Day 4: Jaw and Tongue
We watched this commercial in my Education class because we were discussing gender bias in education.
I absolutely love this commercial because it inspires young girls (and honestly myself) to just be themselves. I am hoping my work can inspire younger female stage managers to be more confident and not apologize for being the fierce, intelligent women that they are.
Time of Day: 12:30 PM
Location: My house
For day four of my voice exploration week, I spent focused on the jaw and tongue.
Basic Summary of this Step: This step in the progression breaks the jaw into the top jaw and bottom jaw. The bottom jaw is connected to the upper jaw by a small bone at the back of the lower jaw. Te muscles joining the top and bottom jaw are mixed with those spreading through face and back of neck. To get the most of out your voice, it is best to picture the bottom jaw at dropping and top jaw as lifting. Linklater also argues that we hide the most emotion in our jaw through tension- whether it be joy, rage, or fear. The next step is the tongue, which has many different parts including: the tip, the blade, the middle, the back, and the roots.
Exercise 1: The Jaw
Brief description of exercise: Step one involves first putting the heal of your hands on the jaw hinge area and massaging the jaw muscles. Step two is to put your thumb under the jawbone and lifting the top jaw without moving the bottom one and repeating this for a while. Step 3 involves holding the jaw and taking it up and down. After this one is to play with touch of sound while shaking the jaw up and down.
Reflection: This portion of the progression is something I still struggle with. My jaw is extremely tense and I am finding no matter how much I massage my jaw and try to relax it I am still extremely tense. I know last semester we did jaw work with a partner and my partner had to verbally tell me to relax for me to even start having any sense of jaw freedom. I think one thing that plays into this is the idea of having to be in control of my emotions as a stage manager. Stage managers, and from my experience females especially, are almost expected to be emotionless. As cliche as it sounds, they are the voice of calm and reason in the theatrical world. The jaw holds most of our emotion and if we are trying to hide our emotions, our jaws are more likely to have a lot of tension. This is something I want to continue working on as I continue with my vocal exploration.
Exercise 2: The Tongue
Brief description of exercise: Step one is stretching and rolling the tongue. Step two involves yawning and at the same time stretching the middle of the tongue forward and holding it in a stretch. Step 3 involves stretching your tongue while releasing a "haa-ahh" that pours out through the channel. Step four is to loosen the tongue to allow it to lie relaxed on the floor of the mouth. Then one is to gently move the middle of tongue forward and back without opening the mouth wider than normal. This step is focused on loosening the tongue. Step five involves adding touch of sound. You are to loosen the tongue, and then roll it forward and back several times as the sound streams out. Be sure your jaw is not moving by placing the tip of your little finger between the side teeth. Then expand your awareness to taking in changing sounds as your tongue moves. Step six is to repeat step five while applying the following images:
Visualize a stream of vibrations springing from its source in the breathing center and flowing out through the mouth above the tongue, which is relaxed, loose, and out of the way beneath the sound.
Picture an alignment running from the center of the dome the diaphragm, through the dome of the roof of the mouth, and into the dome of the top of the skull. Picture the vibrations of sound streaming up through these domes while the tongue loosens.
Repeat this process on ascending pitches while dropping down the spine. Slowly build the spine back up as pitches descend.Step seven is to relax your tongue on the floor of your mouth and find touch of sound, speaking "huh-huh". Roll your head on a hum, repeat a few times in alternating directions. Drop down the spine on a hum, come up, release sound at top. Repeat on ascending and descending pitches. The final step in this exercise is to roll the tongue forward and release sound in the narrow space left between the surface of the tongue and the upper gum ridge. Now whisper "hee" aiming the breath into the top teeth. Then relax the tongue and whisper "huh". Playing with these positions, alternate between "hee" and "huh" on ascending and descending pitches.
Reflection:
The tongue work was a lot more detailed than I remembered. I drank a lot of water because my mouth has a tendency to get dry while doing all this work. It was extremely useful knowing the different parts of the tongue going into the exercise because I did not have to flip back while I was working. The most difficult part was isolating the middle of the tongue and moving it forward and back (Step four). I am able to recognize where the middle of the tongue is, I struggle isolating it and getting it to work on it's own. I want to continue working on this moving forward. Step six was my favorite portion of this exercise because I noticed a great difference from step five. I am partially a visual learner, so when I applied the images I felt a deeper connection to my voice. I again had difficulty with the ascending and descending pitches portion of the work. I watched this Youtube video to help me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFEthhaY2Pk
I think it definitely helped doing ascending/descending pitches while rolling down the spine because it gave me a movement to associate with the vocal work. While this work was not much different than the basic tongue loosening exercise, my mentality about the tongue had changed and my tongue was much more relaxed.
Challenge Updates:
Number of Apologies: 2
Cups of Coffee: 1 8 oz. Half-Caff Carmel Machiatto
Tomorrow is the last day focused on Kristin Linklater's Voice technique and it will be spent on resonators, range, and articulation.
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