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The Beauty of Vowel Sounds! (Singing Teachers)
Hey gang! Lily from Leeds here.
I recently delved further into my knowledge of vowel sounds and their importance whilst singing and have fallen IN LOVE with how sneaky these simple sounds can be! I am a huge advocate of ‘the underlying UH’ and John Henny but do you guys know of any other vowel masters I can get researching into?
Brand me as the singing nerd if you must BUT I JUST LOVE VOWELS!
All the best everyone,
L x -
17 Replies
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I love vowels too! I find it’s all about lengthening them in singing and softening consonants which is what differentiates between singing and speaking.
I use A E I O U warm ups as well as “Ar”, “Ah”, “Eh”, “Ee”, “Oh”, “Oo”, alternating for each scale. I really know how to have fun in my lessons!!!
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Do you use harsh consonant pressure when singing staccato? Check out some crazy and amazing science about Vowels and harmonics. It’s changed my life!
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Also, if you get bored of your usual vowel sounds, try out the extended vowel scale:
I – AH – ER – EH – AY – EE – UH – OH – OO
The way the tongue moves on each sound is quite drastic so I’ve found helping students stabilise this movement creates a cleaner, more stable sound.
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ERRRRRR I like it!!!! 😉
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And I LOVE that link! It’s pretty much what I just happened to be teaching at that moment as well! But explained better than I managed…
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And in answer to your question, I use fricatives.. but that’s more to get the balance and rhythm of breathing and connecting with the diaphragm.
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Ahhhhhhhhh John Henny is a genius. Try those vowel sounds on a skip scale exercise.
C D – D E – E F – F G – G A – A B – BC – C B A G F E D C
I – AH – ER – EH – AY – EE – UH – OHHHHH – OOOOOOI hope that’s explained it OK😛
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Fricatives! I’ve not heard of those – I’m on it B-)
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Oh god, I don’t get it.
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I do love a good fricative. Revving sounds! The diaphragm is the engine! The larynx is the gears. Pitch is the steering wheel! (Wow, I’m on a roll)
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@Eliza Woah, I’d love your analogy explained a little more! I’d say the larynx is the pitch!🙂
@Lily: I have to say there’s a whole lot more I could learn about vowels, harmonics, formants etc., but if you’re interested in learning more about the acoustics side of singing, I thoroughly recommend checking out a guy called Ken Bozeman (http://www.kenbozeman.com/) I saw him talk at a vocal conference last year, and he explained harmonics really well and in a really practical way and it blew my mind🙂
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I did go away and think about our body as a car and came up with this:
Diaphragm = engine
Larynx = gears (but probably should be steering wheel for pitch lol)
Mouth/tongue = Maybe this should be gears, like for different tones
Dynamics = accelerator
Eyes = indicator!
Radio = YOUR SINGING!!!Any more?!
It’s silly fun really.
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I’m sure Ken Bozeman would be more professional and academic in a lecture than me.. Lol
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Hahaha i LOVE eyes=indicator.
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Oh my god Kat! I love Ken Bozeman!
Check out this little page I discovered also –
http://www.singwise.com/cgi-bin/main.pl?section=articles&doc=VocalTractShaping&page=3 -
Yes! I love Karyn O’Connor! I’ve had some lessons with her before and her fees are surprisingly low given her expertise. She’s awesome.
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Ooooooh! Definitely going to look into this. I’ve never been so nerdy about anything in my entire life. I feel like a vowel wizard!