How to improve the sound of your voice with exercises.

Advice from singer and vocal teacher Alexey Kovalenko.

How to improve the sound of your voice? To ensure that your voice sounds loud, your vocal cords do not strain and you do not feel tired during a long performance, the lessons of vocal teacher Alexey Kovalenko will help you with this.

Singer and vocal teacher Alexey Kovalenko gives advice on how to improve the sound of your voice, develop true resonant speech and correct singing. The main thing, he believes, is that you first need to deliver a beautiful speech at resonance and then sing correctly.

Gymnastics that develops vocal power

Exercises that develop vocal strength help a person to smoothly change the dynamics of his sound.

Exercises for voice development include the following:

You need to pronounce out loud the pairs of syllables AM-OM, UM-EM, YM-IM. In this case, the first of them should sound loud, and the second should be quieter.
It is necessary to vocalize the syllables “AY-AY-AY”, “OH-OH-OH”, “EY-EY-EY” in the sequence loud-muffled-ringing.
You need to imitate the growl of a dog, a steamship whistle, the buzzing of a bee, the squeak of a mosquito. The sounds are pronounced first in increasing order and then decreasing, as if an imaginary object was first approaching and then moving away.
We sing the following syllables out loud in the form of a musical scale: MA-MO-MU-ME-WE-MI. First in order, then in the opposite direction.

Each exercise must be done 3 times. It is very important to breathe evenly.

Exercise to relax the muscles of the larynx.

I will give one of Alexey Kovalenko’s exercises for relaxing the muscles of the larynx.

A very effective exercise for relaxing the muscles of the vocal apparatus - “Correct yawn”

A person has many muscles of the vocal apparatus - about 75-85 pieces. But there are basic muscle groups that are necessary to make your voice sound beautiful, free, relaxed and pleasant.

Diagram of the structure of the throat.

The larynx is considered one of the most important organs that produces our voice; it is in the larynx that the initial sounds and tones that form the vocal cords are born. Then these sounds, being transformed, are voiced in resonators, in the upper cavities, throughout our body, in our mouth, and then come out in the form of a voice.

Therefore, if the larynx is clamped, and for most people this is exactly the case, the voice will not come out freely. The voice will be constantly compressed, ugly and there will be many problems with the voice, namely tension and the inability to speak for a long time, lack of resonance in the voice and lack of resonance in speech.

How to sing your own voice

Start with a simple chanting exercise

Standing in front of the mirror, inhale and as you exhale, pronounce the sounds “and, uh, a, oh, u.” Repeat the sounds in exactly this sequence until you can’t breathe. Note that the sequence of letters written matters. “I” is the highest frequency, and it is from here that you should begin the exercise for developing your voice. In turn, with "E" you activate the throat area. “A” will involve the chest, and “O” will have an effect on the cardiac blood supply. And finally, it involves the lower abdomen. By the way, it is the last sound that should be pronounced as often as possible if you want to make your voice lower.

After this, you need to activate the chest and abdomen area - to do this, close your mouth and try to pronounce the sound “M”. Start quietly, gradually increasing the pressure. Finally, pronounce this sound so that tension is felt in the vocal cords.

Subsequently, move to "P". It is this sound that makes the voice more energetic and has a positive effect on pronunciation. First, you need to prepare a little so that your tongue relaxes a little: lift its tip to the sky, protruding beyond the upper front teeth, try to “growl.” Exhale, inhale, growl. After this, say emphatically: rice, growth, rank, cheese, feast, fence, etc.

Preparing the vocal cords for singing

Note that a simple mint tea can help the ligaments prepare for tension - just drink a cup of this warm drink. Spicy dishes also help relax the ligaments. It is important to drink enough water – maybe with honey and lemon. At the same time, it is important not to abuse dairy products, chocolate, alcohol and coffee drinks before singing. You should also completely eliminate smoking.

Causes of voice loss

Some beginners and experienced singers may face such a serious problem as voice loss.

