Singing with a Tongue-Tie : #voicewithjulia Julia Radosz & Leah Stewart-Hill

one two setting up your meeting for facebook live here we go brilliant okay so we are live now perfect awesome hi everyone great to see you i am very happy to introduce leah who is here she's a soprano and as you all know i had uh tongue tie surgery in january and leah actually had hers in november isn't that correct yep yep that's right yeah so we found each other online as you know people kind of follow fall across your path and when you're looking for certain things and we were both sort of researching tongue ties and singing singing with a tongue tie singing after tongue tie surgery and so leah has a fantastic blog a vlog on facebook called diary of a tongue-tied singer and she kind of chronicles her whole journey from discovery before her surgery and now her recovery process and kind of rehabilitating her voice and there's a lot of information on tongue ties out there but not really for singers just kind of general information so i think it's really important that we have this discussion because it's something in my opinion as i've been learning and experienced it myself i cannot believe that this is not checked right away like amongst all singers i i really can't believe this and i think it will start to be done so because it really is a it is a block to a lot of technical growth that is sort of not anybody's fault and not really something it's just something that is happening in your throat that you aren't aware of so i think that's what we're gonna unpack in this discussion today about how tongue ties affect singing and what can be done beforehand to sort of prep you and what needs to be done after a tongue tie surgery to sort of rehabilitate the instrument so i just want to kind of bring leah on to talk and maybe share your story sure sure hi everybody i'm so happy to be here um it was it's like such a joy on this journey to connect with somebody like julia um have so much in common and then also this kind of newly found passion for bringing awareness to this tongue-tie issue um and kind of more on that later but i have been singing um seriously uh for 20 years and um studying consistently that whole time had wonderful voice teachers um all through my degrees i have an undergrad underground voice performance um an m.a and an mm and voice performance and and have um taught professionally on the collegiate level voice and also performed professionally so um all along that 20-year journey um gosh uh there has been a great amount of struggle and and um i would look at um my colleagues around me and we know we're not supposed to compare but i i would see how um i was working every bit as hard as they were and i don't want to diminish their hard work because anybody that's in this industry is working hard um but but they would work so hard and i would see that i was working just as hard but i was making a fourth of the progress um and i over over you know that 20 years i mean even as recently as you know a year or two ago um when i would sing for a conductor or when i would have a coaching or when i would have a voice lesson there were things that i heard over and over and over again and it wouldn't matter how methodically how carefully um thoughtfully i addressed those things on a consistent basis i'm not talking about like one practice session i'm talking about hundreds of practice sessions day in and day out how i would address those issues um to seek to gain freedom around them and um the next time i opened my mouth to sing it was like i had never done that exercise before it was like i had never um tried to accomplish that particular goal or gone through that particular process before now all of that is not to say that i didn't grow obviously i did i got the degrees and all of that but there were areas in my voice where i reached a certain point and then there was no getting beyond that it was like a brick wall so for example um i i had enormous difficulty um pronouncing certain sounds correctly so um there were certain pure vowels and and specifically they were the vowels that required um an arched tongue in the mouth so those pure vowels when singing um i had enormous difficulty pronouncing with clarity um and if i could pronounce at the onset of that vowel if i could if i could get my tongue in the right position i could not sustain it so as a full lyric soprano um a lot of my rep has those long sustained lines that that is a requirement that you can maintain the integrity of a vowel sound um throughout the entire duration of that particular note um so that was a big complaint certain consonants um were derailed me i don't know how else to say it um consonants like um consonant blends um would completely in order to create that sound it would be like i would be singing along and i would have to stop make the sound and then re-engage again i it was not possible for me to create those vowel those consonant sounds in the flow of a text so when you're seeking for legato um this is a big issue this is a big issue when you're seeking for um as much freedom as possible in the neck as much freedom as possible in the larynx to have to use the kind of pressure that i had to use in order to get those consonants out um that is um that's something that diminishes the freedom so so there was an issue with articulation um there was an also issue i also had big issues with laryngeal stability so um i i would hear comments and it felt like i was always either on one side of the spectrum or on the other side of the spectrum i would hear comments that would say okay we need to hear clearer addiction we need to hear more peeing in the sun more ring in the sound however you want to you want to call that we need we need more though essentially in the sound um and then i would i would work to get my tongue in a position that would would allow for that but my larynx would raise and i would hear okay keep keep that vowel production but you need to relax your larynx and then i would relax my i would relax in order to relax my larynx i would have to relax my tongue and the sound would fall back and i would hear the sound is too dark um your larynx is actually depressed now and i could not it was very very difficult for me to find any kind of a balance um where the larynx was in that relatively comfortably low position that we want for free phonation um while still being able to have the tongue in the right position for creating certain sounds so um for me it was always a trade-off if i'm going to use my tongue to be clear as i articulate the larynx is going to be high period as a result of that my voice would fatigue very easily as a result of that the extremes of my range particularly the top and as a soprano you can imagine that that this was discouraging but particularly the top would be inconsistent um i i couldn't always count on it julia and i had a conversation the other day and i said you know really for me to get the top and i'm i'm thinking um you know um b flat b natural high c high c sharp um for me to have any quality sound there every single note approaching those upper notes would have to be done exactly perfect um so i developed a working technique that was very very mechanistic um i would have to i would have to muscle and i hate to use that term but i would really have to muscle my voice into into a very very precise alignment in order um to be able to sing things with a degree of effectiveness um so i heard a lot of things through the years of like wow your voice is really beautiful um this is a world-class instrument but you really need to develop more consistency in your upper register you really need to develop more laryngeal stability you really need to develop more consistently pure vowels we know that developing pure vowels that has acoustic um implications that allows for greater resonance these kinds of things i had a lazy soft palette it seemed like no matter what i did i couldn't keep my soft palate up all the time so um these are just some things that i struggled with and over the years gosh there was so much discouragement because i mean um if you've dealt with this issue you know how discouraging it is to work and work and work and go to a lesson or go to an audition or um sing for a conductor and have them tell you the same things that you've been hearing as if you had not been working on those exact issues for years um and uh you know i i was i wouldn't say i was at the end of the end of my rope i was still working you know when i discovered the tongue tie but learning about the tongue type um provided clarity around all of these really and truly either in a primary or in a secondary way all of these kind of chronic struggles that i'd had in my singing that i hadn't been able to overcome again not not it's not that there's no ability to improve but overcome them completely does that answer your question yeah that's i think that that's really great you went into a lot of depth which is important to hear i think somebody wrote that listening to your story is literally like taking the words out of my own mouth wow yeah and this is it's really interesting to to hear about this because sometimes i know for myself like your journey it's very similar we had pretty much very similar manifestations and i don't know about you but i'm like i like i live and breathe technique like what is god when things aren't working like what is yes am i defective like you know and uh when we had our and like like you i developed a very very you know precise working technique and but um you know going down this journey a little bit and when i brought amanda on who is the myofunctional