Posts Tagged articulator
Separating the Actions of the Jaw and Tongue Part 2
We've just isolated both the jaw and tongue. Now we need to combine the jaw and tongue. The sounds that are probably the most difficult to do with tongue alone (read impossible to do without the jaw) are /s/ and /ʃ/ sounds. You can try to do them without the jaw, but it isn't really possible. (If you can do it without movement of your jaw, I say "yeah!" But most of us can't.) I'm going to offer you a chance to work on the sound "suh" [sʌ sʌ], allowing your jaw to move with the action of the tongue. Try to take time to let your tongue relax with it sitting inside your mouth. See if you can relax your jaw somewhat by making a /s/ sound, and carefully opening your mouth very slightly, trying to maintain a good /s/ quality.
The challenge for [sʌ sʌ] is in opening on to vowel. So we'll practice it here: make your open /s/ sound and then drop your jaw into the [ʌ] vowel. "sssss (drop) uh…" [ssssss ʌʌʌʌʌʌʌʌ].
As you can feel, the jaw drop is an important part of the release into the vowel. Take a moment to leave the sound out of it and explore the action of the jaw as if you were chewing a cloud. This image is designed to make the action of the opening and closing as light and easy as possible. Now, with the image firmly planted in your mind's eye, make your /s/ on a light cloud of action, integrating the jaw movement with the tongue.
Keeping the very light, easy chewing action sensation, and imagining a cloud of /s/, go back to half-whispering, half-speaking "suh suh suh suh suh," with an easy, almost lazy feel to it. Then add more voice to it, and kick the /s/ energy up a notch by making it /z/, so you're sighing on voice "zuh zuh zuh zuh zuh," [zʌ zʌ zʌ zʌ zʌ]. Try to find some pleasure in the sensation of an easy correlation between jaw and tongue, letting the sound out gently and playfully.
Finally, let's work on the jaw drop action on a tongue twister with lots of /s/ sounds in it.
Singing Sammy sung songs on sinking sand.
Each word (except "on") begins with an /s/, so there are lots of opportunities to work on the jaw drop on the vowel that follows. After quick exploration, you'll probably realise that the words with "close" vowels, like "Singing Sammy" and "sinking sand" require very little jaw drop, while the more open vowels, on "sung songs" demand more room, and allow you to drop your jaw more dramatically. See if you can say the tongue twister and really feel that jaw action in the middle of it. Keep imaging that "cloud" feeling we were working on before. Now, try this tongue twister, which has much more room for opening throughout:
Sounding by sound is a sound method of sounding sounds.
Each "sound" word affords you the opportunity to drop your jaw in order to get that "ou" [aʊ] sound out. Let your tongue tip shape the /s/, and your jaw jumps you to the vowel place.
Riding the Wave of the Tongue
In previous voice warm-ups we've done Tongue Rolls, both big and small. Now we're going to work on letting that arch action, isolated in the earlier post "Separating the Actions of the Jawn and Tongue" slide from front to back, between two vowels, "ee" and "oo" — [i] and [u].
Start by feeling the placement of the tongue on the vowel "ee" [i]. This vowel is made with the tip of the tongue behind the lower front teeth, and the front of the tongue arching up toward the alveolar ridge. You can feel that action far better if you start your [i] by dropping your jaw, and then making the vowel, keeping your jaw dropped. Your tongue will have to reach up to that [i] spot. Really the vowel is a narrowing of the space in the mouth at the front.
Now, try a similar experiment with the "oo" [u] vowel. Then slide between the [i] and the [u] sound. I've made a video of this you can watch here.
However, because [u] requires lip rounding, this will be a distraction from feeling the action of the tongue. So to feel what the tongue does, I'm going to ask you to take the lips out of the equation by taking your pinky fingers and putting them in your mouth, and spread your lips wide. (Take a look at the picture at the top of this post to see what I mean.) Now make that [u] sound. Hopefully you'll be able to feel the action of the tongue, pulling back toward your velum or soft palate. Keep your fingers in your mouth for a second a slide your tongue into the [i] sound. Feel your tongue move? The high point of your tongue will move, like a wave, along the roof of your mouth to the forward point of the [i].
The next thing to do is to try to slow the wave down as you glide back and forth between the two vowel sounds. (You can release your fingers from your mouth now! Try to focus on the tongue still with as little lip action as possible.) I've made a little video of me doing just this.
Getting to know this action is really important to your ability to isolate your tongue, and, in the future, to make vowel sounds that are in different positions from your usual placements. By fooling around with the sounds in this way, you're becoming familiar with other options for your tongue, and that, in turn will lead to greater confidence to go to new places with your voice.
