Snoring

Snoring. I do it. I hate it. It is very common and annoying. More annoying to those who have to hear it!

I listen to NPR every morning and this morning I found myself laughing at a story about snoring. Not that snoring is funny, because it can be serious. But laughing at the thought of doing this woman's exercises....

There is an English woman who wrote a book called Singing for Snorers. She said her exercises won't help everybody, but it will help those with un-toned soft palates.

One of the exercises she explained today was, to sing umm-garr...umm where the back of your palate touches the back of your tongue and gar where your mouth opens. She sang a version and fortunately none of you will hear me sing this. She reminded me of Eliza Dolittle singing dialect. The author says to go around all day and just sing umm-garr. She said this will strengthen the soft palate and will eliminate snoring in some!

When asked how she came up with this therapy, she said, she had a friend who mimicked how he sounded when he snores. Apparently, he or somebody taped this snore, because it would be difficult to hear your own snore. And since she is a singer, it came to her that it was a soft palate sound....Hence the book.

Haven't the time this morning to give more details, but you may find her book on NPR.org, it was on Morning Edition. I am going to give it a try and sing umm-garr all day today. It should be interesting and provoke a few questions or at least weird looks! This is going to be fun....This may be in my how to embarrass your teenager post some day!

Jaded probably understands this method. And can sing it much better than I. To sing it, the umm is more like ohm sounding and the garr is more operatic and sounds several notes higher. Jaded, help me out here. How do I explain how to sing this in words???