therapist right in this group you know not maybe like six months ago and i'm watching her presentation and i'm going like holy crap do i have a tongue tie like and i asked her right after i was like wait do i have a tongue tie and uh she she's like well let's do this test let's see and she's like oh yeah you do you have like you know quite a quite a good one right like oh my god congratulations congratulations right right and in that moment i'm like get it out like get it out of me now yeah i'm like going with the kitchen knife honey can you can you take care of this every myofunctional therapist is dying right now exactly yeah and so so that there was a bit of feeling like that for me personally i didn't feel one bit of hesitation as as soon as i heard that diagnosis i was like i'm getting it snipped but i do know that there's a lot of people out there a lot of clients that i work with and also anecdotally singers are scared about having this done right yeah sure yeah who's it i just want to cut it now i and you know singers are scared because there is a little bit of you know even my husband said to me oh my god is your sound going to change i'm like look even if it does like this i don't care i'm like just make it easier like make it easier and uh you know i i do think now i mean we'll get to the post tongue tie surgery in a minute but i do think it really hasn't fundamentally changed my sound um however so in that process of discovery okay should you get the surgery or should you not um bryce who we had who we've had right here on the group kind of takes a little more holistic view of it and he's like well you know discover like if that's something that you really want to do if you don't want to do that that's totally okay too um and you know you can you don't have to get it done essentially is what he's saying like you can still be an excellent singer without it i want to ask you that question okay right okay so of course this is personal right this is so personal it's it's this this is an instrument that we carry in our bodies so it's a there's a lot foresingers wrapped up in identity there's a lot for singers i feel like my vocal journey is inextricable from my life journey if that makes sense so um but but um so maybe you would have to have an experience similar to mine to have this feeling but but if you have sat at the piano for 20 years praying for answers and i mean that like literally praying god what what is going on because i feel instinctively that this should be easier i hear that it should be easier i feel like a fraud i'm a voice teacher like you julia technique became my jam it became my specialty because i was on i was on a search to to learn what my instrument needed um to to operate in its fullest capacity at its freest um so so to have a dental hygienist and this is how i found out because i was at the dentist because i was a chronic teeth grinder which is one of the very common symptoms uh bruxism is a very common symptom of um tongue tie i was at the dentist for some dental work that had been that it needed to happen because of my teeth grinding and i said look how do i solve the teeth grinding and she said let me look under your tongue and she saw that i was tongue-tied and then i'm just telling you you know because of singers if we're kind of obsessed with technique everything circles back to that so i'm starting to think about um tongue being connected to the hyoid bone this hyoid bone is this floating bone that every movement it makes has the potential to impact the larynx and laryngeal position and i am starting to check off these boxes in my mind of all of the struggles that i've had so so there was when i say there was like zero hesitation there was zero hesitation and 100 commitment to seeing this through um because i felt like what i knew of my own singing and the issues that were presented in my own singing the areas of tension um and the potential for for this release to allow me finally to make progress in these areas um it felt actually like a lifeline it didn't feel like a gamble it didn't feel um like anything and yes i had developed a working technique but it was not one that i was 100 satisfied with even when people around me were satisfied i always felt in my spirit in my singer's intuition um this is not it this is not it this is not my this is not the singing that i am capable of and um so it was like a puzzle piece that made everything else make sense for me so i respect um every singer's freedom you know to choose for themselves what serves them best on their vocal journey i think um my obsession with technique and my understanding of the anatomy of the vocal mechanism um gave me a lot of comfort because i truly felt that if the vocal mechanism could be freed by the release of this tongue tie um even if my sound changed it would be for the better um and and that my my experience is that it has opened up my sound but i still sound like myself just just more color and and with more freedom so um i believe that there are a lot of options it's not release or nothing so myofunctional therapy can help can provide maybe greater freedom than um a singer has had up to that point greater range of motion greater greater mobility greater stability i for myself i know that the what i ultimately was seeking would not have been possible with just myofunctional therapy i needed to go the whole nine yards i needed to do the release as well i agree with bryce it we are it is a holistic thing okay um you know despite how we felt it's not just snip snip right there there is a um there is kind of a a process um but for me there was no hesitation for me there was no fear actually at all in moving forward so you know that's just my personal experience and my my advice is even if you are afraid even if you have concern because your voice is a precious thing it's a precious unique thing and and you are the steward of it um have a consultation have a consultation with a myofunctional therapist do some research um explore the at least explore it um because you know in my experience it is absolutely 100 one of the best decisions i've ever made period in my life and definitely for my singing yeah absolutely i agree with that and i i will say for those of you who are looking into this there are a couple and we'll share some resources with you all i know i've shared them in the group before but we'll share more as well you will need as a singer you will need a myofunctional therapist in addition because if if you just rely on the surgery alone and don't correct some of the habits that were formed you the worst that can happen is the tongue tie will kind of flick reattach reattach yeah and you won't gain that flexibility of movement in the tongue that is so essential so you may have a free tongue but it may not be doing what it's supposed to be doing and you might not find the effects um so it's uh wait there's a question is there a difference between a myofunctional therapist a speech pathologist yes yes big difference the main difference is so speech pathology is really about how you make the sounds a myofunctional therapist deals with things like swallowing breathing sleeping those kind of disorders so basic mouth functions and basic tongue functions that are responsible for those elements like everything right things that help you live a speech pathologist would really like hone in on how are you making your sounds and so my myofunctional therapist does recommend if she feels i need if i feel i need it to go to a speech pathologist in addition i haven't done that yet but i'm not saying i won't do that we'll get into that discussion in a second but i know leah and i are both in my functional therapy and we're both post-op but we're still continuing with exercises consistently um let me ask you another question so do you feel um leading up to the surgery did you have any issues with maybe a tendency towards thicker phonation a tendency to words like the head voice access was tricky yes yes absolutely um i you know um so many times i would i would um get up through that that upper passage and i would have teachers tell me it lighter it just it's it's a lighter adjustment you just just let the weight fall away and and i would they would say it like it should be an instinctive thing like you should instinctively sense how to do this and and and then i would just come off my voice so so then i would then it would kind of become almost coral sounding you know you know like um and um and they would say no no no no not not that just take the weight off and and i like i had i had no idea in fact i would often my way of doing it would be to to lift the larynx further i mean it i really did not have a sense for that so um i had a very and and that it's one of the things that has always been commented on in my voice like a very very rich well-developed middle and low voice but but transitioning that that um adjustment into the upper voice has always been very difficult very problematic and and so as a result i i had very little flexibility in the top of the voice um so in terms of dynamic flexibility um you know mesa devotee things like that were incredibly difficult for me pianissimo singing i mean was very difficult it's not that it was impossible but very difficult i have to work very carefully over a long period of time to train some muscle memory to allow me to do that um so yeah absolutely absolutely yeah yeah i i think you know some of you knew a little bit about my journey and why we started talking about this even in the first place here in this group is i i was obsessed i became obsessed with the tongue and the tongue position on