You need to take this test. It changed my voice! Tongue Tie expert Jessica Luffey

A tongue tie can be one of those reasons 

because finally someone's talking about the tongue. I don't know what to 

believe anymore. I don't [Music] cod and welcome to singers having coffee. 

It's so lovely to have you join me today here on the podcast. I am your host Zish 

Debi and I could not be more excited about our conversation today. Jessica Luffy has 

changed my life. This woman has changed my life. And if it was to go into a song, 

it would be I have been changed for good. Jessica Luffy is one of the world's leading 

experts on oroacial myiology and tongue ties. We are going to get into all about tongue 

ties, what they are, how to recognize them, but also Jessica's journey as a singer who's been 

through two tonguet releases. I've been through one and that makes me already think like wow what 

it felt like to sing before tongue tie release and then afterwards and also what her clients and 

her patients are saying about the tongue tie including myself. We're going to go into a little 

bit of detail about my journey with tongue tie and how I've really discovered my voice since having 

my tongue tie release. But Jessica is an amazing professional opera singer and she works in vocal 

performance uh as a soprano. She's a professional singer, oracial myiology and airway health. So 

early in her career as a professional singer, she was introduced into the field of oroacial 

myiology and she immediately developed an obsession. But we're going to hear all about that 

from Jessica herself. Let's get straight into the episode. Welcome, Jessica. So, I just said in the 

introduction before we came on today that like I I actually got like a little bit emotional because 

honestly, you you've literally like changed my life with this. Like I know you've probably heard 

that and actually even the dentist that did my tongue tie said exactly that. Like, oh, you know, 

we we hear this every day. But I honestly it's changed my life in the way that I have not had 

this freedom in my singing voice since [ __ ] knows I think like maybe I only know because 

my degree is on the wall but like since 2011 cuz my degree is over there and it's not behind 

the camera and I'm like yes so I can remember how old I am. No, but it's more, you know, 

like literally since I finished university, I think that's when my voice issues like kind 

of started and began and I experienced for the f like this week after, you know, there's no 

pain anymore and all like singing's becoming much easier. I was like, "Oh my god, yes, this 

is the voice that I like this is the voice that I know that I remember." the one with no pagio 

that people would talk about like the voice that I had when I was like 20 or even 16 17 and like 

that color and everything like I felt like I feel like I can finally recognize it again. I 

mean you're nodding so I'm assuming that like this is what other people tell you as well right? 

Yeah. Well, yes, I hear this a lot and I also hear something that is perhaps even more sad, which is 

sometimes um people will people have no experience of what they think their voice is. they just have 

a feeling or like an innate knowing of um well I um for example like I don't know what [ __ ] I am 

because I kind of straddle two to three different ones and I never really fit and so they have this 

kind of like ugly duckling syndrome where they're like nothing feels right and it just like hurts 

all the time and I can't do it and I don't know why and unfortunately Almost all of these people 

quit because it turns inwards and people assume that I'm just I just wasn't born to be a singer. 

I don't have the talent. I just can't. It doesn't come to me as easily as other people. And the 

saddest part is is that all of those things are absolutely true. But it's not because of you. 

It's because of your tie. Mhm. So, on the rare occasion that I happily find one of these people 

and they're courageous enough to go through their tongue tie process, I mean, they absolutely weep 

afterwards because they they're like, I I dreamt that this was inside of me. There was this little 

tiny spring of hope that I could sound like this. And I thought that it was too good to be true, but 

I just wanted to find out. And now to know that it's true is the best thing that could ever have 

happened, right? I know. Wow. And like I just like you're going to make me cry. I know. I literally 

don't wear eye makeup anymore cuz I just cry every day. I can imagine because obviously like I mean 

as I said that's even what the dentist said to me like we hear this every even the person before me 

she was like this person is like 35 years old has lived with like chronic neck pain lived with all 

these like this this issue like TMJ issues working with um oh those like bityy things that we wear 

when you're sleeping for teeth grinding and like spent all this money on dental work and like not a 

single one of those bloody dentists or orthopedic what ortho anyone's ever said like hey have you 

thought that it might be your tongue tie yeah I know and it's this is usually where people ask 

the question like well if it's so lifechanging why don't people know about it or why don't providers 

know about it so the short answer is because this is tongue ties have obviously been around as long 

as humans have been around. But there was a old definition that lasted for decades, which 

was basically um in in the American system, if you have a lisp, you have a tongue tie. If 

you don't, you don't. And that's kind of like that's all we thought about it. And that was kind 

of it. And it was only maybe 10 or 15 years ago with the start of Dr. Zagi. If you want to look 

him up, he's like the original like god of tongue ties. He still practices in California. Um, and 

he does a lot of incredible research. He's just wonderful. Um, wow. I'll put his details down in 

the description. I think um he sort of brought tongue ties back into the light and challenged 

all of us to make a new definition because he um he works with um sleep. That's what he's really 

interested in. And so one of his very famous research projects was how um myofunctional therapy 

and a tongue tie release can vastly improve sleep apnea by 50% or more in adults which is a crazy 

number. I mean even CPAPs don't have that high of a number because people hate wearing them. Mhm. 

So, I mean, if you wore it all the time, usually it works better, but people don't because they 

hate it. So, the fact that this actually ended up performing better than what is like the universal 

sleep um diagnosis right now is stunning. So, um so the short the shorter answer is people don't 

know about it because we're still learning how all of these integrations happen. So everybody who you 

know that does myofunctional exercise and stuff, we know that it affects your fascial lines, we 

know that it affects your posture. We have that knowledge through experience and as you learned 

from your dentists, the dentists and the patients themselves have that through their experience, 

but we don't yet have um a very reliable way to measure it. So that's why it seems like the 

science and the system is a little bit quote behind because we just we haven't put it into hard 

data yet. But if you're talking like soft data and relational experience, oh my god, is it there? It 

is there. It is everywhere. Yeah, that's amazing because it's actually exactly what a student asked 

me today because they are tongue tied and they were asking me, they were sort of like, you know, 

Zoe, take the bullet for us and we'll see how it goes. And then they, you know, they were asking 

me about and they're like, but like why didn't why didn't everybody know about it, you know, like 

as if it's someone's sort of um fault that maybe like I they weren't told or I wasn't told. And 

actually, exactly like you said, I think I mean I It's really annoying. I think I'm I'm really 

annoyed about this, but at the same time, I do understand if it's like 10 or 15 years old, 

maybe I could have sang a little bit better 10 or 15 years ago. Maybe it would have stopped me 

from, like you said, maybe it would have stopped me from giving up singing. you know, I gave up 

singing because it actually became like I mean I teach singing but it really I I gave it up 

performing because it was so painful and just even singing like one song, you know, and I'm 

a classically trained soprano like yourself, you know, like one song would cause me such 

headaches and such pain that I could not get through the whole thing unless I added in a lot of 

like body control of like holding on to the sound, but then I was just like [ __ ] knackered at 

the end of it. Yeah. So, yeah, it's it's um uh a metaphor that I like to use is sort of like um 

so if singing is a sport, which I believe in my soul that it is, or I wouldn't do this. Um but if 

singing is a sport, let's imagine that we're all runners. Runners are different heights. Sure. 

Singers are different heights, different fox, different body types. We're all okay with all 

of those things. And yet, there are certain like false universal assumptions in the singing world. 

