Being a Singer

In singing we talk a lot about vowels. This is because 'vowels' is a convenient  label to refer to the actions we take in our throat.

Conventionally the term 'Vowel' refers to a speech sound in which air-flow through the mouth is not wholly or partially blocked by teeth, tongue or lips.

So the sound originates in the cords and is shaped by resonators: The pharynx (Let's call it simply the Throat,) the nasal cavity and any additional resonators we can form using the tongue and lips.

The previous chapter showed you that we need to allow the voice to work in such a way as to allow it to produce a wide range of pitches. The key to this is to use the throat in a particular way.

 In singing there are 8 distinct vowels. There are an infinite number of shades of these vowels. When discussing speech vowels, a distinction is made between long and short vowels. In singing this distinction is nonsense due to the rhythmic elements in song.

Just like the rainbow: Red, Yellow &  Blue, with Orange, Green and Violet between, and shades and intensities and transpancies of them all. For a painter who works in colour, the fact that what we see can be named and categorised is a great help. How would we pick out our paints if colours didn't have names, or if the sky and the sea were not 'some kind of blue.?'

So we deal with the sounds of singing.

Primary round vowels from small to big 00, uh, O. (fool, the, hot) Just like the rainbow we can have and sound (colour) in between too, all in shades ind intensity.

Then we can make a second rainbow, built from the first but using the tongue. I - e - a. (Bead, bed, bad) Again we can pick the in-between colous and again in shades and intensities.

And then there is a third rainbow, somewhat smaller in scope. Again building on top of the primary vowels, we can round the lips to create Aw and german-style ö.

Key Fact There are 8 vowels used in singing. Every vowel sound we make is some kind of variant of one of the 8 vowels.

This section describes the types of vowels and consonants, and the role they play in singing
The function of vowels is to carry the backbone of the sound, the consonants for rhythm and intelligibility. Refer back to the previous chapter to find out more about vowels generally, and about the phenomenon of resonance.. 

What we are going to learn about vowels

• The throat makes the vowels. Get the throat right and the singing voice happens. Most of the rest of what we learn is how to avoid messing up the vowel. (Tension, reaching, pushing etc...)
• There are Primary Vowels, which are formed only in throat. I call them Round Vowels.
• The subtle adjustments that happen in the throat to match resonator size to pitch is very largely automatic when producing the primary vowels. Again, we have to learn not to mess with it.
• Secondary Vowels are formed by adding additional resonance to primary vowels. These vowels, being derived from language and not being part of the autonomous singing system, require some skillful manual adjustment to match space to pitch.
• Dipthongs and tripthongs are double and triple vowels like 'Oh' or 'Eye' (I) or 'Wow'.
• The various vowels have differing inherent head/chest balance
• Movement from vowel to vowel creates a melody just as important as the movement from pitch to pitch.
• If you are familiar with the IPA and standard english pronounciations, please ignore what you know: singing vowels are not speaking vowels. Absolutely and totally not,. Don't refer to any language stuff on the internet, it will totally mislead you.
• The vowel set used in singing is unique to singing and is 'meta linguistic' in other words it works in all languages. I have taught people singing in a wide variety of languages and the vowels always have the same foundation. This is because singing originates in what the throat can do, not in how langauge has evolved over millennia.

During singing, we need to remain fully mobile both in terms of pitch as well as sonically (moving from sound to sound,)  We also need to be mobile dyamically and texturally which is the domain of the Press (thread)

Vowels are produced when the raw sound from the vocal cords is altered by the resonance of the cavities of the vocal tract. 

The upper cavity is not adjustable so the vowels are distinguished by the actions performed in the pharynx and the mouth. In order to be able to move smoothly from one vowel to another we need to to learn to create all the sounds necessary from a single central space.. the very same space we have just been working on, inside the relaxed, open pharynx.

Speaking vowels are, in most people, produced one at a time, usually each by a different method. Singing vowels are produced in a continuous joined-up stream, all by a very similar method. A bit like the difference between block-letters and cursive script. 

It all starts with the shape of the pharyngeal cavity, and as a developing singer you will be working on how to position or set up the throat so that all the vowels will be produced evenly and smoothly. 

A brief word about consonants is in order at this point: we need to make sure that consonants never interfere with the flow of vowels! More about this elsewhere.