Mandibular SOVT (mSVOT) Presentation Slides & Singing Samples - Big Ideas in Voice 2026 - U. of Iowa

Transcript Slide 1 Hello, I'm Thom Tuduc, an independent researcher and vocalist. My big idea: an adult can build a professional voice, and the jaw can help. I started singing at 58. For five years the usual open-mouth approach got me nowhere on demanding music. So I developed a different way, and I'm sharing it in case it works for people of other ages. I built my speaking and singing voice on Iowa's SOVT science. SOVT exercises close the vocal tract at the lips or with a tube. I use the jaw instead. I bite down with varying pressure, and I call this mandibular SOVT, or mSOVT. It works as scaffolding: it holds things steady while a new habit forms, and then the habit stands on its own. I've used it for singing pop and classical in a speech-like way, for removing my cluttering tendency in everyday speech, for ventriloquism, and for learning native accents. Slide 2 Paper 1 asks: can I sing real repertoire with my jaw closed and still sound good? I recorded classical, pop, and jazz excerpts and measured them in Praat. One subject: this shows what's possible, not what's proven. The main finding is a collision. When the note I sing lands on my vocal tract's first resonance, the two collide, and it can feel like a wall. At 345 hertz, jaw locked, the resonance sits well above the note, a ratio of 2.2. No problem. At about 470 hertz, the two meet exactly, a ratio of 1.0. That's the collision. When I raise my soft palate, the resonance clears the note, to 1.27, at the same pitch. So the soft palate is a second control that works while the jaw stays locked. The last box shows a note held about 27 seconds with jaw locked. The voice stays steady even where the collision happens. Preliminary, one person; the next step is a fully pitch-matched comparison. Slide 3 Paper 2 steps back from the jaw to the whole body. It's a survey, not an experiment. I drew on yoga, kung fu, jaw anatomy, and thirty-four languages to build one idea: the core-to-bite arc. A voice starts in the core, the lower trunk that also controls posture and breath, as yoga and kung fu teach. The energy travels up through the ribs, spine, and neck, through the jaw, and ends at the bite, the last mechanical joint before sound leaves the body. I also propose that a fixed bite helps the brain, because it removes one moving part when it compares the sound you intended with the sound you hear. That's why I think it could speed up learning a new language's accent. The untested question is where on the jaw to bite. Hypothesis one: a front bite keeps the back-of-jaw muscles and throat freer, for more resonance space. Hypothesis two: a back bite lowers the larynx, gives the soft palate more room, and warms the sound. Hypothesis three: a locked jaw facilitates both raising and lowering the larynx, depending on whether the bite is front or back. All three are untested. Slide 4 Now the practical side. The device is a commercial night-type teeth guard. On the left, as it comes from the store. On the right, mine, trimmed with scissors to fit my mouth. It's an inexpensive way to hold the jaw steady for singing, speaking, or accent work. My proposal: both papers come from one subject, so the next step is to test people of different ages, sexes, and language backgrounds. The sharpest question is front bite versus back bite at the same effort. Measure jaw-muscle activity and larynx height, acoustic measures like the resonance-to-pitch ratio, and listener ratings, in a pre-registered design. The bigger question is for this room: if those results hold, could mSOVT become a canonical method in voice training, and give adult beginners and language learners a faster way in? Papers and demonstration videos are on my Substack, msovt.substack.com, and my YouTube channel. I'd love your questions and challenges. Thank you. mSOVT Singing Samples "How to keep the music playing" (Bergman & leGrand) "Laudate Dominum" (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) "What are you doing the rest of your life" (Bergman &leGrand)