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Cultivating Tone with Your Middle School Choir

ing space within the soft palate area and placement of register and then slide down. Speak using your “queen”
the sound to create a “buzz.” The roof of the mouth or “Mrs. Doubtfire” voice and have singers imitate as
consists of both the hard and soft palates. The soft pal- you say, “Oh my, what a lovely day,” “Helloooo,” or
ate can be found by running the tongue along the roof “How are you today?” Transfer this to singing using
of the mouth toward the back of the oral cavity until it a simple melodic pattern such as the one indicated in
reaches the softer tissue. This might be an effective way Figure 3. Have students use movement, such as arching
for singers to find their soft palates. their hands near the eyes and moving them downward
One mistake that many choral directors make is to or placing their cupped hands near their waists and
ask students to “drop your jaw” or “open your mouth raising and lowering their hand following the contour
wider” in order to create more space. Try it yourself. of the exercise.
Drop your jaw by placing two fingers between your Vocal exercises using “ming,” “zing,” “meow,”
teeth. You will easily observe that this causes jaw ten- “nyah,” and “hmm” will help singers learn to feel the
sion, restricts the pharyngeal area, and does not create “buzz.” These can all be sung on descending patterns,
the desired space in the soft palate area. A better strat- stepwise sol to do (5 to 1), or by skips sol-mi-do (5-3-1).
egy for creating more space might be to ask singers to A variation is included in Figure 4. Add movement to
feel as if they are about to yawn or experience a “happy help students feel the buoyancy of the exercises and to
surprise.” Caution singers to refrain from pulling their engage the body. Have them pantomime tossing a ball
tongues back and down when raising the soft palate. from hand to hand or ringing a doorbell using alternat-
Have them imitate you as you speak “aw” in the upper ing index fingers.

Five.
Give Significant Attention to
Uniform Vowel Shapes

Uniform vowels that are tall and spacious lead to
optimal tone and a unified and blended sound. It is im-
portant for singers to “buy in” to the effort needed to
create beautiful vowels. Ask for two volunteers. On a
unison pitch, have one singer sing an “ah” vowel that
sounds more like “uh,” and have the other sing an elon-
gated “ah” vowel moving toward “aw.” Ask the class

Figure 2. Head & Neck Overview. National Cancer Institute.
SEER Training Modules.
https://training.seer.cancer.gov/head-neck/anatomy/overview.html

12 CHORAL JOURNAL May 2025 Volume 65 Number 8