Like everyone has the same tongue. Everyone's tongue should be relatively long and relatively 

wide. And none of those things are true. I can tell you because I see thousands of tongues 

all day long. Ain't none of them look the same. whether they have tongue ties or not, everyone 

is just a little bit different. And so when we teach or even just like socially in 

this career say things like, "Well, everyone should do this and everyone's tongue 

should do that," blah blah blah. if people start to filter themselves out like you did, like I did 

where we say things like, "Oh, well, I'm not that, so I guess that takes me out of this, right?" So, 

um, yeah, it's that's that's a common thing, too. It makes me it makes me so sad for the people 

that genuinely think that it's something to do with them. Like I mean like I went through, 

you know, thinking that it's literally like their problem or their job or like something 

that's just well that's just their life now, you know, like they're just someone who doesn't 

have a very um what's the word I'm looking for? Like a very not malleable voice is the word 

like what's the word? Flexible. Yeah, flexible, but also like for someone who doesn't have a 

voice that can withstand a lot. I sort of always delicate. Yeah. Like maybe someone who has like a 

more delicate voice rather than has someone that can I'm thinking in German. I'm thinking like 

the lustb bar. So like my whole day has been like speaking German. But the Yeah, I think these 

people like make assumptions about their sound and then you as you said like they they they filter 

it through and they're like okay well I'm the problem. But you said that you I mean you're 

a professional soprano. Did you always sing? You've can been through two tonguetai releases 

which I just think is amazing. But like did you always sing? If we had to like let's go back a 

little bit. Did you were you always a singer? Yes. I um there was a brief period where I wanted 

to be a ballet dancer first, but then I'm almost six feet tall now, so that dream got cancelled. 

But um but yes, I always have loved singing and um it was never really even a question of like 

what I was going to do when I grew up is like I'm a singer. Duh. This is what I'm going to do. 

I'm going to sing. Right. And um so I would say I like if we're being completely honest, I was one 

of those people who like had a lot of very raw talent and not a lot of skill. Okay. Um, and was 

just sort of pretty enthusiastic about stuff. So, I would not say that I was at the top of my vocal 

class, but I was not in the bottom. I was just pretty firmly in the middle. And um, as I got 

older, so undergrad went more or less fine. Um, I did my undergrad in three years. And at the 

end of the third year, I was really struggling because I was in a lot of pain. I had really poor 

endurance and I couldn't translate into action what any of my not only my personal teacher 

but like when I did master classes and stuff, nothing that anyone told me ever made anything 

better. And again, this is what I'm talking about when I say like when you don't know, you just 

assume that it's your fault. Yeah. Right. Of course. So I I believed well I don't think it's 

an intellectual thing because and this is a big red flag I see a lot if people un like um sorry 

if tongue- tied people they understand good vocal technique they have the knowledge they know why it 

works they have the anatomy and they even usually when they teach other people are really great 

teachers but when they go to do it themselves they can't because it's literally prohibiting 

them. So again, it turned into this thing. Well, I guess I'm just not good enough. That's just 

the way it is. So, one very specific example, which is also very common, is I never practiced 

because I hated it. Not because I didn't want to. I have a lot of discipline, but I didn't want to 

because to me, practicing was like walking into a room and rolling dice and just rolling dice 

until you roll a double six every time. Well, that's not going to happen. So, why on earth would 

I even bother doing that when all it does is put me in more pain and frustrate me more? So, I never 

practice. If I did, I would do like some mental silence stuff, but I just skipped right over it. 

That's a very common thing for people with tongue ties. And um lack of consistency is another 

huge one. So I never warmed up. I never cooled down because again whatever came out of my mouth 

that day is just what came out. I felt like I had absolutely no control over it. I remember singing 

and one at one point I got extremely frustrated and I just thought to myself, why am I even taking 

voice lessons? because nothing actually is helping me be more consistent or like changing the fact 

that all I do is just walk out there and hope that what comes out is what I want to come out. So, um 

people don't necessarily need to have all of these things. I also had pain and endurance issues, 

but it is very common for people just to have the anti-practicing bug and the I can't control 

anything bug. That's a very common thing too. So anyway, um but can I just inter ask how did you 

learn your songs then if you didn't practice? Wrote. Ah okay. Yeah. So then that becomes another 

emotional thing because you feel so guilty, right? You're like, I know I shouldn't be doing this, but 

this is the only thing that I can stand, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, there's it's like basically like 

learning it and regurgitating it like straight away kind of thing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. 

Yeah. Just listening to it over and over again. Um, I would like speak through words and I would 

sing maybe a couple of notes here or there, like a high note, but usually not for very 

long cuz then I would just get frustrated and stop. So yeah. Um, so anyway, so that was 

my third year of undergrad and fast forward, I go through grad school and things get um, a 

little bit worse. they don't really get better, but they just, you know, they kind of plateau. And 

at grad school, at least here in the US, you know, that's when the cream really starts to separate 

as far as not just talent-wise, but like who is really going to be a professional singer? Like 

who who is genuinely going to do it and who's just kind of like this is their last harrah, you 

know? And do people go to to graduate school and spend all that money if they're just like, I'm 

just going to give this a bit of a shot. Well, they do because I know them. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. 

But um so the grad school was frustrating because I again I wanted to practice. I wanted to like 

separate myself as one of those people that like took this seriously and I still had all of the 

same issues. And in grad school, I started to get more severe symptoms, meaning I could not sing in 

tune. And that is a huge problem, right? Mhm. And um that became an entire drama on its own because 

I hear pitch very well. But the tie and this is another common thing. Not in the whole range. 

Usually in the upper page, um I could never stay in tune. Never ever. And I also couldn't hear that 

I was out of tune because if you think about it, if you think about it, my chords were singing the 

right note. Yeah. But by the time the tone made it into my mouth where my tongue has to modulate it 

a little bit or modify it into a vowel or whatnot, ruins the overtones and now I'm flat. So I had 

no idea in the moment. Yeah. So, that was a wild ride. So, anyway, to sort of keep this story going 

a little bit more quickly. Um, how did I find out? Total accident. Um, honestly, the reason I'm doing 

this entire career is totally by accident, fate, whatever you want to call it. Um, my father is 

a dentist. He specializes in TMJ, sleep, um, full body integration stuff. And at that time he 

was invited to a myofunctional therapy class and he couldn't go and it was hosted online and I had 

been picking his brain for a long time about like do singers need expanders and we would talk about 

stuff like that and he goes oh by the way here's this thing I don't know what it is but I can't go 

so you take my ticket and I'm like okay whatever I don't know what this is no idea what was going to 

happen. I show up and I am just obsessed, obsessed with every single thing that they're talking 

about. I remember sitting there and I remember thinking, "Finally, someone's talking about the 

tongue. I've had tongue tension for five years. I've taken all these anatomy courses and all we 

talk about is the larynx, the larynx, the larynx." And finally, here we are talking about the tongue. 

And I just felt so relieved and obsessed. And it was in that class towards the end where we all did 

a little self assessment for a tongue tie. And I'm sitting there thinking, "Oh, I don't have one of 

those, so I'll be just fine. Isn't that nice to know? I don't have a lisp." Right? And then we do 

the test. I epically fail. So I had um what we can consider a class three modifying to a two and it 

was um like quote unquote hidden. like there was no white line. It was kind of behind my tissue. 

Oh. So, I had a moderately severe one. And I'm thinking about this, you know, just absolutely 

like slapped in the face about, oh my god, I have a tongue tie. What does that mean? And I 

thought to myself, well, you know what? My tongue tension is so bad. I am so close to quitting 

anyway because I just can't stand this pain and this frustration anymore. What's the worst 

thing that could happen? Yeah. The worst thing that could happen is that um they cut my whole 

tongue out and I can't talk anymore and I become a me for the rest of my life. You know, we have we 

have to go there, right? Like the worst case is I bleed out on the chair. Yeah. Like then I'm going 

to bleed to death from my mouth. Yeah, I went there too. I went there as well. I was like, what 

if they get my whole all that those things under there? There's some vessels in there. Yeah, I have 

to talk in sign language the rest of my life. And maybe that'll make my career better if I'm a sign 

language singing person. Who knows? So um so uh the teacher of that class knew a surgeon who she 

had already like worked with multiple times and trained. I'm like okay I I feel kind of safe going 

to this guy because he knows her and you know okay so I flew to Denver to go see him. And in his 

defense he did an absolutely beautiful job. He did not do anything wrong. Mhm. Um the only thing was 

that and this is something that I um personally do as you know with all of my private clients is that 

if we're looking for a tongue tie release surgeon for a singer, there are even more parameters that 

we need to check beyond just as a human. So if you're a normal human, we need to make sure that 

they have the right kind of laser. We need to make sure that they're familiar with a cave suction 

hold, what is called an active release as opposed to a passive release. But when we come to singers, 

there's even more things that we need to do. And okay, this gentleman just didn't do the singer 

things. He did all the human things perfectly. So what that means is at my first release I would 

say I my tongue went from about 60% mobility to about 85 90% mobility. Oh wow. So I got a lot of 

fantastic changes. Pretty much all of my endurance issues went away. a good portion of all of my 

um pitch problems went away. Not all of them, but quite a lot of them. Um issues with vowels. 

