Lloyd, I believe you are right. What I am saying is a
forward, resonant version of the "shun" vowel -- my
mental image of the vowel in the word "up." I find
this vowel by feel (placement), sensations that are
very forward and buzzing and mentally centered around
the upper teeth and lip. It is different from the [a]
in either "file" or "father."
I've been playing with the free shareware spectral
program CoolEdit. When I sing a pure [a] vowel
("father"), there is a noticeable loss in ring to the
ear, and a noticeable difference in spectral clarity
on the graph. Changing that word to "file" makes only
a tiny bit of difference.
Note: I am comparing the spectral quality of these
tones to that most resonant and perfect of free and
ringing tones (for me, at least), the [i] and [e]
vowels. Singing [e] into the spectral graph gives
clean, even, intense wavy lines concentrated between
about 2000 and about 4000 Hz -- and, as those notes
feel and sound the best in my voice, the goal has
always been to get all the other vowels to feel
similarly. When I first started singing as a
teenager, it was like someone had pushed the volume
button all the way down when I switched from [i] to
[u] on the same note -- like it had been dampened,
instantly muffled. I believe all singers modify the
placement of the most backward vowels like [u] as in
bloom -- for instance, I have never heard a
professional Rigoletto who doesn't sing something more
akin to [fo] or [fU] than the written "fu" on the high
F (like that poor Vocalister's director was trying to
get him to do). So I'm comparing all these ah's to my
lovely spectral [i] and [e].
So "father" is the pits, and even "file" doesn't help
clean up the spectrum. When I switch to a
forward-placed "uh," the spectral intensity between
2000 and 3500 Hz increases dramatically (the little
wavy lines get brighter and there is no fuzzy stuff
around them). The tone has more ping to the ear,
feels free, and loses the "muddied" sound that my [a]
tended to have.
I remember that when I started doing this, the words
sounded very distorted -- it was definitely a "miuh
puhdre" result. But we were going for ring, not
clarity of diction, at that point in the technical
process. As time has gone by and the ringing
placement of the "uh" has gotten practiced into my
voice, I am now able to modify into more of an [a] in
sound, although I feel the UH more strongly in the
upper voice (where, happily, the sound difference
isn't as noticeable as in the middle voice). So it
sounds like ah, but the placement is that of my
forward "uh," and when my voice isn't very warmed up I
will put more "uh" into it to get the voice forward,
then drop into an "ah" when everything is ringing and
buzzing in the right places.
I wonder if this is a feeling and process akin to the
"never sing a pure ah" mandate by Emmon's unidentified
famous baritone.
Of course, some people are naturally [a] and [o]
people -- learning a resonant, tension-free [i] is
their Waterloo. I was trained from a teenager to
vocalise on [i] and [e]. I wonder if people's
preferences have anything to do with the way they are
trained, or if it's just particular to individual
voices and body structures.
Isabelle B.
=====
Isabelle Bracamonte
San Francisco, CA
ibracamonte@y...
ibracamonte@y...
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