Lock It In the Pocket

LOCK IT IN THE POCKET

Let’s talk about young singers and that tricky little thing called the soft palate. You know, that thing that many beginners don’t like to lift? The thing that, when properly lifted, eliminates nasality and warms the tone? How can we help our singers become consistent soft-palate-lifters?

The first step is to let them know that the palate will not “stay put.” That is to say it is lifted through effort, and only continuous effort will keep it lifted. It would akin to holding your arm above your head. You can’t just set it and forget it.

The next step is to thus identify “the pocket.” I see the lifted soft palate making a “pocket” in which sound spins and warms. [see “What’s POPPIN’] It must become second nature to constantly create “the pocket” so that the sound will be drawn there more easily. 

When I was growing up, I played little league baseball. I had a leather glove, and the first thing my Dad taught me was how to break it in. He said that if the glove was flexible and if the pocket was broken in, any baseball that hit the inside of that glove would be snagged like a fly in a Venus fly trap.

Choir Bites Interactive Slides can enhance online/hybrid lesson plans or be used as supplemental assignments. Your singers’ awareness will rise as they engage with these simple, “sticky” concepts! Click here to learn more! 

I constantly worked the leather back and forth. I stomped on the glove and threw it on the ground. Every night, I would oil the glove, then put a baseball in the webbing of “the pocket” and tie the whole thing up. During the day, I would throw the ball into “the pocket” over and over, reinforcing the trap to perfection.

Singers must constantly work on perfecting their “pocket.” After all - there is a finite limit to how much space any singer can internally produce, and not every sound/vowel/tone requires MAXIMUM space. But the concept of a pocket, the concept of space, the practice of developing lift in the tone is invaluable.