My high notes got better. My melismas got faster. My breath support. I finally was like, "Oh, that's 

what that feels like. Wow, there's something down there." Like like you said, I was saying to 

you because I was like, "Is are these my core muscles? I've never I've never in my life I do 

a lot of weightlifting and I have like literally wrecked my back so many times that I actually have 

kind of gone straight away like I've gone very far away from deadlifts and stuff like that because 

I wasn't able to brace properly. And I thought it was because I had abdominal surgery when I was 

a baby. Um I had my kidney out but they like cut through all of my abs. But then I was asking a 

couple of surgeons and they were like, "Actually, no. It should have all grown back absolutely fine 

and you've got no issues. So there should be no reason." And I was just now I'm like, "Holy [ __ ] 

that's the the little fine reflexes and things like that." So now that it's developing and I'm 

like the mind muscle connection, I'm starting to develop it. I'm like, "Wow, this is going to be 

really cool for bracing when I get like back into like low low weight deadlifts before I'm I'm like 

a little bit nervous about pulling out my back again." But yeah, feeling those core muscles, 

it's amazing. Yeah. So, yeah. So, side note, if if if you're listening to this and um beyond 

just being a singer, but you like are really into sport and stuff. Yes. Tongue ties are a big thing 

in the sport world right now because it has a lot to do with pelvic floor. So people, especially 

women who lift heavy weights, crossfitters, we if we are having trouble with the pelvic floor, 

a tongue tie can be one of those reasons because it prohibits the pelvic floor from just like your 

tongue, it prohibits it from its full mobility and therefore its full strength because in order to 

reach your potential of your full strength, you have to have your full mobility. So, an example I 

use all the time is let's imagine that you have a bicep tie instead of a tongue tie. If you're doing 

a bicep curl, but you're only going about 6 in to your shoulder, it's really easy to move 100 lb 

weight, but you're not doing a full range of motion. If you extend your arm all the way with 

100 lbs and then bring it all the way back up in a bicep curl, that takes a lot more strength. 

Of course. Yeah, you have all of that mobility, right? So, um, this has a lot of I mean, tongue 

ties goes obviously way belong singing, way beyond singing. It goes into sleep and it goes into 

sport. It goes into flexibility. Yeah, Jessica, this my honestly my mind the whole week it's 

been like I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't he's a tongue. I don't I don't know 

because I also said to my students that I was like right this is what I believe to be true until this 

moment. I don't really believe that that's true anymore and I it's it's really changed my life 

but actually as you say on the sleeping thing my sleep has improved hugely. I've been an insomniac 

since I was like seven years old. Like I don't think I ever in my life got good sleep. Um even 

with like hemp oil, CBD, trying night, you know, whatever the melatonin gummies, like absolutely 

everything. I've always been a really terrible sleeper. And actually over the last week and a 

half, I have finally been sleeping through the night. Yeah. And I've like tried tongue taping, 

nose strips, washing my nose out. Like beforehand, I tried everything under the sun to get better 

sleep. Wow, that's amazing. Like this tiny little thing. I want to um if I may, I want to go 

backwards to something else that you said and I want to thank you for being this person because 

a lot of people that teach and most of us don't realize we're doing it, but when I was talking 

earlier about morphology, how we're all just a little bit different. If you're a teacher, I think 

it's even more important that not only you assess your students for a tongue tie, but you assess 

yourself. Because what so often happens is that unintentionally or otherwise, we teach the way 

that we sing and we sing with our tongues, right? And so if you have a student, for example, that 

just really cannot do a certain position, it might be a good clue to say, "Oh, well, why do I choose 

that position? Do I have a tongue tie?" Because, um, you know, it's sort of like two fish meet 

in the ocean. And one of them's like, "How's the water?" And the other one's like, "What's water?" 

It's exactly what's going on here. You know, we just see life through our own little filter. 

And if we're unaware of our tongue tie and we're unaware of someone else's tongue tie, because 

these are so common, I mean, the chances of us being able to have a genuinely clear conversation 

is very low. So, I want to thank you genuinely for like realizing that and saying, well, you know 

what? Why do I teach like this? And I did think that was true, but now I'm not so sure because 

now you have a different viewpoint. Now you have a different tongue, right? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. 

I mean, I I really have worked hard on not body mapping and telling students how it should feel 

because exactly like you said about your training, it never made any sense to me like what other 

people were trying to teach me. I was like, what are you going on about? Like that is but 

I the other thing though that I was very good at was I was very good at hiding it. So I was 

always making other choices and I don't I never really understood what they were talking about 

like engage your core. I I don't think I ever did what they asked me to do but I sort of like 

made a sound that made them go yes. I was like, "Well, we'll go that one then." You know, like um 

I I you were saying about singing out of tune and I just I in my head I it took me back to singing 

competitions where I sang this area and I thought I'd done so well. I was like I don't know maybe 

17 years old and I'd sung this really long art area and it was art song so you know it was sort 

of like supposed to sort of sound a little bit atone. It was an atonal art song. And I got to 

the the the afterwards in the adjudication. I didn't win. I got I think I came like fourth or 

so. I I don't I don't know. There were like maybe five people and I came fourth. And then I said 

to my teacher, "Oh, that's just disgusting. I don't know why I didn't win. I should have won 

really. I sang so well." And she said, "Zoe, you were completely out of tune the entire song." 

Like, but you were spectacularly a half step off the entire song. But I could not hear that I was 

out of tune. I have a very very good ear right in that situ like a very good ear but it always 

weirded me out that when in some situations the the recording never sounded like I knew that I was 

singing like I was always a little bit out of tune and I'm like I have an excellent ear. I don't know 

what's going on with this. So that's really like brought another thing to light. Like I've noticed 

now I have to relearn tuning a little bit because everything's everything's a little bit sort of 

woo I don't have to it's all a little bit free but um it's been quite incredible to learn that that's 

also one of the one of the sort of big symptoms I suppose. Yeah actually I have a funny story about 

that. Um I have a client right now who has perfect pitch. She's a singer and her pitch is so perfect 

that she can actually sing quarter tones. She does a lot of really modern music and she can sight 

read quarter. Yeah, it's freaking amazing, man. Wow. But what's fascinating is that her tongue tie 

is pretty moderate. So when she had it released, what we discovered was she was adjusting pitch 

inside of her mouth with her tongue instead of just with her cords. And so even her pitch got a 

little messy and she like she said it was really weird for her because she would never, you know, 

it drives her crazy while she's because she knows, right? So that's just a really fascinating example 

um of how how it can work like that because it's again it's the it's not the problem isn't in the 

chords the problem is in the mouth that sound gets distorted and now it's quote flat wrong or even 

sharp sometimes. Yeah. Wow. But you must have felt like quite a lot of after your first tongue 

tie release like if you've these like quite large things like endurance and pitching and being able 

to sing more color I mean you're a sopranos of course it's like our bread and butter to sing a 

couple of like at the end you know in some songs but how did that make you feel then afterwards? 

