Hey there, this is John Henny and today I want to talk to you about Why We Drop Our Jaws For High Notes.
If you’ve ever taken voice lessons, you’ve probably had your voice teacher tells you to drop your jaw on higher notes. But why do we do this? Well, if you think about the length of an instrument, and the resulting sound, it makes a trombone is longer than a trumpet and therefore, if you put your buzzing lips into a trombone, versus a trumpet, the trombone is going to give you a deeper lower sound than the trumpet and the reason is the length.
A shorter tube, if you will, is better for higher notes. So when we drop our jaw, what happens well, when I drop my jaw you will notice that the distance from my vocal cords right here to my lips, is shortened as the jaw drops, and that shorter distance creates better reinforcement for the higher notes. Now there is another way to shorten this tube, if you will, our trumpet is to start to raise your larynx but that quickly and the larynx is that bump there at the front of your neck. It’s an Adam’s apple and a guy that quickly becomes problematic because we start to kick in other muscles that we don’t want.
We also start closing up the throat because our larynx comes up when we swallow. So a very efficient way to create a resonance tube that is good for high notes is to drop the jaw.
Hey, if you want more information about what I do go to johnhenny.com you can also check out My podcast The Intelligent Vocalist, which is my favorite podcast for singers. I’ll talk to you soon.