my own you know on a youtube you go on like youtube rabbit hole searches right and i was like desperate to find some answers because i did have the sense that in my singing i hit this wall a few years back where like my tongue was just i felt like something was off so i discovered this thing called mewing right you know right yeah yeah okay yep it's like it's a big topic on youtube so if you search up mewing you're going to get lots of lots of interesting guidance there um and it's really hot apparently in the model community i didn't know that but they talk about this a lot yeah so you get that kind of that kind of stuff on youtube wow i started watching some videos and i'm like you know what i'm just going to try this for the heck of it so i just started trying it right like yep every day and it changed my singing even just that like before the surgery before i even knew i had a tongue tie changed my singing so drastically and so i was doing essentially some aspect of my functional functional therapy right yes without knowing what i was doing and that you know maintaining that tongue position so i started doing tongue exercises and i do feel like that really did help so you know people who are sitting there going oh i don't know if surgeries for me you know i of course i'm a believer and everybody should have surgery if that's an available option right but just know that i definitely found a ton of freedom doing that those steps so yeah you know that is another option as well like everybody has to kind of make that decision for themselves um so i would say that that was my experience with that now let's go you all have i've i don't know if you've seen i've actually posted my surgery video so you can see it in its entirety but leah let's have you like because i'm one person so let's have a sure talk about like is it painful at all is it scary okay um so um if if you're just new to this tongue tie thing um there's a book that i recommend it's called tongue tied by dr richard baxter he doesn't talk about um he doesn't talk about adults a lot he is primarily a pediatric dentist but he has literally written the book on it and there's a lot of really helpful information in that so um when i first found out about my tongue tie my dental hygienist said there is no one in louisiana that's where i live there's no one in louisiana who will do a tongue-tie revision on an adult and she said the closest person is a guy named richard baxter but you would be in really good hands because he wrote a book on it so um so i went to um dr baxter for my release um he i cannot say enough good about him he even his like bedside manner you know his his way was so um kind um you will feel you would feel heard if you went to him you know um so uh the way it went was and he he works with the laser so there's a couple different ways that you can have a tongue tie revise that can be done with scissors and it can also be done with a laser and uh there's some debate about which is best um i think um what i've taken from the conversation is bottom line that needs to be someone who is very experienced with that particular medium of surgery okay um but dr baxter literally just won an award for laser his laser work so um that's his specialty um and uh he did give me like a numbing shot um i had both my tongue revised and i had um my lip tie revised because i was also super restricted in my upper lip um and so the the shot i'll be honest you guys the shot was the thing that hurt were the worst in the whole procedure which is not to say that it hurt very bad um it just it was a sting you know and gave it a little bit of time to numb up and then he went to work with the laser during the actual procedure during the actual release i didn't feel anything i didn't feel any pain um he did use sutures and um there seem to be some studies that that show that sutures are a really good way to go again it doesn't mean that it's it's the only way but he did suture me afterwards i had six stitches under my tongue he did not suture um the upper lip though that that remained open um the most pain came that evening so i had it done that night um and that evening it hurt and not the worst pain i've ever experienced but it hurt it hurt to swallow um i like tried to drink a milkshake because i was starving and and that was really slow going and that was painful um and but i will say like um i took some things to help alleviate the pain and i slept great that night in spite of like being in pain when i went to sleep i slept wonderfully like the most sound night of sleep that i could remember um in recent you know in recent memory um and the next day when i woke up because i had it done in the afternoon the next day when i woke up it was still tender but but probably 50 better i actually went i'm not advocating this but i i actually i i drove to alabama um had had my my tire revised slept in hotel got up drove home that next day and went immediately to a worship rehearsal at church and sing um and actually um and actually the the singing itself was painless um i didn't have real issues with the singing really the most painful thing in the first few days was eating that because you're moving you're moving the tongue a lot when you're eating i don't even realize how much but so that was the most painful thing so i was on kind of a liquid diet for like three days after that no pain um everything was pretty much business as usual so i i don't feel like i'm exaggerating to say if it had been five or ten times more painful it still would have been worth it and i'd still do it again um so it it is and everybody's different but it is painful but it is also the kind of pain that i felt like um i used some holistic things and i also took like i think what he suggested was a leave i took one and it really greatly reduced the pain so it was not unbearable at all yeah and i yeah and it didn't scare me he kind of talked me through he told me as he was doing it okay now i'm doing this now i'm doing this now i'm doing this and just made me feel really at ease yeah yeah yeah i would say for me like i would probably because i would expect you know a certain amount of pain like just like a headache kind of pain mm-hmm um so i would say if you're just expecting like no more than headache kind of pain then there really is for me there wasn't any actual pain like besides i needed to take some tylenol and ibuprofen for that kind of like that aching it's it's like aching and like it is yeah but the procedure itself and for some reason my shot i didn't even feel it i think they numbed like they did they actually numbed where are they right like i didn't feel that part but that's what i think happened so you know there's a range of basically no pain to like a little bit of pain so it's really not that bad um i know i just want to be really transparent too because i know price is something people like really think about and really yeah so like my so what i paid was with the visit with like the first visit the consultation with the doctor um and the actual tongkai release i think it totaled with those two visits and then the follow-up all together was like 6.95 and i got mine done with a wonderful doctor who trained under dr zaghi who kind of did this method um and she her name is dr d at um sweet tooth dentistry in tampa florida so that those were her prices which i found was very reasonable um that was without insurance i was just self-paying so leah do you do you remember how much yeah yeah and i don't mind talking about it either um so so i because i had tongue and lip revision mine was closer to a thousand um i also paid out of pocket um uh and uh dr baxter is also zoggy trained so so if you've been much in this tongue-tie community dr zaghi his name is said with great reverence um because he his institute the breathe institute is really the foremost one doing a lot of research around this issue and and his method of revising adults is brilliant and so really i feel like most everybody who's doing it really successfully is getting their information from him and getting training from him but um because he's brilliant so yeah so my um the actual procedure was around um a thousand dollars and then my myofunctional therapy which i purchased a package of like 22 hour long sessions with my bio-functional therapist was um like 1800 so um you know so so under under 3000 i also did not use insurance it's also just like out of pocket um but i mean um worth it totally totally totally totally worth it for me yeah absolutely now before we move on to singing post tongue tie surgery i'd love to open up the floor does anybody have any questions you can type them in the chat or you can unmute yourself does anybody have any questions about like pre tongue tie uh yeah i have a question yeah um so i'm definitely getting the surgery as soon as i can because i've already um talked to my amanda actually yeah um and she said yeah for sure you have a tongue tie it's not a question you should get it dealt with my problem is that i live in a place that there is nobody near me so i'm in italy right now and the closest person would be germany or spain so i have to kind of think about logistics especially in these wonderful times so yeah so in terms of like going for the first visit having the surgery and then having the follow-up how much time do you actually have to sort of have access to that person like if i were to plan a you know kind of a long trip to do this specifically for this what amount of time um needs to be allotted for that so i'm going to answer that first just because i did travel so like i you know i went to tampa which i was staying in