Adam and His Apple

Once Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, a lot of things changed. And strangely, the particular fruit they stole came to be commonly thought of as an APPLE.

I'm not here to speculate about what happened in a beautiful garden so long ago.

I'm here to talk about the organ of the body that came to be called (in English) the ADAM's APPLE. For when trying to get past your vocal breaks or transitions, THIS ORGAN IS VERY IMPORTANT. This article is about why. 

FIND YOUR OWN APPLE

First, let me help you find your own adam's apple. Your adam's apple is the visible part of your "voice box," or larynx. The "voice box" is a sturdy little frame built of cartilage, across which your vocal folds (or cords) are suspended.

Men find theirs easily because it's visible in the mirror. It's the little lump, with a V-shaped notch, protruding from their windpipe in front. Ladies often have more trouble seeing theirs.

To find yours...pretend your windpipe is a delicate flute and you are going to put your fingers along the flute. As you spread out your fingers a bit, lightly touch your fingertips to your throat. Now swallow.

Do you feel the little bump go up? That's your Adam's apple, or larynx. Now yawn.

Do you feel it go down? Good.

WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?

There are many sets of muscles all around the larynx. But the only ones used to create sound when you sing are housed INSIDE the larynx. They are the 2 tiny muscles (vocal cords) that run along the inside edge of 2 tiny folds of skin (vocal folds), which get stretched across the windpipe when you engage them to make vocal sounds.

When you breath, they hug the edge of the "pipe" to let air through. When you speak or sing, the swing together and form a seal in order to employ the air coming out of the lungs to set them vibrating.

All this happens without you seeing it and most of the time without you thinking about it.

Ahh...but then you start to sing. You find that you have formed the mental habit of thinking that singing is physically taxing, like lifting weights. As a result, you begin to "cinch yourself up." You gather all the muscles in your throat and get them to "help" you hit the notes you want (especially if they are high notes).

But this habit just increases tension and causes vocal strain. So what can we do about that? WE "TRICK" OUR VOICE. 

HOW TO TRICK THE STRAIN OUT OF YOUR VOICE

Remember when you swallowed? Do that again and feel with your hands around your throat area. Do you feel all those muscles flexing? That is a fine habit for swallowing and a terrible habit for singing.

Remember the yawn? Try that again. Do the muscles flex or relax? Unless you yawn like no one else, you could feel your entire throat area go lax...or re-lax. That is a very good habit for yawning AND for singing.

So we trick our voice into relaxing...dumping it's ingrained tension...by mimicking the yawning action...

WITH A SIMPLE EXERCISE

To build this into your voice...to make it a part of the way you sing, you really need more than just this one exercise. But you will get to see with this exercise how simply you can see results.

**If you find this little exercise helpful, you'll find many more like it in my main program, Singing Success. All of these exercises in combination address the many other strange habits singers get into.

OK, to the exercise...

Pooch your lips out. (Push your cheeks up slightly with your fingers if need be...to bunch up the skin around your lips, so they'll be loose). Then make the motor-boat sound...b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b.

Now while making this sound, lower your Adam's apple so that you sound "dopey."

At first, this can be like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time--it takes concentration--but don't give up. b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b...but very DOPEY.

Now sing this sound on notes of a simple 5-tone scale. (do re mi fa so fa mi re do--those are the notes, NOT the syllables to sing--just sing b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b). You are singing up and back down that short scale, but you're making the strange, dopey motor-boat sound.

Now move it up one note (one half step)...the next scale higher. Then the next higher. Eventually, you will reach the note where your "break" happens. If you can keep your Adam's apple down, you will find yourself removing that normal strain and instead of the "break," you will have begun to build a "bridge."

Do not give up on this. This one exercise alone can add a couple notes to your range! And believe me...there's more where that came from. You have more engine under the hood than you may know.