Your jaw plays an important role when you sing. A tense or overactive jaw can limit your articulation and vocal resonance, which detracts from your sound. Jaw issues need patience and persistence to rectify.

Let’s look at how your jaw works in singing and ways to free up tension there.

A little jaw anatomy
Your jaw bone, or mandible, hangs from in front of your tragus, that cartilage protrusion above your earlobe. When you slowly open your mouth, the bones work like a ball and socket hinge, causing your jaw to roll smoothly forward and down. To feel this, put your finger in front of your tragus, slowly release your jaw and you’ll feel a gap open up.

Jaw tension inhibits free, resonant singing

Our busy, stressful lives can cause jaw tension, which makes singing complex. Perhaps you grind your teeth while asleep, or clench your jaw when stressed. Even poor posture can cause jaw misalignment and tension.

 For resonant, open, energetic sound, your jaw needs to be relaxed to easily shape consonants or vowels, and achieve a pleasant tonal quality.

A relaxed jaw is essential to allow a proper inbreath for singing: taking air in through the mouth, raising the soft palate and sensing space at the back of the mouth and throat to improve resonance.

You also want to free any tension around the neck, shoulders and facial muscles.

Get to know your jaw and neck area

To help you understand how your jaw works, try this:

• Put your fingers on your chin and trace your jaw line back to the curve under your earlobe. Open your mouth and instead of leading with your chin, let this area just below your ears open or drop. Practice this to feel how the space at the back of your mouth can open up.

To find a fuller, warmer sound in your voice, releasing tension in the neck, jaw and tongue will help:

• Gently massage the back of your neck, shoulders, base of skull and behind the ears to release any tension there. Notice if it’s easier to move your head, as if it’s floating away from your shoulders, and if your neck feels longer.

If you clench your jaw or teeth, try these:

• Let your jaw hang open as if you are asleep. This may require practice, but try to relax and explore the feeling.
• Think about your posture as you lengthen your neck, finding a released jaw and an aligned body.

These vocal exercises help relax your jaw and tongue for better singing

Release or open your jaw, unhinging from under the ears, as in the exercise above.

Say the word Yah without moving your jaw. Allow the back of your tongue to move forward to say the Y.

 Continue with a series of Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah. Let the tongue bounce. Then let it rest on the floor of your mouth. Notice the feeling in your tongue: is it released, resting?

Now say Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah, but bounce the jaw. Notice how it too rests after a series of Yah.

Next, try singing this exercise to a scalic musical pattern: 5 down, 5 up, 5 down. You’ll still be able to sing the pattern with a bouncy jaw. Notice how released your jaw and tongue feel after a few repeats. Try to avoid pulling your jaw down on the final note.

Try singing Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah-Yah with just your tongue bouncing forward and back, no jaw. Place a gentle finger on your chin to remind your jaw not to move. Notice how your tongue is released from the floor of your mouth as you sing.

You can finish it by singing ah___________ on the same scalic pattern. Notice how loosely your jaw is hanging and your tongue is flat on the floor of your mouth.

Hopefully you can now see how important a relaxed jaw is for resonant singing. If you have ongoing jaw tension issues, you may want to consult a speech therapist, a physiotherapist who specialises in jaw release, or see your dentist if you grind your teeth.

Working with an experienced singing teacher, like Kathleen Connell, will help you learn to use your jaw as an asset, rather than a liability when you sing. Browse the studio’s in-person or online singing lessons, tailored to your specific needs. Or call us on 0402 409 106.