Eliminate throat and tongue tension with this simple exercise! And get the added benefit of singing more clearly!
0:01:25 Part I: Freeing the tongue and throat
0:05:22 Part II: Making sound with a free tongue
0:14:47 Part III: AH on a 5-tone scale
0:22:20 —- Practice scale for guys
0:25:53 —- Practice scale for ladies
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For lesson information:
Music courtesy of Anthony "A-Major" Russell.
Marnell, will you be putting any more videos up of you doing some singing? I liked your acapella that you did of the Dru Hill song a while back and was hoping that you’d record some more for us
+lifelonglearner I do have some songs I’ve been working on, one of which includes another Dru Hill song. I just have to learn how to play it first, lol. I normally like to make my own arrangements of songs and like to change up chords and the groove of the song, but I end up coming up with stuff that I can’t play!!!! So I’m practicing. I might put up another cover soon using a backing track for “A House Is Not a Home”, though.
Sweet! It’s very rare that you see a vocal coach who puts up quality videos of themselves singing. I can count them on one finger. So, I can’t wait to hear your new stuff!
I will let you know once it is released. I always try to sneak in parts of songs here and there in my clips though, but this upcoming one will exclusively be just a song. 🙂
Your videos are incredibly helpful, thank you so much!
+Lygia Seven You’re welcome!
+Tyler Klingbeil Thanks for the compliments. Happy this has inspired you.
+Marnell Sample Is it okay if I do other vocal excercises before I master this one? Or should I be patient and wait until then?
You can do other vocal exercises along with this one. Just don’t try to take too many exercises at once. Choose a few and try to master them before moving on to other things.
+Marnell Sample Mellow isn’t a friend of throat tension.
Marnell Sample is there any easy way to sing to make it sound better?
the best ! 😀
+TechWith Power Thanks!
I am a vocal coach in the UK. I have to say you make me smile, and that I love! I was watching this video purely for research as I am looking at making my own vocal coaching tutorials and it was so nice to see someone who doesn’t take themselves seriously, like myself. So many vocal coaches take themselves way too seriously, they can’t have fun with what they do and they don’t take the time to make examples and show people “how to”. I expect you have great fun with your clients!
+Danielle-Laura Ward Wow! Thank you for such kind words. I really do try to have fun — it’s even easier when I can interact with others. But I’m happy to hear it’s coming through on the screen, as I’m terribly camera shy. 🙂
Wishing you all the best of luck in your teaching.
Good Coach! I have learn so much in a very short while. Kudos to you
+Martha Agber Thanks so much for the feedback. I appreciate it. 🙂
The pleasure is mine.
great job teaching ive learned from you in the last 2 days then ive learned over the last 6 years of my life lol in terms of correct singing
+Kenny Cole Thanks a lot! It’s so awesome hearing feedback like this!
Wow you range and tongue are enormous 😛
Great vid howerver 😀
the 5 tone exercises are a ‘gas’… I really enjoy them and I do the male and also begin the female…. my resonance is more comfortable to create and to listen to…I am beginning to unscrew my jaw and my cheek muscles are inviting me to massage them + the bottom eye sockets….My face is starting to come apart. in a catastrophic manner…at last !!!!! Power to your elbow Marnell !
Thank you for sharing all the benefits you’ve received. Great to hear you are improving!
This is a great help Thank you
You’re welcome.
Is this building up the head voice / mixed voice as you go higher ?
Yes, it does strengthen your mixed voice. However, once you start getting into the upper ranges above an F4 or so, there’s issues with vowel modifications that come into play that you need to address to continue developing things.
Any time I do an vocal exersize properly and have a correct placement I notice I get sick!
That’s odd. A vocal exercise shouldn’t have anything to do with you getting sick.
can you sing a song with the tongue out???
You can sing a song on just a vowel with the tongue out, yes. That’s a great way of transitioning what you do in an exercise into actual music. But can you sing a song (as in the actual words) with the tongue out? No, because the tongue needs to be able to move around to pronounce certain vowels and consonants. So just sing the melody on either AH like “pot” or AA like “cat” with the tongue out.
+Marnell Sample thx bro
This is a great video, I actually find this simple exercise to be an “all encompassing” vocal exercise: first, it opens up the mouth (resonance), second it moves the tongue out of the way (resonance + brightness), third because the mouth is open and the tongue is moving forward, it makes it hard to create a sound by “squeezing” the throat so it encourages using the lower part of the body (breath support) to create the sound, and fourth which is related to the 3rd point – because there’s no “throat squeeze” it encourages cord closure in a healthy (unsqueezed) way. Am I right on these points?
Thank you for your comment. And yes, it does all of these things at once. Actually, most well designed vocal exercises are targeting multiple things simultaneously. 🙂
Excellent..There is so much tesion in the tongue and larynx and vocal folds..we have to train like this..
Everyone says “sing with an open throat, reduce tongue and neck tension, etc”, but NO ONE said HOW to do it, with practical techniques and exercises. Can you tell us how?
Well these are my favourite exercises for getting me to relax my head and neck muscles and to stretch my top lip muscle too (into ‘lemon-face’). Helps my learn my fingering for scale accompaniment. Many thanks. My birthday this week: born in 1941. Hurrah
Thanks Marnell this is sweet, I still don’t quite have it yet but it looks like it will work. Just a quick question, how long at a time should I do this exercise?
it hurts on the bottom of my tongue when i pull it out and I can’t do the exercise.
Is this supposed to happen
yo same! its like the little connector isnt long enough
thank youu <3 I'm learning so much from youtube these days its insane.