What does 'Modify the vowel' means?

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  • B
    Benjamin Tan 3 years ago

    Hello Camille,

     

    In your one of your advance warm up video, you said that we have to modify our vowel as we go higher to maintain the same tone. What is modify is this context and how to do it?

    There are also times you will tell us to modify our vowel when you hit a certain key while you're playing the piano for viewers to warm up.

    Is vowel modification a gradual thing that should be done everytime we change key, or is it something to be done when we reach a specific note that might affect our tone if we didn't do any 'modification?

    Thanks in advance! :D
  • C
    Camille van Niekerk 3 years ago

    Great question, Benjamin! Some teachers would say that each pitch requires "micro-tuning" or very subtle vowel modification. I'd propose that we can be a little more general: you may sing a certain "shade" of EE in low chest voice, a slightly different shade in high chest, and so on for low mix, upper mix, head voice, etc. What it comes down to is the quality and consistency of your tone. If your tone isn't getting strained, overly dark, too edgy, etc, then you probably don't need to modify!

    Here are some resources on vowel modification:

    1. Short lesson on narrow vowel modification (wide vowels coming soon on YouTube)

    2. Hour-long vowels workshop

    3. Vowel classification

    Narrow vowels (use for a lighter tone / more head voice): OO (as in cool) and EE (as in bee)

    Medium vowels (use for a balanced / mixed voice sound): UH (as in cup) and ʊ (as in book)

    Wide vowels (use for a heavier tone / more chest voice): EY (as in hey) and A (as in yeah)

     

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