Did you suddenly feel like like maybe this is something for me or like this is the this is the 

version of me that I like I knew was in there? Yes. Yes. I felt the first thing I felt was like 

you said like a little pissed like a little pissed like and also honestly just kind of pissed at 

myself because I was like I can't believe you almost didn't do this because you look back on 

hindsight and you're like I had so much tongue tension. Of course it's a freaking tongue tie. 

Hello. Hello. Well, why would you think that those things wouldn't be connected? Right. So, after my 

How were you supposed to have known that you like tongue ties exist? Like, how would you how were 

you supposed to know if you couldn't see the No, I just You were just being really hard on yourself. 

Well, I was like pussyooting around. Should I do it? Should I not? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And also there 

may have been someone, but I did a lot of research and I couldn't find a single singer anywhere who 

had done this. So I felt like I was walking off the cliff like, "All right, we're going to take 

one for the team here and just see what happens." It always has to be a first. Yeah. There's always 

got to be the first lemming. Here we go again. But afterwards, I felt not only just physical 

relief, but like so much emotional relief because, as I'm sure you know, and people who struggle 

with pitch, especially people that have good ears, um people can be very mean and how they talk about 

it. Very mean. I mean, they just assume you're an idiot. Yeah. So, um, I felt so much relief that, 

oh my god, it wasn't me. It wasn't my fault. I really did understand all of these things and I 

just really couldn't do it. You you give yourself so much more grace that unfortunately we don't 

give ourselves and we should, right? And um I also just felt this immediate sense of relief um 

from the fact that I was always so jealous of the people that where this came so easily. They're 

like, "Oh yeah, I just warm up and then I just sing and then I'll just practice tomorrow." And 

I'm like, "What do you mean you just warm up and then you just sing and then you just practice?" 

What the hell? I thought these people were liars andor that like I just you know it's right right 

you think what the hell's wrong with you two days in a row how do you do that and they're like yeah 

I just do it like that and you're like well godamn you you know and then and then um and then I go 

through my release and I'm like oh so you just practice I get it and then you just warm And then 

you just sing. And I became slowly one of those people that I had so jealously idolized. And I 

realized, oh my god, everyone really should be able to live like this. Everyone should be able to 

just warm up. Everyone should be able to practice and get better. Not practice 10 hours and make one 

middle voice note better. No. If you spend an hour practicing every day, you should get a lot better 

very quickly. And if you're not, walk over to a mirror and look at your tongue because everybody 

should be able to do all of these things. Mhm. So, I think that was probably the most important thing 

for me personally after my first release. Yeah, I had my shoulder tension go away and all of 

these wonderful, wonderful things, but it was just like I finally felt like I got possibility 

and genuine hope back. And when you are able to warm up and practice and get better, your entire 

mental outlook radically shifts. And I feel like um I'm sure you probably feel this too already 

is that you finally get like real confidence, not full confidence, not like, well, I'm just going 

to hide it. No, you have real confidence because you finally have real consistency and you're not 

afraid because you know you're in control and you know what's going to happen and you know even 

like to a point you know that you can fix certain things if it starts to bomb in the middle and 

that is like the gold standard of professional happiness, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I I completely 

agree with it. I think I start cuz I started singing I think maybe like 4 days afterwards. 

Um and like just making some vocalizations and I actually practiced for the first time properly 

like a full 45 minutes yesterday and I was like I don't think I've practiced actively in maybe 10 

years. Yeah. And I was like wow no vocal fatigue. I then went on to do band practice for another 

two hours afterwards and then ultimately then I did stop with the band practice because I was 

like no I actually this is getting uncomfortable now I'm still at the beginning of my tongue tie 

journey having only done like what 10 days ago or something like that or no two weeks ago coming up 

tomorrow and so you know that's just going to be something that will you know will be built over 

time but it's definitely it definitely gave me that confidence behind the microphone yesterday 

at Bandra I sort of know like I know, okay, the the pitch instability is not cuz I'm thinking 

the wrong pitch. It's cuz this is a new version of my voice that's sort of like being like let 

go. And all of a sudden, I was like, I Jessica, I am a high soprano and I have not been able to 

hit a high E flat since I was like, I don't know, 20. And the reason why I remember this is cuz 

that was a show that I was in where I was like forced to sing E flats the whole time. And like 

the other day when I was practicing yesterday, I literally I was hitting high G6s and I was 

like, I've never been able to sing a G6 in my not even squeak that sound. Like it would be 

like just air nothing and just air and pain would basically be and a contorted like hamster face. 

But I actually managed like it's not a sung sound just yet. It's still like just a bit of a a noise, 

but it's still a noise that I was able to actually control and descend down of. And I was like, what 

is this sound coming from my face, you know, and absolutely gave me huge confidence and like you 

said, lots of crying has been going on like Oh, yeah. Yeah. Lots of crying. But I also think it's 

because, you know, I think a little bit about the the energy as well and maybe the energy being kind 

of stored and and it being released and a lot of the emotional energy that comes from especially 

for me not being able to express myself fully through song. But that's even something for me of 

like being able to just sing around the house. You know, I stopped singing around the house many, 

many, many moons ago that actually on Saturday, I was sort of like just, I don't know, belting 

some [ __ ] out cuz I was like, "Let's try this new voice out." And then my husband said, 

"Are you going to do this all the time now? Maybe I will." He was like, "You haven't sung like 

this for like at least I haven't heard you sing in the house since we've lived, like since we started 

living together 15 years ago." And I was like, "Yeah, cuz the end it was hurting." I was like, 

"I had used my daily voice allowance at work and I didn't have any voice left." And I'm like, 

"Now I'm singing around the house." And he's like, "It's nice to see you. Like, it's nice to hear 

you singing again. Like, it's really nice, but maybe if you're going to do all of the really 

loud stuff, you could go into the basement. I love you so much. Please go away." Yeah. 

He's like, "I love you so much. Where are my noiseancelling earphones? Now that you're going 

to be, you know, it's usually your students that are making all of that noise, but now that you've 

been online, I don't have to hear them. And now it's like, you know, how many hours are you going 

to be practicing? But I Yeah, it's definitely been something that's absolutely like opened my 

eyes. And I think, you know, you went then did you notice something different after you had the 

second procedure as well or was I mean, obviously there was then the singer upgrade. Yeah. So the 

story of the second procedure is so um I had my first one as you recall when I had just taken 

this class one time you know and then um then I be I was still obsessed with bofunctional therapy 

and so I got my certification as a specialist in myofunctional exercise and then I started teaching 

that and I actually didn't work with singer nurse right away because I was too afraid to work with 

them and I was like I don't really know like you know I don't really know what to do and what to 

give them and eventually I reached a point where um people were just finding me and asking me like 

can you please help me and I was like I really don't know and they said well you know better 

than these other people that I've been to just guess and I'm like okay So, I sort of like kind 

of reluctantly started working with singers and um it's been over 10 years now since doing that. So, 

now I'm just I just I mean I just adore working with singers and um so I would consider myself 

pretty much entirely self-taught by you all. Mhm. And over this past decade, all of that experience 

just sort of solidifies into a lot of very clear patterns that all singers have and certain 

patterns that certain ties have in singers. So it was during that time when I was learning 

and then teaching and then feeling confident that I started to notice that there were a few small 

residual things that I had in my own singing that I would walk you guys through all the time. Mhm. 

And I thought, okay, this I think this is because when I had my first release, it just wasn't 

100% singer focused and there's a few a few little remaining things. So um since I had a lot 

of experience and connections during that time, I approached my um my surgeon in New York that 

I send most of my people to if possible. And I asked him and I I said, you know, would you 

be willing to just kind of open me up and see what's in there? And if you need to take a little 

like give me a little bit more release, great. And if you don't, then don't. But I'm having 

these symptoms and I think I still might have a little bit of a restriction in there. Would you 

feel comfortable doing that? And he said, "Yes, you know, if you see yourself as one of your 

singers with all of these issues, you know, I trust you. Let's let's take a look at it and see." 

