The hard palate stays in place. This is what’s thought of as the roof of your mouth. It’s the part of your mouth made of bone and covered with skin. It’s encased between your teeth and attached to your skull. [2] X Research source Further back in your mouth is the softer, fleshier area of the soft palate. It can move up and down when you touch your tongue to it and it moves and stretches up whenever you speak, eat, yawn—basically anytime you use your mouth. Lifting your soft palate is key to controlling your voice, and can help you prevent singing through your nose.
Alternatively, you can do a half yawn. Notice that you lift or stretch your soft palate upward while you do this. Practicing this will familiarize you with the feeling of lifting your soft palate. You can also practice inhaling a soft K sound. [3] X Research source This will naturally lift your soft palate, just slightly, so it is not as dramatic as the lift would be if you had a ping-pong ball in your mouth.
Raising the soft palate creates more room for your voice to resonate in your mouth, giving it a richer tone. You may want to compare the sound to the sound you make when you were singing through your nose by first singing like you used to, with your soft palate lowered, and then singing with your palate raised. It’ll be easier to hear the improvement. Aim to find the “sweet spot” between raising and lowering your soft palate to create the best sound. Note that you’ll need to raise your soft palate higher for high notes than lower notes.
Breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your nose and your mouth.
Keep your jaw relaxed as you do this to prevent strain. [9] X Research source Once you’ve practiced your song with “gah” sound, try to incorporate the lyrics back in. You may notice you sound less nasally. If you struggle with sounding nasal at particular places in the song, you can always begin your practice by singing “gah” on those parts of the song before adding the lyrics back in.
You may sound less nasally once you have experience singing without being able to channel air through your nose.
Do not attempt to smile, as this can look unnatural. Instead, gently lift up your cheeks. You can do so by slightly lifting the zygomatic muscles. These are the muscles on the side of the mouth you would lift when smiling. During speech and singing, many people have a tendency to pull their facial muscles down slightly. By adopting a pleasant expression when singing, you can combat this tendency. This can create an open throat, making nasally singing less likely.
You can also ask your choir director or musicians you know to refer you to a voice teacher.
The shoulders should not be shoved back, just slightly back so you are not hunching forward.