Stretching the Soft Palate
So far, in the three Voice Warm-up Series (basic, intermediate, advanced), we have looked at the soft palate 3 times, once in each series. Hopefully you can use those warm-up steps (basic, intermediate, advanced) to learn about the soft palate. Here, we want to quickly get the soft palate energized, and articulating.
In English, there are 3 consonant sounds made with the soft palate: two stop-plosives (see the lips step for more on this kind of sound), /k/ and /g/, and a "nasal" consonant, /ŋ/. In other languages, there are many other consonant sounds made with the soft palate, or "velum" (from whence they get their name, velar consonants). For example, there is the sound in German words like "ach", represented in the IPA as [x]. This voiceless fricative sound is made with the back of the tongue against the soft palate, and is also heard in many Yiddish load words to English, such as "chutzpah."
To begin, let's sensitize the soft palate with a series of /x/ sounds. Try a bunch of triplet rhythms: [xxx-xxx-xxx-x], and repeat. Swallow after you've done this, as it often releases mucous from the back of the soft palate.
Swallowing contracts some of the soft palate muscles, and stretches others. Yawning is its opposite. To wake up the soft palate, we're going to alternate the two actions. Start with a modified yawn by relaxing your jaw, and leaving your tongue tip behind your lower front teeth, and engage in a voiceless yawn. Then, close your mouth and swallow. Repeat this 3 or 4 times.
Our last step is to wake up the soft palate with a little drill of those English sounds. The pattern of sounds is [kʌɡʌ ŋʌɡʌ], or "kuh-guh nguh-guh". Repeat that in clusters of 4, slowly trying to go faster. (If you find the sequence "nguh-guh" difficult, you could try this reversal: "kung-uh gung-uh" [kʌŋʌ ɡʌŋʌ].
Tapping the Tongue
In the Advanced Voice Series, in step called the Articulation of L and N on the Gum Ridge, we explored the movement of the front edge of the tongue. Not only did we explore /l/ and /n/, we also played with /t/ and /d/, the other two consonants where the front edge of the tongue touches the gum ridge. Today, we’re going to warm that area up by tapping the the front of the tongue up and down in the /n/ place, but with no sound. I suppose that, if you listen really carefully, you might be able to hear the sound of your tongue slapping the bottom of your mouth, but it’s really faint…
Start by dropping your jaw. Very lightly bring your tongue up to the place where it would make an /n/ sound, and then slap it down behind your lower front teeth. Then repeat that action, faster and faster, tapping the gum ridge and slapping the tongue down. Be sure to keep your jaw still, and let the tongue action move quickly and directly. Breathe both in and out, as you’re flapping your tongue, and try to have the action of the tongue be light and agile, as if it’s dancing inside your mouth.
A more challenging action is to retract your tongue about half and inch from behind your teeth and try to continue the flapping action. Your tongue root will engage in order to pull the tongue back, so it will be difficult to maintain the speed. Generally this is what we want to avoid, but it’s good to feel that tension and understand how it works. And who knows: you could always use that quality for a character voice in the future.
Finally, put your tongue on your lower lip and then do the tongue flapping process, tapping your upper lip and your lower lip as quickly as you can. To most people, this looks quite graphically sexual, so if you want to do this without feeling foolish, self-conscious, or perverse, merely cup your hands over your mouth like you’re doing a big yawn so that no one gets to watch your tongue technique. (Unless you want them to… Might work as a good pick up technique if you were particularly good at it, I suppose…)
As a bonus step, you an move your tongue back into your mouth and try the tapping action on /n/ or /l/, trying to keep your jaw as relaxed as possible, and the speed of your tongue as quick as you can. Think light and quick, and sigh the sound out on a “huh” sound.
Bouncing the Lips
In this step of the Speech Warm-up Series, we look at the lips, and explore warming them up for a certain kind of sound: stop-plosives. We'll get to fricative sounds later in the series.
The lips are important in the formation of 9 English consonants and up to 5 English vowels, depending on your accent. The consonants are /m, p, b/ which are made with both lips, /f, v/, which are made with the upper teeth and lower lip, /w, ʃ, ʒ, ɹ/, which are made with at least some deɡree of lip rounding in most speakers, dependinɡ on accent. For example, you can hear those consonants in the words "Mom, pop, bob," "fife, Viv," "wow, shush, rouge." Most of these consonants are what are called ‘continuants’—that is, sounds that continue. Two of them are what are called ‘plosives’—which are sounds that explode or pop: /p/ and /b/. Start by feeling your way through the difference between plosive sounds and continuants by saying a bunch of them together: "puh-buh-puh-buh-puh-buh" vs. "fuh-vuh-fuh-vuh-fuh-vuh."
