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Singing vowels makes the sound pleasurable?


sephlan

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I realized that when i sing my AHHHs and OHHHHss like in a song. Those two vowels, i sing pretty decent. So does it have to do with the proper way of singing the vowels?

 

how important are the vowels? Am i going crazy?

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Heheh, you make me laugh. lol

 

Vowels are basically everything in terms of the sound you get when singing...they carry the voice, you know? Without them, you wouldn't be singing at all. You'd just be making random sounds with your mouth and tongue like FF or SSTT or HFF, etc. You need vowels!! If you sing FFAAAAAHH, it's a nice sound (hopefully). But if you make the sound FFF without the AAAH vowel sound, what've ya got? A whole heap of wind! lol

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With the possible exception of "m" (humming), you can ONLY sing vowels. Yes, I know that's already been said, but not too plainly.

 

A little classical voice training would do you good, teach you how to sing vowels. Not something that can be done over the internet.

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With the possible exception of "m" (humming), you can ONLY sing vowels. Yes, I know that's already been said, but not too plainly.


A little classical voice training would do you good, teach you how to sing vowels. Not something that can be done over the internet.

 

 

Yeah... this should've been mentioned...

 

Here's my two cents:

 

Generally, keep consonants quick - the vowels are the notes.

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With the possible exception of "m" (humming), you can ONLY sing vowels. Yes, I know that's already been said, but not too plainly.


A little classical voice training would do you good, teach you how to sing vowels. Not something that can be done over the internet.

 

You can also sing "r".

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Think of singing 'long' as 'lyong' (basically elongating the diphthong of the L into the O).

 

Vowel warmups are key to tonal quality. Practice rolling a note through the tonal range of AEIOU. Don't actually say the letter, but sing the vowel tone. Do this up and down your range. If some vowels sound considerably more pleasant than others, consider why (perhaps enlist a vocal coach to help). Are you pushing certain vowel sounds into the throat only? Are you singing them all from your diaphragm and not from your lungs?

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I wouldn't say vowels are everything; there are voiced consonants (m, n, v, z). Plosive and other nonvoiced consonants (p,t,k,f,s,sh) are also very important for clarity, but that's a separate area of diction. However, vowels are your main form of projection, and do the most to carry the pitch of the music.

 

As for Aah and Ooh being "pleasurable", you're on the cusp of understanding proper singing technique in the back of your mouth.

 

Sing Ooh. Now sing Eew. What changed? I'll bet you it was mainly tongue position. Ooh is sung with the tongue flat and usually pretty relaxed. That creates a bigger resonant space in your mouth, which increases the overall volume and "body" of your vocal tone, and allows for better forward projection. Aah is similar; the lips are just open more for Aah. When you changed to Eew, however, it's likely you lifted the back of your tongue. That reduces the resonant space in your mouth, increases back pressure to the throat, and the sound becomes thinner.

 

Proper vocal technique involves "purifying" vowel sounds and voiced consonants, by producing them in a way that maintains a large resonant space and good airflow from the throat into the mouth. If you speak the way you should sing, it will sound very deep, pompous and snobbish. However, if you sing the way most Americans speak, it will sound thin, nasal, inconsistent and you will have a hard time controlling pitch because of varying back-pressure on your vocal chords forcing notes sharp and flat. The usual instinct to bring it under control is to tense the throat, further reducing resonant space and making the sound even thinner, while causing other problems for your voice long-term. The key is not "clamping down" on a sound.

 

Purifying the vowels is a good start to making sure you stay open. Most Americans will see an A and pronounce it as in "rain". As long as it's kept tight (not making it a broad dipthong from "aa" to "ee") this is ok for most American music styles, but you will probably be choking off the back of your throat. Similarly, the American "e" as in "cheese" is generally produced by choking off the back of the throat even more than A. I in American accents is generally pronounced aah-ee. O is generally the most open American sound in terms of opening the mouth and relaxing the tongue (which is why singing it naturally works so well). U, from the language's German and French heritages, is usually pronounced with varying degrees of umlaut: "eew". Virtually all of these are very clamped down; the only way the sound can resonate is in your sinuses, giving a very nasal, pinched sound.

 

Pure Latin vowels focus on very open pronunciations, and the absence of dipthongs (transitions between two vowel sounds) which would engourage a closing off of the sound as you pronounce the dipthong. A = "ah" as in the British "tom-ah-to". E = eh as in "crept". I = "ee" as in "street"; this is the hardest one to get right, but in addition to I=ee, the sound is produced by dropping the jaw instead of bringing it back into the throat like most American accents call for. O is usually a straightforward "oh" as in "Roman", but some coaches and directors will call for an "aw" as in "chalk"; it's a little more open and forward, so it projects better than "oh" but can be harder to tune. U = "oo" as in "cool". All of these should be formed with the tongue lying relatively flat in the jaw, giving maximum space in the mouth; the common shorthand to get the point across is "pretend you have an egg in your mouth and are about to try to swallow it without breaking it". The tongue is for consonants; it shouldn't shape vowels.

 

The American "r", especially the Southern variant, is also a sore spot for American vocal teachers. When most beginning and intermediate singers hit an "r", no matter how well they've handled vowels, they immediately close their traps and press their tongues to the roof of their mouths. Bad, bad, bad. The proper "r" depends on the language you're singing; for Italian, Spanish, German, Norse and Slavic languages, and for leading and middle Rs pretty much everywhere, the R is "flipped"; from the vowel, raise the FRONT of your tongue, flattened, and touch the top front of your mouth just above the gumline. For ending Rs in French and English, it's hard to describe, but basically you're adding a touch of the "r" to the preceding vowel. The best I can do to describe it is to drop the jaw, speak the leading vowel, then curl your flattened tongue back towards the middle of the roof of your mouth. Speaking an R like this makes you sound like an overbred old-money New Yorker, or an amateur off-Broadway play actor, but singing it correctly is more open while still giving you enough closure to make "forever" not be "forevuh".

 

Once you have the idea, you can brighten the tone to sound more like a white-bread American by opening the lips more and reintroducing dipthongs and even harder Rs (from the vowel, sweep the front edge of your tongue up and backwards along the inside of your top teeth, but keep the jaw dropped), but keep the same space in the throat and mouth.

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Wow. That's a lot to take in! I'm just going to copy this thread to a Notepad file and practice noodling around with my consonants.

I'm struggling with an older song (1800s) that I'm supposed to sing for church on Easter...trying to sing "wilt" and "followeth" in a pleasurable way? Um.

My problem is that I just want to skip consonants altogether when I come up against words like this, and then no one can understand what I'm singing. Advice?

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Wow. That's a lot to take in! I'm just going to copy this thread to a Notepad file and practice noodling around with my consonants.

I'm struggling with an older song (1800s) that I'm supposed to sing for church on Easter...trying to sing "wilt" and "followeth" in a pleasurable way? Um.

My problem is that I just want to skip consonants altogether when I come up against words like this, and then no one can understand what I'm singing. Advice?

 

 

Basic advice for these types of words; keep your jaw dropped, use the tip of your tongue and not the top to form consonants, and sound the consonants for the shortest possible time at the very end of the syllable. Hold the "ih" in "wilt" and the "aw" in "followeth", not the Ls. Think of consonants in singing as transitions between sustained vowel sounds; they should not be sustained themselves.

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