Making Sure I Understand How To Do A Hyoid Pull (Constriction)
I've learned a lot here about the three main ingredients of grit: Compression Constriction and Acoustics. I just want to make sure that I'm not mistaking exactly what a hyoid pull is. I've seen you describe it as being like a gain knob on an amp or distortion dedal for a guitar. The idea of a gain know being that as you turn it up, you get more distortion. So many vocal coaches using different terminology has probably been the biggest soure of confusion I've had over various singing-related concepts and I think that holds true for the hyoid pull as well. I just want to be certian that a hyoid pull is what I think it is. For instance, some coaches describe how to create grit as singing while holding back air at the same time. The idea of holding air back while you sing is what I was taught compression is. The reason for my uncertianty about if I really understand what a hyoid pull is, is that the more air I hold back the more the amount of grit increases - like a gain knob. In essence, before becoming acquainted with your terminiology, i pretty much thought of my gain knob for singing with grit being how much air I hold back. The word I was taught for how much air I hold back is "compression." I think in Estill, I think the term they use for that is "restriction." The more I restrict my air, the distortion I get. So it really is like a gain knob to me. If I want more disotortion, I hold back more air or "restrict" more air the more gain or distortion I get. This makes me wonder if maybe this is the hyoid pull! Before arriving at the conclusion that maybe a hyoid pull is the same as air restriction, I thougt a hyoid pull was literally pulling some part of my anatomy around the base of my throat. The problem I had with that is that when I did it, it created sort of a choking feeling and it sounded kind of like I was slightly choking. My singing felt considerablty less "free" when I did this than when I sang clean. So, is a hyoid pull simply a way of describing holding back air while you sing or "restriction" of air?