Take a flexible hose about 32 cm long with a diameter of 10 mm. You put this hose in a bottle with water, about half full. Then you lower the hose about 2 to 3 cm below the waterline. Take the other side between your lips and say softly and low the vowel OE. Make sure the bubbles in the water escape quietly. Experiment with blowing harder and softer to get more bubbles and less.
Ultimately opt for fewer bubbles, which gives more relaxation and a calmer massage. Your breath flow remains low and you use little breath. Support this by keeping the flanks wide and allowing the abdominal muscles to slowly retract and only after the Resting Expiratory Level to contract your abdominal muscles more actively. At the end of the exercise, release the abs in a “ZAOAS” (Singer Please Relax Abdominal Muscles). Also make sure that all the air you blow out goes through the hose and not past it. Inhale through the nose.
When you have done this for a few minutes, you will then make glides up and down. Also at a leisurely pace. You gradually increase this to higher and lower. Make sure that the breathing pressure for higher tones is less greater, then the tube may be raised a little further to about 1 cm in the water. With the real low tones, the tube sinks a little further, so close to 3 to 4 cm. When you have done a number of sirens for a few minutes, you soon notice that the phonation sounds easier and easier. The next step we take is to do singing exercises.
First keep the exercises simple by, for example, singing a fifth up and down on an OE. Then, for example, an octave or triads. Always from the OE sound. When you have done this for about 15 minutes, you can do the same exercises twice on 1 breath. The first time with the hose in the mouth, the second time with the hose out.
Please note that the sound remains as clear, nice and soft and smooth. You try to keep the lower and upper breath pressure in balance. If you were to become louder, you increase the negative pressure. So don’t do this. If this runs smoothly, try lines of the material you want to perform. First the lines you want to sing, Lax Voxen and then on an OE sound and keep the balance in breathing pressure. Flanks wide, let the abdominal muscles go in and retract more actively after REL point.
When you start to sing well and easily from the Lax Vox and the vowel OE, slowly add a little more core by going to UU, then the IE and then add a little more twang. You try to get louder but to keep the balance in lower and upper pressure and to amplify the overtones more. So you increase your capacity. Stabilize this situation so that you can sing everything well and easily in mezzoforte.
From now on you can push the boundaries or adjust the quality you need for the style in which you sing.
Many singers and students who apply the Lax Vox method are very enthusiastic. They all notice that the voice recovers very quickly and that they sing easier after using the Lax Vox. Voice coach Alberto ter Doest has also had very good experiences with the Lax Vox method during a number of heavy concerts. Especially in combination with taking aloe vera and apple juice in the mouth before going to sleep.
September 21, 2020
10 am – 4 pm (1 hour break)
By: Alberto ter Doest
Location: Amsterdam
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