How To Improve Singing Vowels
- Enunciating Vowels
- Emphasis
- Tones & Diction
Sometimes when we sing our words can come out mumbled.
Whether it’s too much reverb or we are not opening our mouths enough, enunciation is a skill that most people have.
Depending on where you are from you may pronounce things differently.
We want to look at our enunciation as something that is controlled by the lips and tongue.
Words have different inflections and tones depending on where you are from.
In your voicercise kit, completing slide exercises will help you learn how to keep your mouth open while also engaging your lips and tongue.
Note that your overall tone can always be tweaked, it takes some practice using your tongue with different placements.
Enunciating Vowels
Think of how you naturally pronounce a word. You use your tongue, lips, and teeth to filter out air to create a particular sound.
Now, think of your vowels, these are the only letters where your mouth is open.
When you make an ahh sound, try to let your jaw fall and create as much space in your mouth with your tongue without deforming the vowel.
You should feel your air start to flow out from your lungs. This is because you are creating more space for the air to travel freely.
For vowels like E and A(ay) your jaw and tongue will be harder to use. These vowels use the specific placements that tend to generate nasally sounds.
With strong tongue muscles you would be able to lower your tongue and keep the same sound of the letter.
Relaxing your muscles and allowing your air to push through is the key.
Check out your voicercise kit tongue muscles to access more information and muscles exercises,
Emphasis
Think of emphasis like an inflection. An inflection is when you take a specific word and change the way it sounds.
In singing, you can do this by singing a line differently but using your jaw or tongue.
Emphasis means using more volume or air to convey a meaning. Using your cheeks and nose can help you stretch your sound.
If one of the words within a song is sung longer or louder, you will want to make sure your muscles are being used to help the form of the sound.
Tone & Diction
When looking at tone, think of how something sounds. Think of alicia keys, alicia keys is from brooklyn new york. Her new york accent acts like a garnish to her voice.
Like Sia, she may pronounce some words differently. If you’ve ever heard an artist and can barely understand what they are saying it could be because of the way they pronounce their words.
Some people don’t open their mouths while they sing. This isn’t a bad thing, it just means they will sound different.
The quality of the sound depends on the individual who is listening.
Someone may like nasally sounds when singing whereas others may like more open sounds. This is something for you to revisit while you practice songs.
Picture how something sounds and try to recreate that sound using your tongue placement and jaw muscles.