florida with my family in orlando at the time but i did go to tampa and that was like two hours away i had a video consult with her first so it took away that first visit in person and she was more than willing she's like i i don't normally do this but i'm totally willing to do it so we did that first then the very first time i met her was at the surgery she did ask me to stay a week so that i went for a follow-up the week after but she did tell me that if that absolutely wasn't possible we could maybe schedule that like a few days after instead of like you know a week later but i said no it's no problem since i'm already in florida it's only two hour drive so i did go the week after but i think you could probably make it like a four or five day thing if you had to that's my perspective yeah um um so i um because i also traveled it was like a six-hour drive for me um dr baxter's office what they did was they referred me to a myofunctional therapist for a diagnosis essentially an official diagnosis so and then they worked with my myofunctional therapist um doctor so i didn't meet dr baxter until the day of my release he also looked in my mouth and confirmed but his his diagnosis was exactly the same as my myofunctional therapist i had a pretty severe posterior tongue tie so um and um so he i had the revision um stayed that night and he called me actually that night make sure i was doing okay and and offered me he usually does a follow a follow-up a week later um but but essentially what he said was you know you can video with me um or you can just stay in contact with jennifer and let her see you and if she feels like there's any um issues then you can come back for uh for a follow-up and and dr baxter i think a lot of um providers if there's any need to go back in and do a little work after the fact that often is free so so if i had needed um a further release in some way that would have been free but i didn't so um i just stayed in close contact with jennifer my myofunctional therapist a couple of times in that first week kind of got up in the camera and let her look under my tongue and see how things were going and and so it kind of removed that need to stay in exactly the same area but i guess every provider would probably be different so you could ask them a lot of people are doing things online now more because of kovid so you know you you could probably ask them to see if it would be possible for you to just go you know for for a couple days to have the procedure done okay so just to be clear he you never went back to dr baxter um for a follow-up it was just oh the video and you're totally you're um your therapist is also through video or do you see her no i don't see her in person she's virtual yeah so she lives in washington we do everything um on video and um it's been super it's been super successful super easy um so that's what we did now now typically dr baxter does see people a week after um but because i was traveling and i was long distance um you know i think he kind of just we just arrived at something a little bit easier and said okay if you need to come back you absolutely can but just you know stay in contact so so we did communicate a lot that first week but i i didn't really everything was so he did such an amazing job that there was no need actually to see him again great thank you yeah yeah and you know what kristen wrote um that she's in spain and would have to travel to madrid because that's where the doc dr zoggy trained doctor is that i wonder if that's the same doctor that amanda found for you it is there's like nobody here in europe wow so look kristen you guys can like do a tag team oh that's true that's true i i've been you guys could research and i i obviously was looking at the breath institute website and watching all of your videos both julia and leah and sending them to my mom which by the way she loved your video julia she watched the whole thing and like live tweeted to me but i'm glad to hear that someone else was um like suggesting this doctor in madrid i can't remember his name right now but um that's really actually really helpful um but i did have a question julia in your surgery was your your myofunctional therapist there with you or no i wasn't sure i watched so many videos that now i'm like sort of confused i think that in some surgeries the myofunctional therapist is there to kind of like feel the release or to help kind of see how much cool needs to happen there is i think that either of you have heard about i have heard about that but i do think that in the case of these doctors that are zoggy trained they almost have that knowledge yeah so i i definitely felt like dr d was so holistic like she made me go and get myofascial release in my mouth and in my neck before and after she even set up the appointments for me um she was like making me do my exercises while she was doing the release she's like okay suck and hold like to measure and so she knew what she was looking for and she also my doctor had a tongue tie revision as well so she really was intimately acquainted with that i do think the dr zaghi doctors do know how to do that on their own but it is cool if you have your myofunctional therapist in there as well that is cool i hadn't heard about that but that is really cool yeah so i think that there basically ours were pretty much similar and like had i had i not gone that second follow-up things everything would have been it would have been fine totally yeah it was just a touch and go oh yeah like you haven't gone down any and well i will tell this funny story because my myofunctional therapist she's very holistic and you know like especially after the surgery she's like let's not push don't push herself and uh dr g when i went up for the follow up i was like you know i'm a little concerned because i've gone down in millimeters so just to be clear my measurement pre pre um surgery was 23. oh my yours was 23. look at that yeah and so i received a release up to 38 post surgery but then i when i went back it was down to like i think 35 and i was getting concerned that it was like retracting and so dr d just said she's like take your tongue and stretch it and if it bleeds then you'll know you've gone too far and i was like okay like all right and she's like just tell you can go till it hurts just stretch that thing out so i did what she said and now my release is at 41. so i went from i post surgery was 38 now i'm 41 consistently and like fully healed so i do think that it is important to be stretching afterwards um you know i mean obviously do what whatever your myofunctional therapist tells you but i do recommend going for it and pulling that tongue it was i even woke up in the middle of the night and did it so it didn't reattach yeah absolutely um jennifer my myofunctional therapist gave me a list of exercises to begin the day after um and they did not feel good um i had the lip tie so there's a lot of like this kind of this kind of thing and it didn't feel good but it felt better after so so every time i would do you know and and pulling the tongue um doing the the point of the tongue um caves you know these kinds of things um uh every time i would do them they would hurt in the beginning because it would kind of stiffen up a little bit as it was healing but when i would do them then i would gain more range of motion and it would be and it would feel better it would minimize the pain and the discomfort and the stiffness actually so yeah agree do definitely do the stretches for sure yeah yeah i have another question um how long so okay we've been talking a little bit about myofunctional therapy how long did both of you do it before your surgery and after i mean i know you're both still doing the post but how long are you planning to do it for or what did both of your doctors recommend okay um so i did 10 weeks of myofunctional therapy before um and we kind of we the way we did it was we just started with myofunctional therapy and jennifer said i'll tell you when you're ready for the release and then we'll schedule the appointment so i didn't have i didn't have an appointment for a release at the beginning if that makes sense um and then um for the first six weeks after my release i had appointments every week and then now for the past you know um i don't know a couple months it's been every other week so um i i have a feeling in in the package that i purchased originally that i only have a few more um a few more left but i think i'll keep up with it through this year for sure um even if it's just once a month you know just to keep working toward that correct function yeah yeah i did and i'm not sure if this is like universal but i know amanda had me do five weeks of therapy before so we set up my appointment right away but i do wonder if that's because i've been doing a lot of like exercises i i don't know if so i don't know if that's particular for amanda how she works or if that was just in my case but it was five weeks and then um afterwards i think i'm continuing it's a total of like i think five months essentially i think there were like i really don't remember there's like 18 sessions i think for me and most of them are every two weeks but i right after the surgery i think i did meet every week for like a few weeks yeah yeah i think it depends i think it's tailored to you and what your providers feel like you need yeah i think mine was long i think 10 weeks before a release is is on the long side that's longer than a lot i've heard i've heard like four to eight weeks is pretty normal um so i was a little bit outside that but i had y'all i had some tongue dysfunction so i needed i needed that