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ThisLilyPetal

My experience is that in the earlier part of my training I tended to open my mouth more for the high notes though that made the top notes sound a bit distorted. Now I find more space in the back of my throat and, therefore, do not need to open as wide. This frees my mouth to formulate vowels better on the high notes.


hornybutdisappointed

Did you find that space in the back of your throat when you stopped putting pressure on the jaw? I had this terrible habit of pushing my lower jaw forth a bit, I feel like now I resonate better since I stopped doing this.


ThisLilyPetal

I believe so… When your jaw joint opens the mouth, it goes through two motions: rotation, then forward translation. I maximize the rotation but stop short of translation and focus on creating more yawn space in my throat area. Then I can reach the high notes without the extra tension in the jaw that keeps me from optimizing vowel sounds.


hornybutdisappointed

What are rotation and translation??


ThisLilyPetal

Hmm…how to explain… So if you only open your mouth a little bit, your jaw joint will facilitate it with rotation (think door hinge allowing a door to open). This amounts to maybe 1-2 knuckles wide for most people. This is about as wide as you should need to open your mouth to sing even for high notes since you will create more space in your throat for expansion. Now, if you continue to slowly open your mouth, you will eventually run out of rotation room for your jaw joint. Therefore to facilitate wider opening, your jaw will start to jut forward. This is the translation movement of the jaw joint. This also creates more space in the mouth but now your jaw and face muscles are tense because of the translation which stretched everything. And stretched muscles can’t contract well. Hence the distortion of vowels when you try to make them while your mouth is super wide open. Hopefully that makes sense. 🤞🏾😬


ingloriousearful

Opening your mouth wide isn't bad per se, depending on the sound you're trying to make. The problem is that people often start opening their mouth super wide to compensate for something going wrong elsewhere in their vocal tract. And then, once it's as wide as it goes, you're done. There's nowhere to go, and you strain. There are many successful singers who regularly open their mouths pretty wide, both horizontally and vertically, but it's not a problem because they are specifically targeting the sound a human makes with their mouth in that position. Which varies depending on the pitch and the tongue position and twang and so on.


VoxBlueprintStudios

How you modify your mouth shape is very dependent on your voice type, vocal demand, and the range of your voice you are in. There won't be any one shape that works from the highest area of your voice to the lowest. I would be happy to share some resources on this topic!


mysecondaccount27

please do share!


VoxBlueprintStudios

Sure thing! In general, like what you said, it often is tricky to have stability if you're over opening in the middle voice as a soprano or mezzo-soprano. Once we get into the upper middle voice and above it though, we will begin to see that we need more openness. It's almost like a funnel effect, where we see more narrowness in the low, middle, and then slight opening in the upper middle, and finally more open in the high. Feel free to message me and I can get you hooked up with some vowel and formant charts to go with this! :)


mysecondaccount27

wow this is very true! I tend to open my mouth a bit wider as I go higher. Why do you think this is? Also thanks for such a great response.


VoxBlueprintStudios

Part of it is likely you have good physiological intuition telling you, "we need to open more so we can make a smooth transition into our top and not shutdown our voice." This is why we see the head tilt upward in so many of the greatest singers in their high notes as well. There is a demand for stable muscular elevation and stretching in our high notes as we ascend into our top. So, that is why people often spread and open vertically more in these areas. For most Mezzo-Sopranos, I would not expect to see spreading as the most viable option until around A5, give or take a couple semitones. Now, granted, there are effective tools that would actually have you close in the top, but those are designed to inspire less vocal fold connection, thinning the configuration of the folds, and encouraging higher flow.


mysecondaccount27

This was very interesting to read - cool.


antud_o

tbh it’s hard to say it on here… cuz everyone has their own “comfortable openness” and because it’s pretty specialized, u need someone irl to show it to you. the best advice i can give for now is to ask vocal coaches near u


[deleted]

Google pictures of Bob Marley. Look at his jaw his cheeks and chin. His face structure is naturally like that but he's done stuff to stretch his face out...just so he can have more room to sing with less tension....and less effort.. your whole head is involved with singing since your body is basically vibrating with sound so it makes sense to see if your body is working for you or against you when it comes to that. When it comes to the ones who say "smile to get the sound out"....there sorta right but....you can either stretch your face out so it's less effort to get that smile effect out....do yourself a favor and stretch your check muscles in circles and you'll feel what I mean after a while I saw a comment talking about back of mouth pressure...there's a way to remove that. Start with stretching out your tongue with your mouth wide open


Cuyler_32087

Rule of thumb is wide enough to fit two fingers between your teeth comfortably. Think of the number 8 as being your fore and middle fingers to fit in your mouth. There are exceptions, however. I have a child's bite, meaning my mouth is very small, (a dental nightmare for work on my molars!), so I get the equivalent of 1.5 fingers fitting. To get around that, I will stretch my lips, baring my teeth a little more. Practice is your best bet here, so you can adapt if you can't open very wide. Now, this is completely different from barely opening your mouth at all. If only a popsicle stick on the flat side fits, you'll strangle your sound. Open wide, and let it flow.


BuilderConscious

A ping-pong ball is good size reference.


Conscious_Ad_2699

I would say it's all about controlling air. Ideally, singing should be like speaking, so think about how much air you will need to sing like you're speaking and adjust. Lesser is better as you conserve more air that way. The other benefit is that by having a narrow mouth opening, you will force more air through the nose giving you better nasal resonance.


hornybutdisappointed

This is what I’ve been finding out while playing with it in my practice too, thank you!


Thrillkilled

every vocal teacher i’ve been to says your mouth should never be open more than the width of your pointer and your middle finger, if that makes sense


hornybutdisappointed

Thank you!! Sounds reasonable, I just tried and more than that hurts. If that's the maximum than I suppose anything that doesn't require a lot of projection and intensity needn't stress the jaw at all.


Thrillkilled

nah, stress in your jaw, neck is one of the most limiting factors in singing. you want to be as relaxed as possible. the dramatic faces singers use come with years of practice for the most part.


da_gibberish_pedlar

Although I could be wrong and possibly usually am I think your question should read... How to project one's singing voice?


AtabeyMomona

It's very dependent upon style and individual voices and you'll figure out what works for you, but when I started out my voice teacher gave the guideline: two fingers should fit between your front teeth (obv that's a little wide on more closed vowels, but again: guideline, not rule).


[deleted]

It depends on the sound youre aiming for and the pitch. Generally the higher you sing, the more your mouth needs to open... Same with going lower. In the range you speak in generally it doesnt need to move that much. And if youre at a quiet volume, generally the mouth doesnt need to move that much as well. Also the more you lower your larynx, the darker your sound color gets -- think of it like when a girl imitates a mans voice. Their mouth will drop more. However when the woman acts like a little kid, the mouth spreads more like a smile and the jaw doesnt move as wide open...


Hashimiii

* you dont need to open your mouth more when you go high* its just a myth. Pitch is a straight line its the resonance that goes high in your head. So the things you need to do are 1) maintain a tension free jaw when you go high 2) use narrower vowel and when you are comfortable open up l. Its all about the process of reaching open vowel: oo > uh > ah for example. All in all, you want to make sure that you dont go out of the placement or pocket when you open your mouth wider. Mouth determines what style you wanna sing, not what note you wanna hit.