Musical Garden
Vowels are a continuum
How many vowels are there? In my dialect of English, there are about ten, plus three diphthongs. But other dialects of English have more.
But then there’s other languages, too, with their own vowels. Danish has 27, for example, some of which are at least superficially similar to ones from English, like /iː/ and /ɑː/, and others which aren’t, like /yː/ and /œː/.
And if you look at other languages, there are even more vowels, some of which neither English or Danish have analogs to. What’s more, even when these vowels have some superficial similarity or a shared lineage, the way they are spoken tends to be subtly different from language to language. The particular position of the tongue is different, or the tongue root is advanced or retracted, or they are spoken in a different vocal register, or rounded in one of two ways to a particular degree, nasalized, rhoticized, etc. etc.
There are truly a mind-boggling number of ways to form vowels. As a singer, if you are not aware of how you are shaping your vowels, you are leaving a whole expressive domain of your instrument on the table.
As it happens, most singers already learn shape their vowels naturally, depending on the type of music they are singing and what they want to express. English choral music, for example, has a set of very spacious, pure vowels that the choir standardizes around, in order to create a clean and powerful sound.
Other genres have their own stylizations of vowels: the accent in country, yarling in post-grunge, or the style they sometimes call “singing in cursive”.
So, depending on the style you’re trying to sing, some vowel choices may already be decided for you. But it’s worth being aware of those choices, and to try and make them active ones. When I sing, even in choirs, I think of my vowels in the same way I think about dynamics or articulation: it’s a dimension of the music I can use to respond to the moment, making the music more alive.
Do you think about vowels when you sing? Let me know your thoughts at alex@musical.garden.