work okay celeste my myofunctional therapist does eight weeks pre-op okay i think they're all a little different yeah okay so there's totally yeah yeah nola hi thanks so much leah and julia um leah i was wondering i've been diagnosed with both a tongue tie and elliptic also um and i'm wondering did your therapy also include lip exercises and did you notice a lot of changes because of that okay so yeah huge actually so um i did have a lot of therapy mainly it was like things like taking like rolls of cotton and sticking it like up under my lip to help stretch out that upper lip um i would do exercises to um my we called it the spaghetti exercise anyway it was this long string like a shoe string almost with um wooden blocks on the end and i would have to put put the tip in the the tip of the string in my mouth and pull the blocks up using only my lips you know so it would be kind of a kind of thing okay so because i had such a restricted lip these muscles here um they just didn't work in a in a forward embouchure motion okay so so if you have this you may have heard a lot why is your mouth always in a spread position when you sing um maybe not but i always got that comment yeah and i get to i pull down my upper lip often as i sing all right vowels instead of um going forward yeah right right so that was always an issue with me um and i would work but it would actually physically hurt to um move my lips forward at all when i say so um to create you know that more that more rounded shape for the vowel but anyway um the the lip release i feel has done almost as much for me in my singing as the tongue release um it's allowing me to create um just the correct mouth positions in a relaxed way for those vowels um and then i also think any restriction here tension period is a resonance eater right in singing so so um this this tension i really feel like it um it trapped my resonance a little bit and i don't know all the all the reasons behind that but but freedom here and then there was con there was also a freedom here in the cheeks from that release has really allowed me to get um without compromising the larynx more of a bite in the sound um that that we're looking for so yeah super helpful can not recommend it enough liberally so super big okay that's awesome yeah that's that's really cool to hear um yeah kristen sorry i have so many questions i'm trying to take advantage of the fact that you're both in a room right now with me um uh okay so leah you said that you had uh like a worship rehearsal like the day after um julia when did you go back to singing and do you both of you recommend getting this done when you are like not needing to do as much singing maybe like when you have a break um because i'm i right so right now i'm trying to sort of plan when i could get this done but right now um until like july i'm kind of really busy so i'm i'm thinking maybe early autumn um but of course i'm like like i said earlier [Laughter] yeah so i literally like after right after the surgery i went into the car and i was like mom give me a moment and i just went into the car and i started singing and i was like damn wow like i could literally do things i'm like testing out my new wheels like it was awesome um but but then hold on because we're getting to this part of the discussion i hit a wall and i think i was like feeling on top of the world for like the first two weeks i'm like everything's easy everything's amazing then like the cracking started and like dimitri knows this because i would talk about this in our group i was like oh my god like now the cracking all sorts of things were going crazy and i had set up a a recording at this really great recording studio in orlando and i had just done a recital there and i like loved the recording it was so beautiful i'm like okay well i did my recital right before two days before my surgery so i'm like i'm gonna set up a recording now and like my you know my new full glorious voice oh no it was a disaster like things were just cracking everything i'm like this is not gonna work so i definitely think now like after i i basically set up that recording at just that perfect time that everything was sort of recalibrating so i'm finally on the other side of that for the most part um but so now that would be what i got my january 20th and now we're at almost at march 20th yeah so almost eight weeks yeah i'd say like eight weeks till like now i could i feel like now i could go out and sing in public but i don't know leah what did you feel so so yeah so i did sing immediately but but if you're familiar with contemporary worship music we're not talking this is not puccini this is not mozart this is not bach it's it's not demanding for the voice narrow range kind of a thing so it was not an issue um and it was easier so i had like a very parallel experience to julia um which was the first two weeks i was so um preoccupied i guess by how many things were easier um and um then then the real work started if i can say that so so that kind of rebuilding there is a little there's a rebuilding it's not from scratch but there is a rebuilding that takes place so um my advice i i am in a like a period right now um with my singing that that i didn't have anything on my plate so i had the space to do it i would if if i were in a season of performing i would definitely say take eight weeks take eight weeks and really work on your voice during that time work with a coach work with the work with your voice teacher do that um i i would say most people need eight to 12 weeks if you have a demanding gig if you have a recital if you have a concert if you have a role that you're doing um yeah you know eight weeks probably you know if you're working you know consistently that's what i think too i think eight weeks like it's because you will feel so much freedom there is and you know i said to my teacher i was like this is this is what this feels like i have so much more range of motion now i don't know where to direct the car because it's like it can go here it can go here it's going all over the place like who knows where and so there is a freedom in that because finally nothing felt restricted but it was cracking a lot and definitely like especially in my upper range like things were like not going like it was easy but it was sounding really weird like before the only one like my right one there was only one choice because everything else felt horrible so i always went to the one that felt right and that was also the one that sounded right so i never had choices now this one i'm like well now everything feels right so i don't know what to do so that took a little bit of time to find that i don't know leah did you feel that that was similar yeah so um yes um i would i would say that almost my voice my voice felt anchorless and let me kind of explain what i mean by that because there was so much weight associated with my my singing like always um i didn't even know it was weight but but but in hindsight i i can see that it was weight because there was weight because there was like one right way that i could sing effectively um once i had the release done it was like i had all of this voice banging around in this empty space like um i didn't feel any of the restrictions that i had and so it was very similar like okay how much breath pressure do i actually need now um support even felt different because when that tongue tie is released it can release like a lot of fascia tension in the body it can release muscular tension so so even with breathing i felt less resistance like on inhalation um like the air wanted to come in the body now rather than me pulling it i always felt like i had to kind of drag it in um so my upper register was instantaneously easy like that that thing that we talked about earlier like all of a sudden i had an instinct for how to release the weight and how to make that adjustment into the upper register but also you know also as i have been singing i have realized the years of compensatory muscular habits that i've developed that have served me like have enabled me to sing but they don't serve now that i'm free so so those and sometimes it was like it feels it felt like it got worse before it got better if that if that makes sense so i had to it's been a lot of exploration so you know yeah i mean i'm still i'm still in awe of the things that are so much easier now like i don't even have to think about them things that i would have to focus on so hard for it to happen i'm still in awe of that but coordination is different now for me so it's not like i haven't changed my technical objectives but the way i get there has has is adjusting now yeah and and kristen also like i would just say i'm like a virgo so i always really like i'm just a perfectionist about everything i would say if i didn't have like a demanding operatic role i probably could have sung in the like in this the two-month period like if it was just a matter of singing like you know some something simple like a simple recital or something like that that didn't demand like full-on range dynamics and all of that i would have felt comfortable singing right away so like i guess it's one of these things that's kind of difficult to gauge also because things are more difficult right now with the tongue tie think about it and i'm like well maybe this like if i have a concert or something it would be more difficult but then after what if it you know i don't know if this is making sense but i guess i'm thinking from like a perspective of like the difficulty i would have now doing it versus after um which i know the difficulties will maybe be different yeah it will totally and it