Question about two exercises.

[fortheo]

Hey, I have a question about two exercise.

The two exercises are "the tongue exercise" which is in Tamplins program; And a "taming the tongue" exercise that I've seen Eric Arceneaux do in the past. I wish I could find videos of both these two exercises on the internet, but I can only find Eric's. So, I will do my best to describe Tamplin's and then show you a video of Eric's exercise.

With Tamplin's "tongue exercise", Tamplin says that it helps to close down the sound, so that the sound doesn't get too big and get away from you as you go higher up in the registers. He does it by sticking out his tongue, the tip seems to be rounded, and he closes his mouth with his tongue out. He says it should feel like there is a ball in the back of your throat; He says it should feel similar to the feeling you get when you sing the AH vowel. Then he sings a nn sound over a scale with this tongue exercise.

I have a few problems with this exercise: My tongue doesn't come out to a nice arrow like point as his does ( maybe I have a fat tongue? haha)and I don't get the open throat AH feeling when I stick my tongue out, if anything I get tension from forcing my tongue out ( again, maybe it's genetics? maybe I have a short tongue? idk)

So, I was wondering if this tongue/throat exercise from Eric is meant to accomplish the same things as Tamplin's "tongue exercise"

The exercise I'm talking about from Eric is the "Yah Yah" exercise that he does at around 1:35 into the video. He sticks his tongue out so that it's rested on his lower lip and opens his mouth, then sings the Yah Yah on a scale. will this exercise help me? because it feels a lot better doing this yah yah exercise than it feels doing Tamplin's tongue exercise.

sorry for the wall of text. Any help is appreciated.

*edit* can't figure out how to embed the video, so hopefully the link will suffice.

[Khassera]

If you can hum with the feeling that your throat is open you don't need to stick the tongue out. It helps to hum with an "open mouth" behind closed lips, if you know what I mean.

[fortheo]

Yeah, I can hum with that open throat feeling. For some reason it just feels wrong when I have my tongue out and my mouth shut. For the yah yah exercise, the tongue is out, but the mouth is open...and I have no problem with that. I may just do the humming that you suggested, and the yah yah exercise for a week or so and see how it goes.