Dawn wrote:
I get very nervous still while singing in front of others
and
> what happens is...my voice and throat tighten up. Not a problem
> when I am in my mid alto range, but when I have to sing higher....it
> is a definite struggle. She is consistantly telling me to drop my
> jaw when I sing and I find this very hard to do. She says I look
> like I am smiling all the time and try as I might.,..my jaw just
> won't drop.
Hi, Dawn, and welcome!
First, know that virtually anything in voice study takes
time to work out. As a teacher of mine says, habits have
built up over one's whole life, so it will take longer than
a few voice lessons to substitue the new habit for the old
one.
I am VERY familiar with tension in the jaw. It took me
quite a while to get a handle on it. I clearly remember
when I started to get it - that is, learning the difference
between what I was accustomed to doing and the new feeling I
needed to have. That was when my teacher had me lie flat on
my back and try to sing. That got me to feel the jaw
tension, because gravity wanted the jaw to go down, and I
felt how hard my muscles were working to keep my jaw where
it was used to being. So, while I lay on my back, I just
let my jaw hang down the way gravity wanted it to and sang,
and I learned what the right feeling was. (Lying on one's
back is also great for getting a good breath for singing.)
It took a while longer to bring this into my singing all the
time, because my jaw still wanted to do its own thing, but
eventually I got there.
Once I got clued into this, I would always notice when
someone spoke with a tight jaw, say when I watched
newsmamkers talking on TV, and I would sympathetically feel
the old tightness I used to feel. It's liberating to give
it up, let me tell you!
Good luck, and I look forward to hearing from you again on
the list!
Peggy
--
Margaret Harrison, Alexandria, Virginia, USA
"Music for a While Shall All Your Cares Beguile"
mailto:peggyh@i...
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