Re: Vocal exercises using ventriloquism!
There's so much more to the performance then lip control. I was a HUGE Edgar Bergen fan, and although his lip control wasn't the best (due mostly to his early radio days where it was more important to enunciate since he was not seen).
He was a master showman and he brought Charlie McCarthy, Mortimer Snerd and Effie Klinker to life so convincingly, that people the world over thought they were real people! Indeed, his masterful manipulation of his characters, his brilliant writing and timing made him the greatest of them all. And the actual point of ventriolquism is: To make it appear that the voice or sounds are coming from someone other than the speaker. And he could certainly do that even with visible lip movement. But if that's all some people are looking at, then they're missing the point.
I would much rather watch a ventriloquist with less than perfect lip control but with brilliant writing, original characters and great timing and showmanship, than a ventriloquist with perfect lip control but has a boring, non original act. The greatest compliment a vent can get is when someone says, "I thought you TWO were great!"
The not so great compliment would be, "I watched the whole show and never saw your lips move!" That would just tell me that they weren't letting themselves believe there were actually two people on stage.