SINGINGMAG

Yes, you read that right. One of the must-haves at Mind The Voice is undoubtedly the famous “vibrating egg”, read: vibrator. I did not invent its use for the voice myself – I wish I did-, but the resourceful Canadian David Ley preceded me.

Well, simply explained: you buy a clitoral stimulator and use it to vibrate your voice muscles with 🙂 The reason that this item isn’t yet on the market for singers is most likely because the sex industry is just a bit bigger than the singing industry … 😉 Some singers that I coach sometimes find it a strange thought to buy such a vibrating egg themselves , but hey, we are in 2022. What works, works!

The vibrator we use in our vocal studios is the “Mimi, je joue”. It is available in different colors and I have it in dark purple and black. As far as I am concerned, a very nice design. You have the “soft” version and the “hard” version. If you want to use it for jaw complaints and trigger points in the jaw, I recommend buying the hard version. Those who are not bothered by this can go for the “Je joue soft”.

To use it yourself, it is important that you have some anatomical knowledge of your voice muscles. You can use it at home to massage your:

• oblique neck muscles (sternocleidomastoid muscle)

These are your auxiliary breathing muscles. If you suffer high breathing or often adopt an incorrect posture, those muscles will be tense. When they are too tense, they will make your voicebox (larynx) less able to move. If that is the case, it is more difficult to sing high or low notes and to switch a lot in pitch. Vibratos or ad libs (ornamentation technique / riffs like Beyoncé does) will also be more difficult.

• constrictors (constrictor medius + inferior muscle).

The constrictors are the muscles that cause your voice to sound “guttural” when they are tense. Release it and your voice will be relaxed in no time.

• jaw muscles (musculus masseter)

When your jaws are tense, you will undoubtedly suffer from (unconscious) stress or tension, because putting your teeth together is a fight / flight / freeze reaction. I myself belong to the group of many people with jaw complaints, so I use the voice vibrator almost daily to massage my jaws. People who suffer from jaw tension often also have problems with their hearing (tinnitus = ringing in the ears, beeps, …) due to excessive tension around the jaws and the upper attachment of the oblique neck muscles (m. Sternocleidomastoid). By relaxing the area around the jaws with the voice vibrator, these complaints are also significantly reduced! 🙂

• tongue muscles / floor of the mouth (suprahyoid muscles)

Your voice box or larynx is an extremely ingenious system consisting of many voice muscles. What do you really need to know about this as a singer? Well, mainly that it consists of three parts: your hyoid bone, your thyroid cartilage (which you can recognize by the protuberance, which in men is called the Adam’s apple) and your ring cartilage. The “suprahyoidal” muscles, as it sounds very instructive, actually means nothing more or less than “the muscles located above your hyoid bone. You can compare those muscles to the cables of an elevator. Your lift = your voice box. Your voice box can move up and down for high and low tones, among other things.

Conclusion? Your cables (muscles) must be relaxed enough to allow your lift (voice box) to move up and down nicely.

Do you still find this a hassle to learn this through a blog? No worries, that’s completely normal! Our blogs, books, audio-exercises and videolessons are meant to inform everyone as much as possible, but keep in mind that you sing with your body! You have to feel singing. It is the same with voice massage with yourself. It is best to learn the real tricks and techniques one on one with your vocal coach.

Do you want to learn in a session how to get started with your brand new voice vibrator / vibrating egg? Let us know! Good luck! Tiffany