Part of what makes a plosive stand out in our speech is actually not its sound, but the moment of silence that precedes it. Final plosives are, in some cases at least, perhaps better known as ‘stops’ because they stop the sound that precedes it, chopping off the stream of sound, and then not necessarily releasing it again. (In the IPA, we represent that unreleased nature with a diacritic mark: [p̚].) Especially at the ends of expressions, stop consonants in mainstream North American English generally just STOP. This works very well for everyday speech and for naturalistic performance on tv, film or in very intimate theatres. But in larger settings, like a big theatre or outdoors, or when we're trying to be super clear with someone who doesn't understand what we're saying, we need to release those final consonants. Try this little experiment. Say "stop" to yourself—maybe even whisper it. I would imagine that most readers would stop the sound of the /p/ without any kind of release. Now, try over-enunciating it, being very emphatic with it, or imagine saying it to someone what can't hear you. In this setting, it is more likely that you will release that final sound with a big puff of air. (In phonetics, this puff of air is called "aspiration," and we represent it with another diacritic, a superscript "h": [pʰ]. Try feeling the stop nature of a final /p/, hold onto that stop closure for a second and then release it with lots of aspiration with the word "up": [ʌp̚ pʰ, ʌp̚ pʰ, ʌp̚ pʰ]. Feel how much air it takes to make that fully aspirated final /p/? Now try making that final /p/ louder: what happens? Generally people feel that the air-pressure behind the stop is more intense, so that when the aspiration is released, it makes more noise as it escapes. You may be able to feel the effort off that build of air pressure in your breathing.
As I said earlier, /p/ and /b/ are the two stop-plosive consonants made with the lips. The difference between the two sounds is that /p/ is made "voicelessly" and while /b/ is "voiced". Initial /b/ in English has little to no voicing on it however, while initial /p/ is mostly different because it has aspiration (the puff of air). Try making a stream of p's and b's in order to feel that difference: "p-p-p-p-p" vs. "b-b-b-b-b," [pʰi pʰi pʰi pʰi pʰi ǀ bi bi bi bi bi]. There may be a tiny amount of voicing on the /b/, but the main difference between the two consonants is the aspiration.
Actors need to be able to do different kinds of initial /p/ and /b/ for different settings: in many foreign accents, /p/ isn't aspirated, and /b/ is said with some voicing. Adding voicing to initial /b/ is fairly easy. In a way, adding that voicing is similar to /mb/, in that you are making voiced sound with your lips together first, and then popping your lips open for the release of the /b/. However, the difference is that on /m/ your soft palate drops, so that air can escape out your nose. To fully voice a /b/, you must lift your soft palate, so that the sound of the /b/ is trapped in your mouth. If you try this, you will find that there is a limit to how long your voiced initial /b/ can be, because the air that makes the sound behind your closed lips can only fill up your mouth. Once your mouth is full, you can no longer make any sound. Try making a string of voiced /b/ sounds — you may feel like you sound very Eastern European when you make this sound as it is very much a part of languages from that area (the diacritic mark for a voiced consonant is a subscript "v" as in [b̬]: [b̬i b̬i b̬i b̬i b̬i]. Go slowly, to be sure that your getting the voicing you want. Now, contrast that sound with a voiceless, but unaspirated /p/. [pi pi pi pi pi]. There is no diacritic mark, because the sound is, by default, unaspirated and unvoiced. It may feel a little like you're saying "bee" rather than "pee".
Now for the bouncing part. I find that when I energize my lips to make loud, powerful /p/ or /b/, my lips feel like they're bouncing, especially if I do a long string of them. Try whispering loudly a stream of "pee" sounds, as if you're spraying the sound across the room. As you do it, feel the compression of your lips, in order to build up enough pressure to before you pop off the sound. Now try it with a series of "bee" sounds, building the pressure behind the lips to energize it: [bi bi bi bi bi]. Finally, try it with this classic phrase for practising initial /b/: "Benny bought a bunch of beautiful bananas." Try saying it with a range of qualities, from small and voiceless, to loud and fully voiced.
Our last part of this step in your warm-up is to bounce your /p/ sound on a set of words. The classic tongue twister is "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," the full text of which is below. Try it out the way you would normally say it. Then, try it with a lot of aspiration, spitting your /p/ sound across the room. Finally, try the sequence with as little aspiration as possible, almost as if you were replacing the initial /p/ sound with a /b/.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
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Eric Armstrong is an Associate Professor of Voice and Speech at the Dept. of Theatre, Faculty of Fine Arts, York University.
Eric Armstrong is a Full Member of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, the national organization of professional performers and coaches working in the English-language recorded media.
The VoiceGuy is a proud member of the Voice and Speech Trainers Association.
The VoiceGuy is an Associate Editor of the International Dialects of English Archive.
