The Low Mandible Maneuver and Its Resonential Implications for Elite Singers

The LMM has significant ramifications for resonance production by enabling a concomitantly lowered larynx and increased resonance space in the pharyngeal and oral cavities. Measurements of the LMM ranged between 0.7 and 3.1 cm and showed a boost in the first harmonics as well as an enhancement in the singers formant. Its use also has a rather significant effect on the tongue shapes required for all sung phonemes. The advantage of using US for this study was the ability to produce real-time videos of the singer in action and then, through the use of stop action, precisely study both individual phoneme production and phoneme-to-phoneme transitions during the LMM.