Ask any singer, “What’s your favorite vocal warm-up?” You can bet they’re going to say trills. Vocal trills, especially the lip trill (often called the lip “buzz” or lip “flutter”) are certainly my go-to in the morning to get my voice going, and throughout the day, anytime my voice needs a reset or refresher. Whenever we do a lip trill, we get that wonderful buzzing, tickling sensation in the “mask”, that area that comprises the nose, the lips, and the area in between.

That’s the tone placement that we want for a vibrant, resonant speaking or singing voice. When it tickles, buzzes, tingles, or vibrates in the mask, you know you’re producing a healthy vocal tone. 

We also notice something else when we do trills. There’s a feeling that the throat is relaxing, opening, becoming freer and less constricted. It’s almost like a cushion of air is pushing backward toward the throat when we trill. And actually, it IS! This is a phenomenon known as acoustic back pressure. And that back pressure is the result of that ever-popular family of voice exercises known as SOVT, or semi-occluded vocal tract exercises. But exactly what are SOVT exercises, and how do they work?  

SOVT exercises—including lip trills, straw phonation, bubble-blowing, humming, vocalizing into a paper cup with a little hole poked into the bottom, etc. —work by narrowing the path your breath takes as it leaves your mouth or nose, creating that gentle back pressure that reflects at the lips back down to your vocal folds. This cushion of acoustic pressure helps the vocal folds vibrate more easily and efficiently with less effort  and less impact or “collision”, which protects the voice from strain.  This reduces the stress on the vocal folds…and who couldn’t use less stress? 

From our friends at Voice Science Works (www.voicescienceworks.org), the experts in all things SOVT: to explain a bit more in-depth for you science nerds, the air pressure that reflects back towards the vocal folds balances the air pressure coming up from the lungs, causing the vocal folds to come together in a more balanced “squared up” configuration, instead of hitting forcefully head on.

Photo Courtesy of Voice Science Works

This balanced position helps to create smooth transitions in the voice (don’t we all hate our “break”?) and helps to create flexibility and power. 

With the mouth partially closed, SOVT exercises keep more of the pressure from the vocal folds within the vocal tract, returning that pressure back to the vocal folds. That makes it easier for the vocal folds to vibrate. Since you don’t have to work as hard to produce voice, this results in less vocal fatigue. Think of pushing a child on a swing. After a while, you don’t have to work as hard to get that swing to keep “oscillating”; you just have to give a little push at just the right time and “wheeee”, it flies. The back pressure gives the vocal folds that “push” without having to work as hard. (Go to www.voicescienceworks.org for even more “nerdy but wonderful” explanations of inertance, acoustic support, formants, harmonic boost, and acoustic strategies, all the result of using SOVT exercises to create awesome vocal technique). 

To sum it up, for both speakers and singers, practicing SOVT exercises can make the voice sound clearer and more resonant, while also reducing fatigue. Think of it as giving your voice a little supportive “boost” every time you warm up, making it easier to speak or sing with freedom and confidence.

So we decided that since trills are such effective vocal warm-ups, we’d do a video on them. But did you know that there’s more than one way to trill? In fact, there are THREE ways to trills (that we know of, and there are probably more). We put all three trills into this informative video, with neat tricks to make each one easier or more effective. Try them all and then incorporate the ones you like into daily vocal warm-up routines, 1-2 minute resets throughout the day, and of course, before any speaking or singing events. See if you agree: your voice will become SOVTerrific!