In this American English pronunciation video,
we're going to go over
neck and throat relaxation exercises.
When we help students find the UH sound,
which we consider
the core sound of American English,
we often suggest finding a chest resonance,
or a lower resonance,
to help them find this sound.
The way to find that lower resonance
is to relax your neck and throat,
and connect the vibrations
of your sound to your body.
Here are a few exercises
to help relax your neck and throat
and access that body connection.
First, let's just relax the head down,
chin to chest,
and massage the back and sides of the neck.
>> I can do that.
This should feel really good.
>> Oh it does!
Feel free to give your shoulders some love.
You may also feel like sighing as you do this,
a nice easy sound carried by easy breath.
>> Great.
Now let's roll our head around,
starting slowly,
just let your head hang down,
with the chin on the chest,
and start to gently roll it back and forth.
Just a little bit, don't go too far.
Stay slow, and then start
rolling it up even further on each side.
Then eventually,
you can go around the whole circle.
>> How's that feel Tom?
>> That feels really good.
Now as you go around the full circle,
if you feel any spot that feels tense,
that you feel a little bit of ache
in as you go around, really focus on that.
Maybe get in there with your fingers
and rub that out, so that you can go ahead
and free the neck all the way around.
Now drop one ear to your left shoulder,
while you do this, gently reach
your right hand towards the ground,
you'll feel a little stretch
in the right side of your neck.
Don't go too far,
just do what feels good to release.
Then switch sides.
>> How you doing there Tom?
>> This is great!
Now, leading with your eyes,
look over your left shoulder,
as far as you can
(but, of course, don't hurt yourself!!),
and switch.
Here's one that may feel
a little bit weird at first.
Let's start with a very relaxed face,
the jaw should be relaxed
and possibly hanging open just a little bit.
Let's just sigh, nice full breath in,
and a relaxed sigh out.
Let a little sound out with the sigh,
let the vibrations from the sound
relax the throat even more.
Now, put both hands
on either side of your larynx,
and very gently jiggle it back and forth.
As you do this, continue
your easy breath in and easy sigh out.
If you're able to do this, then it means
your throat is relaxed because it's
impossible to do this
with a lot of throat tension.
Lastly, let's rub our hands together
so they're nice and warm
and then place them around the neck.
A natural heating pad,
though it cools down a little too quickly!
Now, with your newly relaxed neck and throat,
sigh on AH and see if you can feel
the vibration in the chest.
This relaxation will really come in handy
as you work on your American English.
A lot of my students who speak
with natural throat tension
because of their native language
have a hard time identifying the tension,
because it's so normal to them.
So one way to work with this,
to try to move your placement down
is just to think of opening up the neck some.
And all of these exercises will help.
So go through all of these exercises,
and then think of an opening sensation,
so that your voice can rest more here.
Any time there's tension in the neck,
it brings the placement up higher.
But we want the American English placement
to feel like it's coming from here.
This video is part of a series
on Relaxation and Placement.
If you like it, check out
the previous video on Lip Relaxation,
or the next video on the Soft Palate.
If you have any questions,
put them in the comments below.
Now, I have to thank Tom
for the exercises in this section.
Tom picked up a lot of these tools
when he was getting his Master's degree
in Acting at Harvard University.
>> So thanks, Tom, for lending your expertise.
>> You're very welcome.
That's it,
and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.