depends like where you are feeling like if you feel really confident in whatever it is coming up like you're like oh i can sing this in my sleep right now then just do it before the surgery but if it's something that you're like this is on the edge you know and and it is coming up a little bit later like then maybe you want to do the surgery as soon as possible and then you know just rework like crazy because you will have so much more freedom that's not the problem i think i mean leah we'll talk about this the freedom is not the problem everything will feel easy and you'll be able to do things you couldn't even do but it doesn't mean that it's necessarily like the right vowel color or like the right like it just you know you'll have to play a ground now with your new space and how you're forming things because so for it to sound even let's put it that way it's not like it won't work it just sound like there's one voice and there's another like what happened and that was the way it was for me and that weird period i don't know if that's how did you feel a little bit like that yeah so so um right certain certain things were super easy but but that the consistency of tone um throughout suffered a little bit actually um after the release again that is that's evening out as i work um but yeah i'm also a perfectionist so if i were doing if i knew i could sing the role or the concert or whatever if i knew i could sing it well even if it was hard i would probably go with the devil i know before before having the release um just because everyone is different everyone's rate of healing is different um and so not knowing how i would respond i'm not a risk taker though so as my husband informs me regularly i'm not a risk taker i tend to play things safe so um i want to know and in so far as i can with a live art form but i want to know that that i can give my best and um so accepting that okay i'm i have this time time maybe if i had this really if i had it released and i were doing this role in six months it would be better in six months than it is now okay but you know that's just something you have to you have to choose for yourself i think you know what what are your priorities so yeah and what's your risk like what's your risk tolerance risk factor yeah absolutely yeah if you're doing a show if you're doing something for a new company you've never worked with before but you'd love to work with again you know that kind of thing and they liked you enough to hire you yeah they liked the way you're sitting right now enough to hire you i just i'd wait but that's just me yes exactly okay celeste asked a really good question how have you each approached this readjustment rebuilding period has it been kind of a trial and error starting with your previous technique and adjusting as you go or are you using any particular exercises or techniques in a more strategic way okay yeah okay um so my basic approach has been to to sing and see where things fall so so um to approach my practice and rep work very similar to the way that i have in the past um but then let my voice be the thing that dictates what direction i i go from there so um doing the thing i know how to do if that makes sense and then and then exploring from there so i i would say that that one of my weaknesses as a singer is that i don't love trial and error working i like to have a process i like to know when i do this um this is helping me achieve a particular end um so i'm actually learning a lot about exploring and just in the enjoyment of exploring with my voice um i don't know if that's a nature or nurture thing the fact that my voice really wasn't capable of a lot of exploration before this i don't know if that's created a resistance in me to that but but um i have been trying to explore more but i have been focusing a lot on exercises that serve muscular isolation so i talked about this a little bit on my facebook page but but um things that will strengthen the function at the back of the tongue um so that it elevates properly one of the beautiful things about the release is that when i move my tongue now um it doesn't destabilize my larynx so that's a huge that's a huge benefit um but that doesn't mean that my tongue wants to go automatically to into the right position so so i have been working with that a lot so um the other thing is that for a lot of people with tongue tie um they develop a lot of jaw tension because if you release the jaw fully if you have a tongue tie the tip of the tongue cannot make contact with the roof of the mouth for pronouncing certain sounds or certain consonants so so i was constantly kind of as a singer kind of guarding how how far i dropped my jaw based on whatever sounds i had to create so so because of that my muscle memory when i sing is to is to um hold the jaw so i'm doing a lot to try and retrain that muscle memory so i would say that's a big focus for me right now um i am not necessarily you doing exercises that i've never done before i'm doing some exercises now that i've been introduced to in the past that have never worked for me before um i'm doing a lot of humming um for me humming is really helpful in um finding a good balance of breath pressure so that i'm not using too much breath pressure because that's my emo my my go-to has always been to use too much breath pressure so um and i do believe that's because of the resistance of of the tongue but i'm but i'm learning with the hum to find a better balance for that um and so i'm doing that a lot i am i am doing a lot of exercises just just with um with uh rolling the tongue as i say just up and forward just to keep it free that sort of a thing so that's what i'm doing i am working with my husband right now he's a vocal coach knows my voice better than just about anybody so we're working you know kind of on a weekly basis through things like that so um i am trying to be pretty systematic about it um i'm doing a mixture of old rep and new rep right now new rep to kind of just find out like where my voice is starting at right now like when i pick up a new piece of music where's where's the technique starting at um but i'm also trying to rework some you know um arias and things that have been you know my go-to's for a few years now so that so that they feel as free you know as as the rest of what i'm doing so some some new stuff and some reworking yeah yeah i would say for me um i did a lot of this tongue work that leah's talking about pre-surgery like i like so obsessive but i i constantly felt like i had to keep doing it like it wasn't like i could set it and forget it and it would stay and it would stay right so i was very conscious always of my tongue now i'm finding the muscle memories there so i don't have to think as much about it um i will say for me the cracking of the registers has been the hugest thing um celeste i don't know if you've seen some of my other stuff but i'm really like a big proponent of the whistle register and for years i was trying to figure out how i could somehow get my whistle register like and sort of join it with the rest of my voice and i just didn't see how that was like physically possible now post tongue tie restriction i mean it's going to take me probably a year to do this i really think it's going to take me a while but now i see i can feel the path it is there and it will join and so that that's been something that's been like a weird like i don't sing that kind of rap but it's just like a weird guilty pleasure of mine that's something that i'm personally working on just because it's cool so very slowly basically taking my phonation down to the smallest sliver until it will join with that whistle register um so that's been something that i'm doing the other thing that i've noticed is my instincts pre tongue tie were actually right it's just i couldn't do it so i would constantly want to put my mouth in a certain position i would want to do something and it just wasn't it wouldn't work and what my hypothesis is because we're talking about how these muscles leah you got your genogas cut as well like it wasn't just right didn't you have the muscle cut as well yeah me too okay so we both had like the posterior tie and they actually ended up cutting into the muscle a little bit so we could get that full release so what i hypothesize is that because there was that restriction on the hyoid bone in order for the tongue to sort of be out of the airway we had to sort of sit the tongue up which does create a micro pressure and a micro pull on that hyoid bone and kind of creates a little bit just enough but it's like you got to choose right because you can't be without compensation when you have a tongue tie sorry like you can't yeah right so you have to choose which one is going to give you your desired result and for me high notes were more important so i'm like you know what i'm going to anchor my voice this way and the high was always working but then when i would come down because there was that micro pull on the hyoid bone i would lose the low or i would just have to barrel into chest like there was no smooth transition it was like either nothing or like right like so but you know i kind of dealt with that because i'm like i'd rather have gleaming top notes than like you know then squeezed whatever so that was my particular choice what's happened since the surgery is that now i can still have those bleeming top notes and i come down and there those low notes are right there now there's no weird adjustment that's really exciting to me the thing also that um i think has been a big thing is the adjustment of my embouchure so of course i work these muscles i'm a big believer