the muscles in our body connect at both ends, but obviously the tongue does not… it only connects at one end (show where) When in motion, It works much like an elephant tusk or an octopus tentacle… very agile and flexible with versatile range of motion. And here’s a cool side fact… no two tongues are the same… even in identical twins, just like a finger print.

What I have found in my journey to release my own tongue tension and in helping my clients do the same is that… an exercise can really help, absolutely, but sometimes because of the complexity of the muscles of the tongue, don’t be surprised if you need a few different tongue relaxation exercises in your tool bag. Singing with a relaxed, fluid and flexible tongue may need finessing on different levels.

Today you will need a pencil or pen… and let’s head over to the piano…

Check out the video as I walk you through some exercises.

Have fun with this and feel free to ask me any questions about the content of this video.