Finding and securing the correct jaw position for singing is one of the most basic foundations of a good vocal technique. To allow good, resonant voice to flow in a constant stream, the jaw must always remain in position. Many things will try to mess with your jaw position: the production of the various sounds of words, the feeling of resonance shift, fear, reaching and simple inattention and lack of sufficient practise.
We tend to think of the jaw as being hinged at the back and dropping open at the front. The back of the jaw, where it attaches to the main part of the skull, is not in fact a hinge. Rather, it is a complex strip of muscle and ligaments. The correct name for the jaw hinges including all their complexity is 'Temporomandibular joints' (we have two of course, one either side. ) But lets stick with 'Jaw hinge.'
Many people 'carry tension' in their jaw: When a person is stressed or tense, the muscles of the jaw hinge constrict and can cause facial pain, sinusitis and headaches as well as grinding teeth.1 Less severely and in the majority of people, the muscles of the jaw hinge are not freely operative. Normally we use the jaw for chewing and speaking. Chewing requires the jaw hinge to pull up strongly: it's how the chewing process works. In speech the jaw usually has a limited range of motion. How much, depends of the individual's language and speaking affect.
In singing we have to adopt a different staegy. We start with the jaw hinge. If there is a first step on the journey to great voice, it happens the moment you start to investigate the back of your jaw, and how it can move.
Apart from singing, pretty much the only time we drop the back of the jaw is when we yawn. We might use that as a way in to starting the process of dropping or 'floating' the jaw. Yawning does other, unwanted things in the throat so we can go that way if we must but my preferred method is this:
Sit or stand upright. Place the first two fingers of each hand on you jaw hinges, just above where the back corner turns upwards. You will feel a pad of muscle there. Gently massage the area in a circular motion with your fingertipsjust in the middle of the muscle area, halfway between where you can feel your teeth end, and the back of your jawbone. There's a small bony bump there. Then let the fingertips gently droop down against the bottom of that soft muscle area: kind of work the muscle down. You will feel the throat start to become kind of 'yawny'
Without losing this jaw position, take a small breath and like you got a tiny surprise, quietly say 'huh.' AUDIO Repeat it a few times and do it as often as you can, any time you think about it, until you can get it without using you fingers to help.
Very important to know that we don't start with a sound in mind, we start with a thoat shape.
Key FactThe vowels we make are a result of thoat (pharynx and tongue) shape. Shapes are not a result of the vowels we choose. In other words vowels are a result of shape... NOT shape is a consequence of vowel.
This is the most important shape there is. No. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SHAPE THERE IS. It is the neutral, open relaxed throat and when sounded it sounds The 'Huh' is what we call the neutral vowel. Some people call it 'Schwa'. We can write it |?|.
Why it's so important is because the neutral vowel is the sound made by the open throat
In written English, it can be represented by many different letters: A, UH, Y, ER and. Here are some common usages in English.
The ones below are in British standard type pronounciation - no trailing |r| sound. You will study the relationship between |?| and |r| a bit later.
In singing, even more words use the neutral vowel than in speech, (in fact as you get to be advanced/professional level you might consider a point of view where all the round vowels are just variants of |?|. But that's for another day.) A very common word in singing is 'Love'... we use the neutral vowel every time. But again, vowel substitution is for another day.
Another hint is if you know how to equalise your ears, in other words to pop open your eustachian tubes buy making a kind of yawny throat, well that's close enough.
If you didn't get it from the 'tiny surprise' above, try starting a yawn and say 'Home' or siply a kind of silly laugh like ;huh huh huh. AUDIO. Feel the way your throat has changed shape. Now back out of the actual yawn but try to keep the openness in the throat. Work at it until you can get that nice soft sleepy vowel without resorting to the yawn.
The final step in this first look at jaw position is to try at will, anytime at all, to achieve that feeling of dropping jaw and deepening and relaxing of thr throat, without making any sound.
1 A life-coaching tip if you do suffer from cleched jaw, wake up with headaches or grind your teeth at night: Make sure that without fail, every night either befor or just after you get into bed, spend just a few minutes and do the 'Relaxation and Breathing' routine. Explain it to your partner if you are afraid they will think you are weird. Also drink a glass of water before retiring!