in keeping these zygomatic muscles engaged at all times um before the tongue tie i think because of where my larynx had to sit at a slightly higher position for again for these top notes to work i had to give a little bit more snarl than i'm finding i have to now because now the larynx is naturally sitting lower without the tension on it so i don't have to give the same kind of as drastic of a pull up here as i i still have to maintain that i can't drop it right but i don't have to do that and my o's and ooh vowels can be a little bit more pure um the head tone is something that for whatever reason i think just for a year from years of incorrect use i have to reinforce that every single day and especially right now in this weird cracking period every day i wake up and i'm like like finding that head tone making sure that i'm not bringing oh you know right so it really does feel like a flip um kind of a switch and that is that takes some getting used to with the new laryngeal position if that makes sense so i'm not thinking lowering my larynx it just is lower it just is yeah exactly um this kind of you you said something and it it made me think so so i had the lip tie you talk about like a like an engagement in in these muscles in the face i never could get those muscles i would think about like a lift i would think you know about an activation there and and because i was so so tethered here it it just would feel like nothing like i couldn't do anything and that is actually something that has made a big difference in my sound since the lip tie is released is that i i can breathe in and i can i can activate those muscles and and all of a sudden there is there's just so much so much more of that forward ring but it's not i don't feel like i'm producing it artificially i always felt like there was some amount of manipulation to create a truly um forward resonant sound however you like to describe it but um you know that we want for the voice to carry um and for clarity and and now it's there but i don't have to i don't have to manipulate and maneuver it so much um it's just more about setting up the space if that makes sense yeah so yeah absolutely yeah i i also will say like my second visago right now um that has that is the place that i'm having to pay a lot of attention to but whereas before weirdly enough my upper pasado felt i had figured out a way where that was like easier but i think i was still too pressurized because of the restriction and so now without the restriction i have to depressurize that or it doesn't blend with the top it sounds very strange so that's something i've really been working on too in the pa in the rebuilding process yes same so um if you've ever read renee fleming's book um her biography that she wrote she talks about her voice like an hourglass like like the upper voice and then going through that upper passage oh it's like that that really narrow part of the hourglass and then it kind of opens up again and i always read that i was like what is she talking about that is weird of course it's all like sensation based right so what one singer feels another may not but actually now that that that um really precise depressurized way of moving up through that passage oh i'm feeling the need for that now that's kind of for me where the humming comes in um right now i mean we had talked about whistle stop so i you know your your techniques with whistle stop um may also be very helpful for somebody trying to to build that back into their voice um um but anyway yeah same that pasadjo is the tricky spot now yeah yeah i have a couple questions actually um for leia um yes talking about the the lip tie who who was the person that discovered that i mean you said it was a dental hygienist she discovered the tongue tie but the lip tie it was the same so she also looked when when um when she looked in my mouth she she looked under my tongue and then she also just checked my lips she was in myofunctional training at the time um and so she was had just been kind of turned on to all of these things and so she checked both um she checked both for me in that visit and how did you find a uh myothera myofunctional therapist okay so that's a great um that's a great question um i called dr baxter's office and um talked to them i said i've been diagnosed with a tongue tie i would like to schedule a release and they said okay um we don't do rel we don't do release procedures on adults unless they have been through myofunctional therapy so they sent me a list of their recommended myofunctional therapists and that's where i found my bio-functional therapist we do virtual work um there is a great page on facebook it's called adult tongue-tie support and there is a list you just get lots of helpful things on that page but but they also they also publish a list of providers so zoggy trained um uh providers who do releases but also myofunctional therapists um that that are just really good at what they do so um jennifer's on that she's my myofunctional therapist there's a lot of people that work virtually so that's helpful okay thank you and and this question is um kind of for both of you um you know as singers who have especially julia you talked about your obsession with your tongue and you're very very um aware of it and it was very well exercised um how is that how is that different than working with a myotherapist like you know i'm hearing it sounds like both of you are doing a lot of myotherapy not just like that like when i talk to amanda she also has a little package where it's just for people who want the tongue tie surgery which is only i can't remember what the total is but it's like six weeks or i don't know something like that much much more limited than what either of you are doing so i guess my question is why so much therapy when you already have an athletic tongue basically [Laughter] i'll tell you dimitra right now here's my exercise these are my exercises this week okay i have to hold my tongue like this for 20 seconds without it quivering and i still can't do it so i also have to do this okay and i have to hold that for like 30 seconds so these are things that these are like areas i didn't even know existed like muscles i didn't know movements i didn't know and i'm still like i'm just the type i like to go looking for the dirty closet that's just my personality so i wasn't wanting to say okay yeah i think my tongue is good enough like i'm like i want to go to the absolute end and find the find the holes find the problems and so like every week she there's at least one exercise that i can't do that really that well and then i build up that strength and then i find that it's actually helping something in my singing or i mean i don't know directly but the whole process has been helping so that's why i think for me that's been the right choice but it may not be the right choice for everybody but that's you know i'm just like this is my life and i'm obsessed with it so that's probably why so i had a lot of um improper function in my tongue like i didn't swallow correctly um my tongue always sat on the floor of my mouth before myofunctional therapy um to create certain consonants i would actually move my tongue in the exact opposite way that it was supposed to be moved um so so myofunctional therapy is like working it's like correcting the day-to-day function of your tongue um it's also for me it's also a process of releasing working the muscles that are designed to work for that particular function while releasing the muscles around it that have always helped um you know jaw muscles neck muscles that have always helped my body perform certain functions that my tongue could not do on its own so so the myofunctional therapy while there is some overlap with what i'm working on my singing the myofunctional therapy is more about basic health and um proper use of the tongue like when i eat when i when i drink when i when i sleep these kinds of things um and then you know the vocal things for me that's about establishing a new muscle memory new muscular strength um in the tongue in the areas where it needs to be strong for singing where it needs for freedom um to be able to operate in a certain way and and that's also a process of activation in certain new places for me and release in other places um so it there are there are similarities but they're kind of accomplishing different purposes for me right now yeah and leah makes a really good point about this because demetra i don't know if you remember because i think we were we were in touch before i got the surgery the reason why i wanted to get the surgery almost had nothing to do with my voice it was because of this horrible neck tension that i had like awful and it just wouldn't go away and so with the surgery it's gone away but like leah said there's there's functions there from years of misuse that like i have no idea what exactly and and you know she described that one exercise with like the pulling of the of the button like things like that yes you even think to like move your mouth in that way you wouldn't right so yeah all of these things really help your you're sleeping like i've been sleeping a lot better i wake up i mean i do take my mouth shut at night with my rotation but i now get a better sleep because my mouth isn't hanging over and my tongue is on the roof of my mouth um and all of that has to do with the work that you're doing my husband still asks he's like when are you doing the session on eating because he says i didn't i don't eat properly did i like eat with my mouth open yeah just like that's next session we'll get to it that's hilarious yeah um so i'm wondering too i i