When I first came across the phonation tube, I was the biggest disbeliever you could imagine. I guess I thought ‘How can blowing bubbles into a tube possibly help anyone’s voice?’ It was, for me, an amazing moment when I took a tube and used it on my own, putting my prejudices aside.
The thing that struck me right away, was that I could hear and feel an immediate difference in my singing after only phonating with the tube for a few phrases. Both the quality of the sound and the ease with which I was able to sing was truly exciting and inspiring, quite apart from the obvious feedback I felt on the use of breath.
It was then that I began to research further (just with the intention of finding out more of why it was so effective and how people were using it). My journey initially took me to YouTube, where I watched this video which claimed, amongst other vocal health benefits, the lax vox was the best singing teacher you will find.
I wondered if this claim was supportable and I then decided that I would start to try using the device with some singing students to see whether these claims had any substance.
Kerry and I are both singing teachers at CCCU and at that time, we happily were teaching on the same days at thesame times in the same part of the music school. I happened to be using the lax vox with a student and, intrigued, Kerry peered through the door and later on asked what we were doing. She said at the time, she had found it fascinating to see that the tube-use had been an obvious help to the student, even though Kerry had not been able to hear what was going on.
This sparked an interest in us both to carry out some research with our students ranging from beginners to advanced conservatoire level singers, across the full age-range.
Singing Freedom-Vocal Blog 