Closed mouth yawn

I have found that doing a discreet closed mouth yawn before you start to speak really helps lower your larynx and open my throat, then try and keep your larynx in that low position as you are talking. It seems to help me get my words about better as my throat doesn't seem so tense and tight, and I don't feel as if I am being strangled by my own throat!

For example you could try this exercise:

Keep the feeling that you are just starting to yawn and say the work "dumb". Place your fingers on your larynx and feel it descend as you do this. Sing a scale (dumb..dumb..dumb..dumb..etc.). As you ascend, keep your fingers on your larynx to make sure it doesn't pull up. You should begin to feel the shift from chest voice into head, and back again. Don't worry if your voice breaks or cracks at first. With practice, this will smooth out and disappear. You will always feel the shift in resonance, but ultimately the listener will never hear it.

Yes, thanks for your note on 'closed mouth yawn'

I too find that the combination of an artificial yawn (to keep the vocal cords and larynx wide) and lowering the larynx (to keep the pitch low) helps to produce reasonable sounding voice.

But it is not natural, it takes effort, it doesn't project, etc.

Hey Ho!