think both leah and julia have mentioned at various times um the chin pulling forward as a tongue tie uh thing and i definitely am a chin uh puller and um i guess i'm wondering uh did you find post-op that um i guess since that's kind of a larger body posture thing has that had some correction or is that something you need to incorporate into larger body work you know what's funny nola because i was thinking about this just a couple days ago like before when i would sit with my head forward like which like this kind of forward to sort of get rid of this whatever i would feel that that was natural and then going back like felt kind of restricted and like tense now it's the opposite like i'm still having this bad habit of like doing this but this doesn't feel right anymore now like to relax i need to go back into this posture um i do think i've been using this cervical i will get this so you can see this i've been laying on this thing to like restore the c-curve in my neck so i do this like maybe 10 minutes a day twice a day um i've been doing that and that's really helped um i do yoga but honestly i think the body knows how to rearrange itself so if you're doing good practices in general like you will notice and amanda told me she's like sometimes even up to like a year your body will still be readjusting so you'll notice new things okay and i guess that that's also related to um uh you know the more i've read to about all the digestive issues that can be related and i i also am not a great sleeper and um have some kind of just general like tight uh like tension issues through my hips and legs and everything and i guess i'm just curious if either of you have noticed big changes with that so um i yeah i had a chronic kind of i had really good posture like in in certain ways but but when i breathed i would lean forward like this um so um and i would wake up in the middle of the night like this um just constantly before my release once my release happened um at night that went away totally that went away totally um i will say that i still have a muscle memory when i breathe for singing to want to lean forward a little bit but but my experience is identical to julius it feels all wrong where before i didn't even notice it i didn't even feel it when i did it and it definitely didn't feel out of place um now to do that i feel so much stress on the back of the neck when i do that so much pressure i had chronic migraines before release procedure i think cause caused by that particularly because of sleeping in that position um that that is i am having to train it out but it's like my body wants to train it out if that makes sense my body's not fighting me about that so so yeah definitely i think i think if you go through the release you're going to see a difference um in that for sure great thank you i think i told you too like remember i just said it right after the surgery i literally felt like this whole right side of my body that it felt like it was pulling up from the heel all the way through the hip into here it just like released it was like all of a sudden gone in a minute now after that like initial you know it's there's that line of tension now my muscles want to keep going back to that same position but that that line whatever that pull was is gone okay wow so and and like leah says my body's wanting to train out now those those things but i do do i do train with chris twice a week um with the musical athlete so he does a lot of like resetting of rebalancing my right side poles so i do think that that is helping me also regain a lot of you know a lot of balance in my body yeah okay thank you yeah yeah and i do recommend a lot of you'll see this a lot bodywork if you can afford it um to work with somebody who does um facial release myofascial release to work with an osteopath or a good chiropractor i go to a chiropractor here um and that has been really helpful in um helping the muscles release because because what often happens and i think most people have this experience is immediately after the surgery it's like oh my gosh i feel like i'm two inches taller my head feels lighter like everything feels so much more buoyant in the body but then um it's like the muscles kind of go into a little bit of a shock and they kind of want to return to where where they've always been so so you can feel some contracting again and some kind of compression so body work particularly post release i think is really really beneficial and helpful so you know to find somebody who is um sensitive to that kind of thing if you can in your area i think would be a is a benefit yeah i do i think actually i should say i did that too right after i was going to the sky like once a week for i think five weeks i went right after my surgery and it was very helpful um but but i do think like we're saying all of the oh you got to get am i a functional therapist you got to get this you got to get that everybody's like oh my god i can't do all of that right really the bottom line is this you're singers so if you if you're looking at the price tag and you're like oh my god i can't like do all of this stuff i think that there is a way um to no i'm not saying do the minimum i'm saying do the maximum but you might have to do a little more self work a little more work on your own and a little more research um i will just say this is like i'm going to commit myself because now i'm live on facebook and i'm going to say this but i'm going to be developing a program specifically to help people like through this transition and it's going to be like a kind of an open enrollment so i one of my big goals is to make this affordable for singers and also get the maximum benefit out of it so that just know that that is something that's in development and that would include a team um of people to be working with so that's uh i now i announced it so there you go you're right now you put it out there it's immortalized on social media so got to do it exactly hold myself accountable right there but yeah it can be intimidating with all of these things and they are like all of these issues do need to be addressed but if you can take personal responsibility for a lot of them there is a lot that can be done by like learning something you know and then applying it on your own so yeah so does anybody have any other questions this has been so informational thank you so much to both of you oh you're welcome you're welcome leah anything you want to add anything you want to let people know about um no i mean you guys are are all invited to follow me on diary of a tongue-tied singer i'm not posting quite as often now as i was like right at the beginning but um still posting content there also i'm going to be interviewing julia so kind of doing the reverse of what we did today in two weeks on instagram so i have an instagram page it's really for resources for voice teachers and singers it's not all about tongue ties but that's a major talking point for me obviously um but julia's going to be there in in a couple weeks so it's just leah stewart hill l-e-a-h-s-t-e-w-a-r-t h-i-l-l um no spaces so if you follow me on instagram you'll get prompts and things um like that so i'm super excited about that um because i think it's awesome i i i just kind of spread the word talk if you're having it done talk about it make some noise about it um i think in in 10 years um this will be common knowledge for voice teachers i think now we have a big job with um just yeah making some noise about it so people listen and think about like um this is really important i think this needs this is information every voice teacher should know absolutely because i think it's going to open up an entirely um new possib new possibilities for us helping um singers that that we've never been able to really help before in a major way so yeah yeah and i do think that is an important that is something very important to say because when you're you know right now this is so new and so that there are so many there's so much that's not known yet about this so if you're going to get this done you know that you're going to be on like the forefront yeah you're on the cusp right yeah and there's going to be a lot of trial and error a lot of experimentation and i would say like really play around with your voice afterwards like see what it can do don't expect it that you have the same limitations don't even if you know expect that you're going to sing necessarily the same repertoire a lot of things might open up to you and the more you can play around i think the more you will find also voice students four years ago when i was trying teachers before choosing a school for my master's someone told me about my tongue tie and i had never heard it and because i hadn't heard of it i thought she was crazy for telling me to cut my tongue oh wow wow yeah and do you know what's interesting too kristin is like there are teachers that do know about this but they don't necessarily know like how to discuss it or like why it's like how to explain it so that you would be like yeah okay i need to get that done so i think now with the you know there's that intuitive knowledge like yeah you need to get that done but now there's hopefully going to be more actual knowledge and actual evidence to support why these things are so important for singers awesome all right well if anybody if you guys don't have other questions then we will sign off and see you all please feel free i'm going to post some resources down below on the facebook live please feel free to reach out to either of us um our doors are open yeah anytime all right bye everybody thank you bye thank you thank you bye thank you