And so I went up to New York, got my release, he opened me up and he goes, "Yeah, there's there's 

just a little bit here on this side and there's a little bit here and here." So he released me. 

Um, and so what I would call like a full complete 100% now isolation mobility function of my tongue. 

And that release was the first one was fantastic, but the second one where it's 100% and this is 

why I'm so obsessed with finding a good surgeon is because that you would think it would be like, 

oh, 10% better because I went from 85 to 100 or 90 to 100, right? It was not 10% better. It was 

like 50% better. Wow. Was better. My high notes were balling. My melismas were even faster. 

All my pitch problems disappeared. My pelvic floor integration got even better. My human body 

flexibility got better. I used to have a lot of lower back pain gone. So, I can't I literally 

can't say this enough. It's it is so important that your myofunctional therapist helps you find 

a surgeon and when you're a singer that they help you find a surgeon who goes quote deep enough 

and who will release you 100% who isn't afraid to like be a little bit more conservative because 

that last little 10% normal humans don't need that and that's okay because they're not doing all 

of these gymnastics in their with their tongue and their apparatus for three hours straight 

singing a vagnar opera, right? But singers are we are doing sportspecific movements with our 

tongue and our soft pallet and our larynx and all of these things that normal humans frankly don't 

even know can happen and that's just like a normal day for us. Mhm. So it is so important that your 

team knows and understands that it should not be your job to find a surgeon. Your your mayo should 

be the one who's helping you with that. Oh wow. So my second release was fabulous. It was like 

Yeah. Okay. It must have just been like another big boost of confidence as well to know like, 

okay, this is actually something that I can get better at. And it's hard, I think, especially 

when you're a talented person or your, you know, natural balanced voice or whatever we want to call 

it. Um, to not feel like you're grasping like the things that are that are being asked of you and 

to have that like you're like, I I know that it's in there. I know the sound I want to create. Why 

isn't this apparatus doing what I want? Yeah. To know that it's not this, but actually this. You 

talked about doing a bit of a test, though. Um, what test can we do though if we if we wanted 

to double check if we if we're tongue tied? Cuz you said it's quite um I got asked it actually by 

someone. They were like, "But is it is it really that um common?" Yes, unfortunately it is. It is 

very common. It's sort of like how many people wear glasses? Okay. Is wearing glasses ideal? 

No. All humans theoretically in a perfect human if we grew them in a test tube would not need 

to wear glasses, right? But how many people do wear them? Quite a lot. Are there different kinds? 

Short, nearsided, farsighted. Yes, it's the tongue ties are exactly like that, right? Okay. Um and 

so yeah, so let's let's do a test together. So, the first thing is is if any of these things that 

I've been saying is like making you uncomfortable and you're feeling like, "Oh my gosh, that really 

sounds like me." That's the first test. If you're like, "Wow, that sounds really familiar." Okay, 

that's the first test. That was definitely me because I I mean, I found I found you through a 

workshop that you did through Voice Study Center. And I actually, it's funny, I usually don't watch 

the master classes that I buy because I buy them and then I watch them at some other point during 

the year. And because I have a couple of students with quite pro prominent tongue ties where 

it's like right to the front of their tongue, I was really interested to watch your talk and 

it just happened someone canceled and I was like, you know what? I'll watch Jessica's talk all about 

tongue tie so I can help my singers. And exactly the same thing that you just said was happening 

to me as I was going through. I was like, "But that's me. But that's me and that's me and that's 

me and all of the examples from your from your patients." I was like, "But that's me and that's 

me and that's I was like and then you did the test at the end and I was like, "Holy [ __ ] I've got 

to quickly make an appointment with Jessica with her [ __ ] email, you know, like I've got to 

find out if this is really me. It's absolutely insane." Yeah. So, yeah. So, if you're listening 

to this and you're starting to panic, frankly, that's kind of normal. It's okay. Just roll 

with it, okay? Because I was exactly like that, too. When I found out, I was like, "Oh, that's not 

me. That's not me. Oh my god, it's me. Oh my god, it's me." Right? So, yes. Um, but let's do a 

little let's do like the official test now. So, um, I'll I'll let you choose. Do you want 

to do the shortest version or like the most um telling version or both? Can we do both? 

Because the one that you did, are you going to do the one with the fingers? The um I did that with a 

student and then she like totally failed. I mean, it's very obviously a tongue tie. They went from 

like three fingers to one. Then she went to the dentist and then they said to her that she doesn't 

have a tongue tie. Yeah. And I was like, how is that possible? It's like really obvious. You can 

see it in her mouth. Yes. Is that is that normal as well? Unfortunately, it's very normal because 

again, most people think a tongue tie is a lisp or not. Okay. And if you have a lisp or you have 

a tongue tie that severe, it's sort of like having an extra limb. It's like, "Oh, yeah. I can see 

that. I can see that you have another arm." Right? Um, so if you are if you do this test yourself and 

then you want to seek out a professional to like give you confirmation, I am totally by all means 

do that. I want you to please do it. But but ask someone who is an expert in tongue ties. Do not 

ask anybody. And certainly don't ask a provider who has already seen you your whole life and 

hasn't mentioned it because they obviously don't know, right? Mhm. Yeah. So, please ask somebody, 

but ask somebody that knows about tongue ties. If you have heartburn, you're not going to go to, 

you know, the nail salon. Go to somebody. Well, it's interesting because they went to the dentist 

and then the dentist who obviously they've been to and then the dentist said, "No, you don't have 

a tongue t." I was like, "But you have all of the symptoms. You literally failed this test. 

You can see it in your mouth." And then I don't understand. So I was like, "Maybe you don't." 

But then I didn't realize maybe that was also normal if the But you're totally right actually 

if the dentist didn't see it beforehand. Crazy. And you know, there are so many fabulous dentists 

out there that do know what they're talking about with tongue tie and have lots of experience with 

that, but it will say that on their website and they will talk about it, right? So, um, again, 

because that definition is just so old when I mean dentists did learn about tongue tongue tie, but 

they learned about the, "Oh, do you have a lisp? Can I see a little rope under your tongue?" And so 

they view everything from that lens. So if you're going to ask somebody, quick Google search, tongue 

ties near me. It's that simple. Yeah. Cool. And also I'll put your details down in the description 

because I know that you do um that you they can book a call with you as well um for free and you 

also have different options as well um through your group training and your one-to-one training. 

So there's like lots and lots of different options there as well. Yeah, totally, totally. And I see 

people as you know from all over the world. So, um, happy to book a call. Um, so this test, 

let's do the short one first, actually. So, we are all going to make some tongue click noises. 

I do want the noise. So, I'm going to suction my tongue to the roof of my mouth and then I'm 

going to snap it down to make a noise. Cool. That's right. So, if you're making that noise, 

the only way to make that noise is to bring your whole tongue up like a pancake, like a rug, 

all the way onto your hard pallet and then snap it down. What we want from there is we 

want to hold that upwards position for a few seconds before we snap it down. Yeah. So, if you 

can't even hold it up there for a few seconds, that's already telling us something very important 

because you'll see lots of people who leave the tongue down and then when they make that noise, 

they just bring the tongue up very quickly, right? But I want you to actually hold it on the 

roof of your mouth for a few seconds and then click. Cool. Now, here comes the actual test part. 

Wow. As you suction the tongue up and you hold it on the roof of your mouth, I want you to see how 

many of your fingers you can fit vertically in your mouth. So like we're using our hand like a 

little ruler. Can I fit one finger, two fingers, three fingers? Right. Good. In a little line. 