Let us determine the main reasons for this phenomenon:

Regular stress on the vocal cords. This problem occurs not only among singers, but also among teachers, actors and people of any profession related to oratory.
Infectious diseases of the larynx.
Exposure to cold drinks, smoke.
Burn (thermal or chemical).
Paresis of ligaments.
Tumor of the larynx.

When a person loses his voice, the first thing he does is begin to “wheeze”, subsequently switching to a whisper. The case can lead to a complete lack of voice.

During the period of voice recovery, you should once again not overload your vocal cords with telephone conversations or speeches. By the way, doctors are convinced that a telephone conversation can cause even more harm than face-to-face communication. Also try not to go out into the cold air too much, and, of course, avoid smoking.

Exercises to relax the muscles of the larynx.

In this lesson, we will learn how to relax the muscles of the larynx to improve the sound of your voice.

The larynx is located right here. You can feel it calmly. That is, the place where your Adam’s apple is located, or it’s correctly called the thyroid bone. When you touch it, you feel the bone here. This is the thyroid bone. It covers and protects your vocal cords, which are located in the larynx itself. The larynx is very large.

That is, it is like a box in which the vocal cords are located. In the area of the larynx there is a huge number of muscles used in the process of sound production.

If a person has a muscle spasm in the larynx, then the person’s voice will not sound free, bright and easy.

Alexey Kovalenko looked everywhere for information on how to relax the larynx and found many different methods, but they were very ineffective because they were not natural.

He observed this exercise in animals, namely cats and dogs. This process occurs spontaneously and naturally for them. This exercise is called “Correct Yawn”.

How to develop the desired voice timbre

Many people try to develop a deeper voice timbre in order to give it more sensuality and mystery.

This is not easy to do, but still, with due diligence, everything will work out:

First of all, it is important to learn how to breathe from your diaphragm, this can add depth to your voice.
When pronouncing words, try to extract sounds from the diaphragm.
Try consciously lowering your voice. One way is to press the back of your tongue to your throat. You have to find the right position by moving your tongue. In general, practice lowering the pitch of your voice until it becomes a habit. However, if you experience discomfort, it is better to take a short break.

How to learn to sing well if you have no voice?

Exercise “Correct yawn” (technique):

Open your teeth. Make your jaw just hang.
Now imagine as if you are traveling on a train. If you have traveled on a train, you have probably noticed that when you travel long distances on a train, you feel very sleepy.
Your teeth are loose. Your jaw hangs and you fall asleep; soon you will begin to yawn naturally. But don't make any sudden movements. That is, follow the movements of your body, the movement of your jaw.
If you yawn very quickly, most muscles will only become overstrained. Take any animals, for example, cats and dogs - they never yawn quickly. They enjoy the process.
So imagine that you are just riding on a train, and that your jaws are completely relaxed. You are relaxed and yawn freely. The whole body is relaxed. The main thing is that you simply follow this process. And you are not trying to interfere in this process.
If you do this 10 or 12 times, you will already feel your voice begin to sound much brighter because you are relaxing the larynx.

In order to further enhance the effect, in order to further relax the muscles of your cheeks, all the muscles of the face, and the muscles of the neck, perform the “Full Yawn” exercises, that is, exactly as animals do.

Speech apparatus muscle training

Exercises for voice development without training the speech apparatus will be incomplete. To get a beautiful sound of your speech, you need to train the muscles of the lower jaw, tongue and lips.

Exercises to strengthen the lower jaw include the following exercises:

Open your mouth and hold your lower jaw down for 5 seconds. Then slowly close your mouth.
We make movements with the lowered lower jaw to the right - to the left. We perform them at a slow pace.
We bring the lowered lower jaw forward and return it to its natural position. Conducts classes at a slow pace.

Tongue muscle training is mandatory. Sedentary, underdeveloped tongue muscles cause unintelligible speech. The exercises will be as follows:

You need to roll your tongue into a tube.
We stick our tongue out of the mouth as far as possible. Move it up-down-right-left.
Lick your lips, paying special attention to the corners of your mouth.
Click your tongue actively.

