Now that you can open your throat and get in touch with your cords, and even pop a little sound out from a relaxed throat, we will start moving towards the actual singing sounds themselves.
Because untrained cords are fragile and find it hard to hold back the air, you may find that the above material is more difficult to achieve than you might have thought. So we need a tool to allow you to practise cord closure, throat shape and making sound while helping to hold back the air.
There is a kind of bubbling sound that some teachers use: I am not a fan as too many singers do it incorrectly and it is hard to teachers to distinguish exactly what is going on down inside that throat. I am going to give you the MMMM. It is a thing of beauty and has very many amazing uses. With it you can warm up your voice quickly and quietly before a gig, learn to work the cords, work on your range, ease a tired voice, find your balance, investigate tricky phrases before deciding your vowel structure and more. It's a great songwriting tool, too, as you don't need embarrassing bogus words in order to find your melody.
OK here's how it goes.
Lets get back to that open-throat position with the fingers on the jaw-hinge. From the 'huh' now, let the front of the jaw rise just a bit and allow the lips to close. Do that same little pecking-down press you used to make the uh uh, (no 'h' in front) with the lips closed. You will get mmm. A humming sound you could say, but that cound be anything. Best call it the 'Edgy em.' Provided you manage to make the sound with no /h/ in front of it, the sound should have a kind of clean buzzy edge.
Well every singer is different and there are a hundred reasons why it may not work right away, but of all exercises this is the one that is going to get you the clean unstressed cord closure. So listen to the examples, watch the video material and PPPPractise