That's right. Fab. So it doesn't matter how many it is. Just take a note of it. I can do three, 

two and a half, whatever it is for you. Okay. So, we're going to remember that number. You can 

close, swallow, relax. Now, what we're going to do is you're just going to give me a big normal 

smile. Cheese. And then you're going to open as far as you can comfortably. So, not like I'm 

undoing my jaw. Just as big as I can. Cool. Now, again, stack those fingers in there. 

And you should have the same amount. What usually happens is that when people's tongues 

are down, if you have a tongue tie, you can fit way more fingers in your mouth with the tongue 

down than with the tongue up. Why? Because the tie is tying your tongue to your mandible. And when 

I ask the tongue to go up, that's a contrary or opposite motion of the jaw. And the tide doesn't 

allow that stretch to happen. So, if you smile open with the tongue down and you can do three 

fingers, but then you do your suction tongue up and you only get one, that means that your tongue 

has onethird isolation mobility. Oh, wow. Because you're losing those two fingers, those two/3s 

to the tie. Does that make sense? So, why can I still only get two then? Well, you are coming off 

how many days since your surgery? two weeks. Yes. Yes. Okay. It's still not at full mobility then. 

Okay. No. No. We're still healing. Still healing. Yeah. And this doesn't have to be like absolutely 

perfect. Like if you have three with your tongue down and then with your tongue up you have two 

and a half. You know you're borderline. Let's see if you have any other symptoms before we jump 

to conclusions. Right. But if you go from three to like one, come on. Yeah. And I'm guarant I'm sure 

that if you are one of those people that goes from three to one, you've already been feeling very 

uncomfortable through this whole conversation because you're like feeling a lot of feelings 

right now. So you're already aware. I'm sure. Cool. Okay. So let's do the longer test now. 

So when I put my tongue up in that section, it is more intense because I require the back of 

the tongue, the whole tongue including the back, the root to be up against the roof of the 

mouth. So I'm not letting any part of the tongue separate. But there's another one that we 

can do which tells us how a tie might be affecting your singing. Okay, so we're going to do the same 

thing. Smile, open, wide, tongue down, just normal smile. See how many fingers we get? People usually 

get two, two and a half, three. Great. Okay. So, now what we're going to do is you're going to 

touch the tip of your tongue right behind your top center teeth in the back there, the back 

of your top teeth. And very slowly open, smile, and open while you're still touching with the 

tip of your tongue. And again, when you throw those fingers in, it should be the exact same 

amount as when your tongue is down. And what we are measuring here is the back of the tongue is 

still down because my tongue is lifted up like a little ramp in the front. So we are measuring if 

the middle and the tip of the tongue is able to isolate away from the jaw. So most people usually 

pass this test. Mhm. But most people usually fail the posterior one. Why? because the posterior test 

is more intense and it also shows us if somebody has what we sometimes call a hidden tongue tie. 

So a hidden tongue tie is just one that isn't like a white rope that we can see. So let me 

be clear, tongue ties we can't see ever. Even when we even when we see the little like rope come 

out of the tip of the tongue in very severe ways, we're not seeing the whole thing. It's like 

an iceberg because that tie actually goes into the tongue and can branch out like a spiderweb 

into different muscle groups of the tongue. So, a tongue tie, we think about it like it's a 

rope, like it's one line, but it's really not like that at all. It's shaped like a spiderweb. 

And some people's are actually a little lopsided. They'll be a little more on the right side. 

So, another interesting test is, you know, do you have more body pain on your right side than 

your left? Do you have more shoulder pain on one side than your left? Now that you're saying that, 

I don't know why I didn't make the connection between I know we said at some point that like my 

my right sort of like pain in general was like, oh, maybe it's more. I didn't actually since the 

release hadn't made that connection. But yeah, I can still feel it on that right side and that's 

where I was experiencing the headache, a lot of the shoulder pain. I've still got a little bit 

of lower back pain, but I'm assuming maybe that's also cuz I'm healing and stuff like that. Also 

could be a couple of different things, but it's um you know, so like that whole side. Oh wow. And 

I noticed actually my carp like some of my carpal tunnel symptoms have gone as well. Yeah. Yeah. And 

that again is part of that deep front fascial line integration. So if you have that spiderweb like 

yours that was a little tighter on the right side, it's going to affect that line more on that right 

side as well. Yeah. So anyway, going back to this test, normally when we do these, we do the tongue 

down and then we do the tongue tip and then we do the section one. and we're basically like 

slowly making it harder for your tongue. So, um I will say though, in my opinion, if you're a 

singer, it doesn't matter if you passed the easier tongue tip test, but you failed the posterior 

test. In my mind, if you have a restriction, if you have a tongue tie, that's all you need to 

know. It doesn't really matter what kind because for singers that posterior part of the tongue is 

the most important anyway. So even if you're like, "Oh, the tip of my tongue's fine. It's free and 

you know, I got a posterior one, but who cares?" Well, if you care about your soft pallet, you 

should care. If you care about your lingial height, you should care. If you care about singing 

a pure e vowel, you should care. If you care about the fact that you can't get into a pocket on your 

high note and stay there without choking out, you should care. So that's why I kind of just 

give everyone the suction test if you're a singer because that's really the only one that matters. 

Do you have a tongue tie or not? The end. Okay. So we did that by again we did smile open. Tongue 

is behind the bottom teeth first with the see how many fingers. Yep. Just gently down at the floor 

of the mouth. just down seeing how many fingers I can fit like a little ruler between my teeth. And 

then I suction the tongue. Yeah. Make some clicks. Good. And now you're going to hold the tongue up 

in a suction for three seconds. One, two, three, click. One, two, three, click. Good. And then as 

you hold it up during that one, two, three. Yep. Measure with the fingers again. See how many you 

get in. And if you want to, you can do some quick math and see how much mobility does my posterior 

tongue have. You go from three fingers to one finger, you have 30% mobility. Okay. And why do we 

why do we do the little tongue clicks in between? Oh, the tongue clicks is just because that's the 

fastest way to teach that position. M if you want to go down a little rabbit hole, anyone who's 

listening to this who like knows about mewing, Dr. Mw. Dr. MW is more or less like one of 

the unofficial creators of myofunctional therapy. I the original Dr. New though, the 

one that died though, right? Like the Well, both of them both his son and the OG. Yes. Um, 

so, uh, his son is still alive. Um, and what is fascinating about the two of them is that, um, 

if you, if you want to get in on the drama, um, he's an orthodontist and the ortho world literally 

took away his license because they didn't want to hear some of these things. So, if you like 

drama, that's a fascinating story. Um, so, um, if you're familiar with Muing, all that is 

is Dr. from you trying to teach the world what all mayos know which is that tongue posture is 

a thing just like body posture good body posture bad body posture so to everyone listening right 

now I want you to freeze stop what you're doing don't move just breathe through your nose for 

a second turn your attention inwards and I just want you to see where your tongue is as you're 

just sitting passively listening is Is it down between your bottom teeth? Is the tongue tip up 

behind your top teeth? Is it out of your mouth? Are you breathing through your mouth? Whatever 

it is, no judgment. I won't judge you. Our tongue should be sitting on the roof of our mouth just 

like that little click position that we just did. So, if you were one of those people that found 

those clicks very difficult, I can guarantee you that your tongue has been slumping in there 

like bad body posture. Yeah. And there's a lot of rabbit holes. Again, Dr. Mu talks about how that 

affects the bones in our face, how we grow, how we age, how aesthetically beautiful we are. It's a 

fascinating rabbit hole to go down. We don't have time for that today. Actually, you suggested you 

suggested that to me and I have to say I loved his um I love his app. I have the app. I've been 

practicing the mewing. Admit it, like honestly, the moment after my tongue tie, I noticed like 

that evening that I could already that my tongue just like floated up to the top of my mouth. Like 

it was amazing. I was like, "Wow." Well, this is what Jessica's been going on about tongue posture. 

