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Anyone ever try Tongue Pulling excersises?


neugie92

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I use this exercise a lot. But it's not for use while singing. If you have a lot of tension built up in your tongue it will cause tension in the throat as well. The tongue is a strong muscle and by pulling out tension it will allow much more freedom and ease while singing. You can also use the exersise where you release the gag reflex which is found in Jaime Vendera's book, Raise Your Voice. I've found a lot of success with these exercises.

Melanie

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i've never seen why we have to do that kind of thing...

joshual, trip: only one reason I can think of for it... to become aware that there is unnecessary tongue tension while singing, and even this use has alternatives. Once this is known, there are a dozen approaches to releasing it.

An example of the first case... if the singer wants to know if tongue-retracting tension is present, they can just stick the tip out beyond the teeth, lightly bite it, and sing a siren on uh. If the tip pulls back... a problem.

For some vowels with high tongue hump, for example /e/ and /ah/, the size of the tongue may be too small to keep the tip there. No problem.

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Personally I'd highly recommend against it. This was one of the new exercises I was doing prior to developing a painful throat injury that has lasted 3 years which I have been unable to successfully treat. Ever since then, speaking is painful, eating is painful, and I have chronic throat spasms and hypertension.

There's no knowing for sure if this exercise was the culprit, but there are a lot of other exercises out there which will help you learn to sing without putting so much stress that having your tongue yanking on your hyoid area could potentially cause. There are a lot of complicated muscles in that region that are likely not designed to be pulled from above by the tongue (which is an incredibly strong muscle). My best guess as to what happened to me, is I tore a ligament or muscle near my hyoid bone that never healed properly. Thus far multiple ENT doctors have been unable to diagnose it or resolve it, it's made my life a living hell.

Prior to that, I was a very passionate singer, I tried many different singing exercises and a lot of them helped me immensely. I'd say most of the stuff I tried helped a lot. All it took for me were wrong turns and I can barely speak now. I'm pretty sure you can become a great singer without doing anything really unusual like that. I mean people have been singing for thousands of years.

Anyway, I just saw this here, I had to post. Please take care of yourself. I never thought injury could happen to this extent. People would say you could 'damage your voice so you have to be careful' and I'd think, maybe it'd get scratchy, or weak, or breathy, I'd get nodules, or something. But no, I am pretty sure you can destroy your voice beyond what the average medical knowledge available can do to repair... And that's why you have got to be smart. I really believe a lot of you will be able to do what I couldn't do, you're going to continue to improve your voices and become phenomenal. Your passion will be rewarded, and I know the feeling, I know the passion, I lived it, I dream about singing every day. I sing silently in my head every time I shower, I've cried, and I've considered suicide repeatedly.

But don't let your love of singing take it away. There's a lot of value in some of the 'tried and true' knowledge out there and I'm pretty sure most successful singers throughout history weren't yanking on their tongues like this, I don't think it's needed. I think it's possibly dangerous.

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Personally I'd highly recommend against it. This was one of the new exercises I was doing prior to developing a painful throat injury that has lasted 3 years which I have been unable to successfully treat. Ever since then, speaking is painful, eating is painful, and I have chronic throat spasms and hypertension.

There's no knowing for sure if this exercise was the culprit, but there are a lot of other exercises out there which will help you learn to sing without putting so much stress that having your tongue yanking on your hyoid area could potentially cause. There are a lot of complicated muscles in that region that are likely not designed to be pulled from above by the tongue (which is an incredibly strong muscle). My best guess as to what happened to me, is I tore a ligament or muscle near my hyoid bone that never healed properly. Thus far multiple ENT doctors have been unable to diagnose it or resolve it, it's made my life a living hell.

Prior to that, I was a very passionate singer, I tried many different singing exercises and a lot of them helped me immensely. I'd say most of the stuff I tried helped a lot. All it took for me were wrong turns and I can barely speak now. I'm pretty sure you can become a great singer without doing anything really unusual like that. I mean people have been singing for thousands of years.

Anyway, I just saw this here, I had to post. Please take care of yourself. I never thought injury could happen to this extent. People would say you could 'damage your voice so you have to be careful' and I'd think, maybe it'd get scratchy, or weak, or breathy, I'd get nodules, or something. But no, I am pretty sure you can destroy your voice beyond what the average medical knowledge available can do to repair... And that's why you have got to be smart. I really believe a lot of you will be able to do what I couldn't do, you're going to continue to improve your voices and become phenomenal. Your passion will be rewarded, and I know the feeling, I know the passion, I lived it, I dream about singing every day. I sing silently in my head every time I shower, I've cried, and I've considered suicide repeatedly.

But don't let your love of singing take it away. There's a lot of value in some of the 'tried and true' knowledge out there and I'm pretty sure most successful singers throughout history weren't yanking on their tongues like this, I don't think it's needed. I think it's possibly dangerous.

i feel for you buddy. all i can say is keep searching. i was taken down with a polyp and i'm praying to god it goes away on its own. i refuse to give up. i don't want you too either!! you hear?

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Killerku's experience is a perfect confirmation of one of my other "hammer on a nail" points. The back of the tongue is connected to the same muscles as that of the hyoid bone (Adam's apple, front of the larynx.) More times than I can count, I have asked any one to find a doctor who says that it is not so.

Raise the tongue, raise the larynx. Lower the tongue, lower the larynx. Lower the larynx, provide room for lower overtones, which works great for low notes, especially for baritones and basses.

Twang, narrowing of the pharyneal space, namely, the tongue moves back a smidge, as you can't really change the diameter of the pharynx (it is cartilege, which is pliable yet rigid). Move the tongue, move the larynx. Therefore, I am mystified as to how one twangs a high note with a low larynx. Stable or slightly elevated larynx, yes. Sorry to digress.

I think KillerKu could have saved himself some injury if some vocal instructor wasn't deadset on having low overtones on a high note to make it "beefy."

Quit pulling on your tongue. Sing the note as you can sing it. And if you don't sound like David Coverdale when you sing it (genetics, another of my hammer on nail points) it's not the end of the world, I promise.

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