Exercises must be performed at a free pace, without muscle tension.

Exercises to strengthen the facial muscles and lips include the following exercises:

Mouth closed. Raise/lower your lips without opening your gums. The facial muscles should not tense.
Stretch your lips in a closed smile, and then fold them into a tube.
Massage your lips: gently knead the upper teeth with your lower teeth, and gently knead the lower with your upper teeth.
Fold your lips into a tube and move them left and right.

The muscles of the pharynx also need training.

You need to repeat the sounds I, U in turn. First in a whisper, then out loud. You should feel muscle tension in the throat area. A total of 15 repetitions. The exercise helps in developing the mobility of the laryngeal muscles.
You need to suck in air through clenched teeth.
We stretch our lips out like a duck and suck in air.
Imitation of chewing food. First with his mouth open, then with his mouth closed. The muscles of the larynx, soft palate, tongue, lips and pharynx receive the load.

Full Yawn Exercises

Now we need to add something. Also open the teeth. Close your eyes and imagine you are riding on a train and falling asleep, but you are smiling at the same time. And your smile does not disappear in the process. Just smile.
Your teeth are loose. We imagine that you fall asleep, but with a smile, and at the same time you make a smooth, slow yawn. Don't worry about straining your jaw muscles. That's how it should be. The muscles of your larynx are also stretched.
This is a simple exercise, but very effective. If you do it, you will get very good results in relaxing the muscles of your larynx.

Finally, I want to tell you an interesting thing. In our society, it is not natural to yawn. We constantly hold back this process, even when our body demands it. We close our mouths, or we yawn to ourselves. But in fact, this is unnatural, because your muscles require stretching and relaxation. And just a yawn is what you need - it completely stretches the muscles of the larynx, which are usually not trained.

And therefore this exercise is a workout and actually yoga for the muscles of your larynx. It helps improve the sound of your voice. It’s just that, according to Alexey, he has never seen anything more effective than this exercise.

You can go to the zoo and just watch how the animals yawn, watch how they do it and try not to rush anywhere.

Try to set aside time for studying. Set aside at least 5 or 10 minutes for this exercise so that no one disturbs you. Just enjoy this process, the process of doing the exercise. You can also turn on some nice music. Or imagine something, meditate.

I really hope that this exercise will help you relax the muscles of your larynx, and your voices will sound even better, even more beautiful.

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Breathing exercises for voice development

Breathing exercises for the voice are yoga practices for developing speech breathing. The most famous is the complex developed by Alexandra Strelnikova. It is designed to train and massage the muscles involved in sound production. Exercises help expand the lungs, increasing their volume. Particular attention is paid to inhalation.

The set of exercises for beginners includes 3 main classes.

Exercise No. 1

We stand straight, elbows down. We take a short noisy breath - our hands are clenched into fists. Unclench your palms, synchronously exhaling air in any form (through your nose or mouth).\

One cycle includes 4 breaths. Afterwards there is a break of 4 - 5 seconds. A total of 24 cycles will be required, each with 4 inhalations and exhalations.

Important points:

there is no need to control the moment of exhalation - the main emphasis is on noisy inhalation;
There should be no air retention during inhalation or exhalation;
if you feel dizzy, then the exercise can be performed while sitting (your back is strictly straight).

Exercise No. 2

We stand straight, palms clenched into fists, pressed to the waist. We take a short, noisy breath in through our nose. At the same time, we lower our fists to the floor, unclenching our fingers. We return to the starting position. Exhale freely, hands return to their original position.

The cycle is equal to 8 movements. Then follows a short rest - 3...5 seconds - and a new cycle follows.

Important points:

while inhaling, it is necessary to tense the shoulder girdle area;
There is no need to open your mouth wide when exhaling;
The exercise can be done lying/sitting.

Exercise No. 3

Stand up straight. Lean forward slightly, round your back, head down. We take a short, noisy breath in through our nose, slightly straighten our back and exhale freely.

The cycle includes 8 inhalations and exhalations. Then a short break and repeat the cycle.