It was like really hard for me before, but now it just it sits up there because of all the work 

that we've been doing. I mean, Dr. M's amazing. I've also been, you know, like looking about the 

whole jaw position and still I'm a bit old to like change the bone structure, but he still says 

there's still time for the muscles. So, I'm happy about that. There is. And you know, I have to dig 

up some photos because I look different than I did 10 years ago because all of these things 

that I teach you guys and even beyond like, you know, with correct swallow and stuff, I look 

different than I did. I did every single thing wrong you could do wrong. I did wrong. And yeah, 

my face looks different just from changing all of these habits and stuff. I mean, I'm not a 5'2 

blonde, but you know. Um, yeah. So, it's it's it's fascinating. That's amazing. That is so amazing. 

What would you say to someone though that so if if someone is experiencing this you would say book 

in with someone like yourself a myofunctional therapist to double check the tongue tie and kind 

of learn about the next steps? Um yeah so whoever is assisting you with your exercises should be 

like your primary caregiver through this process. whoever is helping you with your myofunctional 

exercises because you if you want to go through this surgery, you cannot just walk in and have 

them cut it. You have to perform what I mentioned earlier is an active release. That means that you 

are awake. You are holding positions with your tongue while your surgery is happening. Obviously, 

you're numb and you don't feel it. Yeah. But you don't just lay there and they just saw it out 

of you. We have you hold different positions because again, everyone's tongue is a little bit 

different. And so we're using your own tongue to help the surgeon guide us to make sure that we go 

far enough that we're checking the right areas. So it really is the safest and best way to do this. 

So start with a myofunctional therapist because they're going to be the ones who first of all 

know what to ask a surgeon, how to find them, how to vet them, right? You should not have to do any 

of those things. A myofunctional therapist should be the one guiding you through that. And also a 

myofunctional therapist is the one who's going to train you before and prepare you for surgery and 

who's going to stretch, give you stretches and do afterare afterwards. So they're going to be the 

one to hold your hand through the entire process. So start with somebody that you feel comfortable 

and trustworthy with there. Um because first of all, you should not have to go through this 

whole thing sort of like self-directed, right? They should be the ones that take care of you 

throughout the whole thing. So, absolutely start there. Yes, you need a Mayo. Yes. Yes, you need 

a Mayo. Yes, you have to do the exercises before. Yes, you have to do the exercises after. Please, 

please, I'm begging you, don't do it unless you're going to do that. Yeah. I literally just had 

a singer last week who didn't do that and he just went to a doctor that said, "Oh yeah, I 

can do it tomorrow." If they say that, run, don't don't do it. There will be a lot of people 

that are like, "Oh yeah, it's so easy. Let's do it right now." No, no. So he he went and he got it 

done and one week later he emailed me and he goes, "I regret it already. Don't do it." I had a 

singer who did exactly the same thing. I told her she had a tongue tie. She'd resisted me 

for like six years. Um and we just continued singing lessons and then literally she just went 

to the dentist one day and he was like, "Oh yeah, you do scalpel." No. I was like, "Did he give you 

any exercises to do?" "No." "Any stretches?" "No." It's like, "Okay, I'm fairly certain it's grown 

back again, like judging by the the voice issues that she's been having." Yeah, that's what 

I was just going to say. So, you know, like, let's not over complicate this. If you get a knee 

replacement and you don't do therapy afterwards, Yeah. you're going to walk worse. everything's 

going to be worse. So, and the other thing is is that this tissue, because it's a restrictive 

tissue, if it it will reattach because the only thing that stops it from reattaching is having 

new habits and doing stretches and not living your life the way that you did beforehand. And a 

myofunctional therapist is going to be the one who recognizes those patterns and helps walk you out 

of them. So if you just cut it and then you keep living your same life exactly how you did, it's 

it's going to be worse than if you didn't do it at all. Yeah. What would you what would you say 

to someone then if they were like thinking like ah well this can't possibly be you know like as I 

said like I think both of us kind of experienced issues when we were like you know a little bit 

older and so what someone maybe that's say 20 years old they've they failed the test miserably 

but they're like well Jessica I don't necessarily have all these symptoms you're talking about what 

would you say to that type of person that maybe okay maybe they're a singer maybe they're not 

but what if they're saying like well what is this going to do for me because I don't necessarily 

have that kind of pain that you've experienced. Right. Right. Well, you know, first of all, I 

may be the tongue lady, but I'm not here to just like saw everyone's tongues off like, you know, 

nobody is saying that you have to get this done. What I am saying is that if you are diagnosed 

formally with a tongue tie by someone who knows about tongue ties and you're a singer and you're 

having trouble with specific things that never ever get better, what I am saying is that that is 

caused by the tie and you will not be able through just learning more technique to make progress. 

Okay. So, do you have to get it done? Of course not. That's always your choice. And it's just, 

you know, maybe you don't have symptoms of pain. Maybe your symptom is just, you know, really poor 

pelvic floor engagement or trouble with e vowels or trouble with high lingial position or even poor 

sleep. You know, I have a few singers that their singing is actually pretty good, but they wanted 

to do it because of their sleep and because of other issues. So, the easier question is just, 

you know, these symptoms that you're having, if it's migraines, whatnot, would you like 

those to go away? Mhm. And if you're like, you know what, I can deal with a migraine once 

a month and it's not really I don't feel like it's affecting my voice, great. You know, that 

is totally totally your choice. If you're on the fence, fine. Mhm. But in my experience, I have 

not yet met one person who only has one symptom. So, if you think you only have one symptom, my 

gentle suggestion to you would be, we've mentioned quite a lot of them today, but there are even 

more. So my suggestion would be let's look and see how many you really have because you you if you 

have if you have a singing symptom you probably have a human symptom too. You just don't know it. 

Mhm. Yeah. And would you would you almost I mean I don't really believe you can guarantee anything in 

this world but I feel like pretty much after the surgery it's like it has there is a there was 

a huge relief of a lot of these symptoms that I was experiencing and I suppose I'm I'm as you 

said there is more of them but would you pretty much guarantee that at least one of those things 

will get better like could you I mean you can't see you can't guarantee anything but like I I mean 

it come. For me, I really feel like if you've got this this thing holding down your tongue and it 

causing causing all of these issues in in like different parts of the body, even if you've just 

got two of those symptoms, would you pretty much guarantee that it will improve something? In my 

short answer, yes. In my experience, as long as you have an excellent myofunctional therapist 

and an excellent surgeon and you participate in the process, I always sort of tell people the 

worst thing that would happen is that everything stayed the same. That has never ever happened to 

me in 10 years. Singers, non- singers, children, all voice types, all genres, all ages. And never 

even has only one thing got better. Never even has only two things got better, three things. Usually 

my track record at this point is at least four things are radically different and another two are 

completely solved. Wow. So, if that seems like a very high bar, frankly, I totally agree with you 

because every day that goes by, I I see this every day and I'm still like, "Wow, holy smokes. This 

is it." Blows it still blows my mind still. So, if it seems too good to be true, I I hear you. 

I hear you. Sometimes I think it's too good to be true and I see it happen with my own eyes. So, 

you know, I you know, that's kind of how I feel cuz I feel like sometime, you know, I have become 

a zealot for this because I really believe that it has like again such a like an emotional release, 

but also just even I said to a student today who's also tongue tied, she's uming and aaring about 

it and I said even just the fact that I no longer have shoulder pain, you know, like regardless 

of the of the singing, regardless of that, I get it not everybody sings, but even just having 

no shoulder pain and like being like a bobblehead. I'm like, "Oh my god, is this what normal people 

feel like in their shoulders?" And not having that kind of tension is quite amazing. And so, you 

know, I think that it's quite incredible. But Jessica, thank you so much. Can you just 

tell everyone how they can find you? And um I see that you've also got some courses coming 

up which is really amazing. Someone's interested in learning more about tongue ties. Um can you 

tell us a little bit about that? Sure. Sure. So, um, first of all, um, I obviously work with tongue 

ties quite a lot. Um, you don't have to like you, uh, you don't have to go through the process with 

me if you've already had a tongue tie release. I also just do like rehab afterwards as well. 

