- Massage your cheeks, jaw line, chin and neck before you sing. If you feel tenderness this is an indication that there is some kind of tension hiding in these muscles. Massage in circles and be gentle. Do this before you begin your vocal warmups and to help loosen you up before you sing.
- Drop and unhinge your jaw during your idle time. I call this the dummy face because I admit that you do look a little silly doing this. But if you practice "letting go" of your jaw then you will begin to get used to loosening up these muscles. Great places to drop and unhinge your jaw are when you are reading, watching TV, cooking and sitting down.
- Drop and sigh with the vowel sound "awe" to help connect your sound to a relaxed jaw position. Do this as a part of your warmups. Doing this enough times will help your body understand how to produce sound without clenching your jaw muscles.
- Hold your chin while you are singing to keep an open mouth and dropped jaw position. You will notice that more sound will come out of you because more space will be created and tension will be eliminated giving you a nice, free, even tone!
- Stick your tongue out and vocalize on a yah, yah, yah, yah, yah up and down the scale. It will sound silly but your jaw will become completely relaxed.
As you begin to relieve your jaw tension, you will notice that it will actually become easier to sing. Your voice will sound a lot more free and your range will be able to expand dramatically--especially in your higher notes. More importantly, getting rid of this annoying tension will allow you to reach your true singing potential!
Hope this helps!
