<p>Hoping someone here can help. My daughter went to Carnegie Mellon pre-college and one comment was "Jaw Tension". The biggest comment from BOCO was "Jaw Tension" and tonight she received feedback from a competition she was in and the only negative feedback was "jaw tension". </p>
<p>For the experts out there...any techniques to eliminate this problem?</p>
<p>I got the same responses at my summer program. I stopped chewing gum all the time, which helped. I got my wisdom teeth out and that helped so much. I also got a mouth guard from my dentist because some of the jaw tensions came from grinding my teeth, etc. But I noticed that once my wisdoms came out it helped the most and opened me up more b/c your wisdoms tend to put pressure on everything b/c your mouth really doesn’t have much room for them.</p>
<p>racmom
A very good maxillofacial surgeon can determine your daughters tension source by an examination and tell you if removing her wisdom teeth will help her. Tension is often a physical problem and as Bird suggested, relief may be as simple as removing wisdom teeth. We took care of that over winter break. You can have your dentist or orthdontist look at her but most will refer it to a specialist in metropolitan areas. Ours was off plan but dental paid half for wisdom teeth removal.
Of course it may be something within her control, that I would not know about.</p>
<p>Jaw tension is actually fairly common among untrained singers. It usually doesn’t require surgery. A good teacher should be able to give you techniques to overcome it.</p>
<p>I sent you a PM</p>
<p>Actually, jaw tension is not just relagated to the “untrained” singers- take a good look at several of the “big names” on the stage of the Met this year and witness…jaw tension. No one wants to have it and if ridding one’s self of the problem was as simple as removing wisdom teeth, oral surgeons near music schools could make their fortune and retire early!
It can happen to anyone and is especially common among those with smaller bone structure. Having three adjudicators write it down doesn’t serve to make it any better either as those who have it are aware of it! My D is one of those- she doesn’t chew gum, she was fitted for a mouth guard and she doesn’t have any wisdom teeth to remove. In fact, her dentist, ENT(who does a lot of work with opera singers) and an a specialist at a major hospital have said that to remove any teeth or even to have her wear braces could be so potentially damaging as to make it impossible for her to sing at all. Hence the reason to NOT run off to a surgeon, begging to have wisdom teeth removed- get several opinions, from several types of specialists. Of course, her teacher is well aware of the condition and takes care not to aggravate it, and the prof who’s studio she will be in at college also knows about it and is also going to work with her. So, for now,the best advice she’s been given is to relax as much as she can when singing and to use warm compresses before auditions/competitions.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of your insights. My daughter is actually a very petite person, and she has had much dental work (wearing rubber bands for about 4 years off and on). She is not an untrained singer (3 years of voice in NY and now 4 years with a professor at Shenandoah University). We will have to do some investigating because the comment has been made now on more than one occasion. Thanks again.</p>
<p>It’s rare that jaw tension as it relates to singing is a true dental/oral structure problem. (Coincidentally, I had a voice therapy patient today who is the only patient I’ve ever had on my personal caseload with jaw tension as her primary problem.) Usually any kind of oral or neck muscle tension can be alleviated with focus on muscle release (lots of different ways to access this, depending on specifically which muscles are tense) and breath work. I’d have your daughter assessed by a voice teacher who is also a speech-language pathologist, so the person has a strong background in singing anatomy and physiology. PM me; I can recommend at least one NYC person who is fantastic.</p>
<p>Many thanks Coach C. I will look into those things. She did start working (yesterday) with her voice teacher. As it turns out, when she opens her jaw too far, she needs to “click it” before it can continue opening. So when she sings, and needs to open her mouth really wide, it shows up with her looking like her jaw needs to go to one side or tension.</p>
<p>Your problem sounds structural and seeing a maxillofacial surgeon does not mean you are asking for surgery. You would be eliminating a possibility easily. If it isn’t structural then you know how to proceed. Tension exercises. You can try tension exercises first but if it’s structural you may waste a lot of time. I took my daughter to a specialist and the computer technology as it relates to jaw movement was very helpful. It wasn’t costly for an evaluation. That’s all she needed. Her orthodontist referred us.</p>
<p>Agree with Coach C - jaw tension is often related to lack of proper breath support. I may not explain this properly, but if the breath support is not there or is not low enough in the body, then the singer compensates by pushing that comes from the throat, jaw and sometimes even the tongue. It could be that the technique taught by her voice teacher is just not working for her. Vocal technique is like politics - 3 opinions for every 2 people. Breath support is elemental but is not emphasized enough for some students by some teachers. There is also disagreement as to how far a singer needs to open the mouth and it is an individual thing but some teachers expect the student to simply model what works for them. Tongue placement and larynx placement can cause tension also. Something as simple as improper posture can cause it. There are many singers who have throat, jaw and tongue tension - some don’t even know it, some have given up on correcting it and sing through it. Hopefully she can solve it early.</p>
<p>My D’s voice teacher diagnosed this when my D started lessons as a freshman in high school with her. With much focus and determination the teacher and my D corrected it, but I can tell you it was not easy and there were many tear-filled lessons and for two years it didn’t seem like there was much progress. We are so appreciate her teacher stuck with it through all the frustration as now there is a huge difference in my D’s singing. It does sound like a very common issue from talking with other students.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your responses. They have been great. Her voice teacher actually spends a great deal of time on breath support, tongue, larynx…She is working on all of these things at every lesson. After yesterdays lesson, she said her jaw actually really hurt. Thanks again. We will keep searching.</p>
<p>Had her voice teacher not noticed this before?</p>
<p>She had noticed it, but it seems to have gotten worse since these college auditions. It seems to be mentioned more and more these days on feedback.</p>
<p>“when she opens her jaw too far, she needs to “click it” before it can continue opening.”</p>
<p>The same thing happens with me. One of my directors in high school was a speech therapist and told me it was probably TMJ and I should be in some sort of therapy for it… Wow, I completely forgot about that until just now. I very rarely open my mouth wide enough for that to happen…
My voice teacher always has me do upper-body stretching exercises before a lesson, and has me massage my face and jaw. It really does help. She has also had me hold my jaw while singing so I can really feel how I’m using it- with the end result that I have better pitch, tone quality, and breath support.</p>
<p>Add the stress of college auditions to a TMJ-type problem and it almost has to equal increased jaw tension!
Check out which side you (or your D) sleep on, as that can exacerbate the condition. My D has the problem on the left side of her jaw, while the right side is just fine. Sleeping on the left side aggrevates the problem, but she’s so exhausted these days with schoolwork, rehearsals and work that she often doesn’t pay attention to which side she sleeps on- although she did when she was auditioning!</p>
<p>This may be somewhat unrelated, but I just got my four impacted wisdom teeth out about two weeks ago, and my jaw is still very sore and limited in its opening… is this normal?</p>
<p>My daughter had some pain opening her mouth for at least that long, even though the extractions were fairly routine. If you’re concerned, talk to the surgeon, but I think it is not unusual.</p>
<p>My D worked with a voice teacher (well known NATS teacher) who is notable in voice rehab. I spoke with one of his students who drove three hours one way to work with him to rehab her voice.</p>
<p>His suggestion for jaw tension was to put the hand in a fist and lightly tap on the front of the chin area several times a day whenever possible. It was amazing how much this loosened the jaw. I asked our dentist about the technique - he tried it himself, thought for a few minutes and said it could not possibly hurt anything.</p>
<p>Active release technique practioners also have an intra oral technique they use (when allowed by state law). Just search for active release technique and you can find a practioner.</p>