And um you can find me my website is called mayio for singers m yo for singers.com and you 

can also do tonguetied singers.com. Um we do a lot of beyond just tongue ties. I consider myself 

a sportspecific trainer for singers. Wow. Cool. So even if you don't want to do the tongue tie thing 

that's totally great. Um I do a lot of focus on tongue muscular work in order to get the results 

that we want. So not like a voice teacher where we concentrate on the sound. I concentrate on how 

you move and I teach you how to move in a way that is healthy, has more longevity and also makes the 

sound better. So if you're kind of interested in maybe a more exercise, visual and um like anatomy 

specific way of learning some different aspects of technique. I have some courses coming up for 

that and also I teach coaching so you're welcome to join me. Um, and also if you just want to like 

explore this a little more, you're still a little bit on the fence, um, my website has tons of stuff 

about tongue ties, how you can find providers. You can do a follow along video of the tests that we 

did together if that was a little hard to follow just, you know, without watching us. Um, I 

have published medical articles on there, all kinds of stuff. Feel free to browse around. 

I also have a YouTube channel which has a lot of those things as well. It's Opus Mayo. And um yeah, 

I'm happy to see people for free consults. I'll take a look at your tie. We can talk a little 

bit more specific about how your tongue might be affecting you. Happy to meet you all. That's 

amazing. And I also saw that you've got um you've got a is it like a a two-day thing starting right 

soon? Yes. Yes. So, um, uh, I have a lot of I'm lucky enough to have a lot of amazing colleagues 

and, um, I have a program coming up with one of them who most of you may know. His name is Chris 

Kelly. He runs the musical athlete and he's a a personal trainer who works with just singers as 

well. So he and I are going to be hosting a course that's starting in January and it's all about um 

it's what's called constrictive exercises meaning we design things in a way where you either do it 

correctly or you fail which sounds a little scary but it's actually a fantastic way to learn because 

there is no guess area of am I doing this right or not because we force your body to do it correctly. 

So, it's a really wonderful way to get rid of like poor compensations and to also teach us a lot of 

awareness and control. So, if you're interested in doing that for the tongue and for the rest 

of your body, you can also find that on the website. Chris is fantastic. Oh, he's a genius. 

So, that'll be super fun. Oh, that's so exciting. I'll put the links down in the description below 

as well because I think that's so important to especially like I never knew the importance of the 

tongue and I think I I mean in terms of like vow shaping obviously as a singer but I didn't I no 

one had ever taught me a tongue exercise before and no one apart from like all of these like you 

see it online like pulling the tongue out of the mouth and like massaging the tongue and all that 

sort of stuff and I'm just like what are you doing like so you know I think that that's so fantastic 

the work that we've I've noticed a huge difference in the way that not only in my tongue posture 

and I' I've yet to kind of really see a huge difference in I mean my singing since the release 

has been amazing but I've noticed in the students that I've been doing like the tongue clicks with a 

couple of these strengthening exercises that we've been doing amaz much much better control of the 

sound of the vowel but also like overtones and I found it really amazing that the tone and the the 

the color was like rounder and there was just like more resonance in there. And I just think that's 

really cool for something that that appears to be so small. But obviously we know that the tongue is 

actually really huge and takes up a large portion of the vocal instrument. So I think that's 

um it's definitely often badly taught online um and a lot of like rubbish exercises out there. 

So, I really I think your work's fantastic to know that there are things that we can do that we 

know if we're doing them right or wrong. Um, rather than sort of like this gray area. Yeah, 

that's like a whole another rabbit hole to go down the all of the nonsense online. Oh god. Yeah, 

we'd be here for 10 years. But yeah, so actually could you tell us about that really quick? 

Because I do want to point out, you know, again, if you're on the fence about if you know you have 

a tongue tie and you're not sure if you want to do it, just doing some myofunctional exercise 

would be a really great place to start. It's not invasive. It's just an exercise. you get the 

bonus of having some more stretch or excuse me, some more strength, some more control, and then 

eventually if you feel like, okay, yes, I'm still seeing how the tongue tie could be affecting me, 

then you can go from there. But as you just said, you know, even before you had the surgery, the 

amount of like control and progress that you made just with that alone is Yeah. Yeah. Oh, huge in 

terms of like articulation. I've always I I never realized and I never learned that it was my tongue 

tie and like I am someone who probably should have been diagnosed right at birth, right? Like I 

wasn't I talked to my mom about it and I wasn't able to breastfeed properly but like no one ever 

my mom everyone just blamed my mom. They didn't actually bother to look in my mouth. And so, 

which is really sad for my mom. And I since heard, for example, like yesterday talking to a friend 

of mine, same thing happened to her with her baby, but thank goodness she's she was an advocate for 

it. And another friend who her mom told her that um oh, their family just can't breastfeed. 

That's just hereditary that their family can't breastfeed. And I was like, so you're tongue tied 

then? And she was like, what is that, Zoe? And so I did the test with her and then she was like, 

she was like, "Motherfucker, I'm tongue tied." And she said, and she just started crying. She was 

like, "What have I done to my children, you know?" And I was like, "It's not you though. You didn't 

know. It's not you. Your children are beautiful and successful and wonderful and they've done all 

these amazing things and like they're healthy, but someone should have told, you know, someone 

should have done that. That was the the system's fault that that didn't end up getting done. I 

mean that went down a se separate rabbit hole, but definitely learning about the articulate like 

the the strengthening the tongue and not in these like random exercises that I unfortunately have 

so many students come across and doing online from online and these like singing with the 

pencil under the tongue and all that sort of stuff which you know honestly that's what my 

physio gave me as an exercise like we we are being given these exercises or like put the 

thumb under here to make sure that the root of the tongue's not pushing down. And it's 

hard when you when you struggle with these like seemingly very easy singing exercises. 

Um, and yeah, for for the first time ever, I actually feel my articulation strengthening. Um, 

even I could speak pretty much normally directly after my surgery. Like at the tiniest list and 

then I remember you told me like and actually the dentist said some people lisp but it's all in 

your head. Interesting. And so I was like, "Okay, cool. Well, I'm not going to list then and I'm 

going to work a little bit harder and I'm going to work at it." So, it's definitely helped me. 

So, I just want to say I in the introduction I actually said like if you were a song, you'd 

be like, "I have been changed for good. You got to be a song." If it were a song, I would 

choose the one from Tangled where it's like and I see the light and now the sun is lifted or 

whatever it is. I love that. I love it. I was thinking also like in that moment I was like 

I'm being pulled in the wrong direction. I think I like it. Bit of Adam in there. Jessica, thank 

you so much. like it's just been such a pleasure and I just think that this is this is something 

and I I decided that um I actually talked to my therapist about this today. I was like, "Oh, 

I feel a bit bad that I've become a bit of a zealot." And then she actually just said to me, 

you know, Zoe, why? Because you're going to be helping people and you're going to be helping them 

to find that experience that you've also had. So, you know, after therapy today, I was like, 

"Fuck it. I'm going to be the biggest zealot in the world about all of this." So, thank 

you so much for like opening my eyes and yeah, I'm really excited for like everything that 

we can learn about this. Thank you. No, thank you so much for having me and um yeah, it's 

sort of like learning that there's a new color, right? Wow, this has been out there the 

whole time. Yeah. And like you said, there's so many different rabbit holes to 

go down and they're all so fascinating. So, yeah, life will never be the same again. That's 

for sure. Never be the same again. [Laughter]