Bubbling is always good for the voice, isn't it?

Don't get me wrong: bubbling can be good for your voice.

It just gets used too often as a universal solution used, without taking the context into account.

• What does your voice need at this moment?
• What do you want to do with your voice?
• And what sound do you need to be able to make for that?

Because an exercise can be very good in itself and still be the wrong choice for what your voice needs to perform twenty minutes later.

What do you train when you bubble?

Bubbling, also known as Lax Vox, is a SOVT exercise. SOVT stands for Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract: a partially closed vocal tract.

In human language? You partially close your mouth or vocal tract, creating back pressure towards your vocal cords. This back pressure helps your vocal cords vibrate more efficiently. Voilà. The complicated term suddenly sounds a lot less complicated. 😉

There are many different SOVT exercises. They all work according to the same basic principle, but that doesn't mean they all do exactly the same thing.

Each exercise creates a different resistance and thus provides your voice with a different training stimulus. Thus, each SOVT exercise has its benefits. No single exercise automatically trains everything your voice needs.

So you use:

• bubbling for voice massage, relaxation, recovery, and airflow;

• active lip trills to activate your sound projection and airflow;

• the Mind The Voice SOVT Trainer to activate your voice, reduce hoarseness, train your chest voice and head voice, expand your vocal range and daily training of your voice.

The right exercise therefore depends on what your voice needs at that moment and what it needs to be able to do afterwards.

In the case of bubbling, you create sound by using a tube in water. The water bubbles provide varying resistance and give a massaging effect to the structures in and around your throat.

Bubbling helps to:

• relax your internal throat muscles;
• reduce tension around your voice;
• loosen mucus so that you can cough it up more easily;
• allow your voice to recover;
• to rehabilitate;
• to relax after intensive voice use;
• give your voice a cooling down.

Bubbling is therefore primarily a fantastic tool for massage, relaxation and recovery.

During bubbling, your voice lift - your larynx - descends to a low, relaxed position. Within the Mind The Voice method, we call that position −1.

However, your larynx does not need to be permanently as low as possible. It should be able to move freely.

Think of your larynx as a lift with different floors:

-1: relaxation, softness and warmth

This is the warm, soft and empathetic voice colour. 

Think of the way a therapist speaks. The voice of a hypnotist. Or the calm tone you use when you reassure someone on the phone.

-1 is ideal when you want to relax, recover or consciously create a warm, soft sound.

0: activation, clarity and intelligibility

Position 0 is your neutral, active voice position.

In this sound, there are more high overtones, making your voice clearer and more intelligible. You need this position when you want to speak actively, present, teach, sing, or tell a story with sufficient dynamics.

Your voice is awake, responsive, and ready to work.

+1: twang, high notes and vocal range

In position +1, you train more twang and vocal range.

This sound is important for singers and actors, but also for speakers who want to make more impact. For people who want their voice to carry, use more colour, and sound less monotonous. 

Conclusion?

A healthy, functional voice does not stay on one level. It moves between -1, 0 and +1, depending on what you want to communicate and what your voice needs to do.

The intention is that with a healthy voice, your voice lift can move freely.

Imagine you have to perform in twenty minutes.

Or you need to give an important presentation, record a podcast, teach, act in a scene, or go into the studio.

What voice do you need then?

• A voice that is relaxed?
• A voice that is awake, clear, stable and ready for action?

When you have just been bubbling, you are training your voice to -1. You have not done a bad exercise. But possibly the wrong exercise for the sound you need immediately afterwards.

Relaxation is not the same as activation.

The SOVT Trainer trains all heights of your voice lift.

The SOVT Trainer works without water and has a small diameter and four holes with even smaller diameters. By opening and closing those holes in different ways, you create fifteen resistance levels.

The higher the resistance, the more accurately you learn to move your voice lift upwards.

We developed the SOVT Trainer to train all three heights of your voice lift:

• -1 for relaxation, warmth and softness;
• 0 for activation, clarity and intelligibility;
• +1 for twang, activation, high notes, head voice, belt, mixed voice, vocal effects, vocal range.

This way you choose the level that suits your voice, your training level and the sound you want to create.

That’s why you can always use the SOVT Trainer. You simply choose the exercise and the resistance level that match what your voice needs at that moment.

You can use it to:

• relax and reset;
• activate your voice;
• train for more stability;
• learn to control your breath and voice;
• train intensively.

Because you can’t ask "Mind The Voice" every morning what your voice needs today, we developed the free Voice Tool Checker 😉.

You tell us:

• how your voice feels today;
• what you are going to do with it in the next two hours;
• what your main vocal goal is;
• and whether you are experiencing any issues.

Based on that, you discover whether at that moment you are better off choosing bubbling, the Mind The Voice SOVT-Trainer or a combination of both.

Do you want to learn exactly how to perform exercises with the SOVT-Trainer for −1, 0 and +1? Then check out our instructional and training videos.

The goal is for you to understand:
what you are doing,
why you are doing it,
when you are doing it
and which sound you are training with it.

That is the difference between just practising and learning to master your voice purposefully.

And do you still want personal advice?

Call me ;-)

Tiffany