Dear Vocalisters:
I have had a request to clarify some of the information I presented
about the "Vowel Mirror" developed by Burton Coffin. I have
paraphrased the questions asked followed by my answer in hopes that
this may help with an understanding of the apparatus sans a diagram.
"Is the speaker connected to the earphone jack of the portable
keyboard? And if so, why is there a need for an additional
amplification?"
Yes, the speaker is connected to the earphone jack. The audio output
from the earphone jack is very small because it does not need to be
very strong to run earphones which are close to your ear. However,
the speaker that is connected to the earphone jack must produce
significant volume for use as the vowel mirror. For this reason a
low wattage amplifier is desirable in the line from the earphone jack
to the loudspeaker.
"Should the tone from the speaker be projected into the mouth?
Yes, the concept of the "Vowel Mirror" is to to generate a tone, in
this case from a portable keyboard, which you then project via the
speaker into the mouth cavity. You hold the speaker close to the
mouth almost touching the lips.
"From which source do you hear the tone being amplified when
resonance has been established?"
You will hear the tone from the speaker become louder as it is
acoustically amplified by the sympathetic resonance in the mouth
cavity when the mouth cavity is correctly adjusted to make this
happen. It is necessary to go from a back vowel (/u/) to a front
vowel (/i/) (or a front vowel (/i/) to a back vowel (/u/) in a
continuum to find the vowel that best achieves this goal. In effect
you are tuning the mouth cavity to the pitch being played into the
mouth and because each vowel tends to favor certain pitches only
certain vowels will respond to achieve maximum resonance with a given
pitch.
"Can you once again define the items making up the vowel mirror and
how they are to be connected?"
The portable keyboard is connected via its earphone output jack to
the input of a small audio amplifier and a 3" loudspeaker is
connected to the output of the small amplifier. Thus the loud
speaker will play whenever a key is pressed on the keyboard. You
select pitches on the keyboard in this manner and you sustain these
pitches by continuing to press the key for the pitch you selected.
"Once again, how is the vowel mirror used.
Youhold the loudspeaker close to the mouth and project the tone into
the mouth cavity. In order to achieve resonance in the vocal tract
only, you must take a medium breath and hold the breath thus closing
the vocal folds. If the vocal folds are open you will be attempting
to find the resonance of not only the vocal tract but also the area
below the vocal folds (sub-glottal) and this is unnecessary.
You silently mouth vowels (no whispering) , preferably beginning with
the /u/ vowel and moving toward the /i/ vowel in a search for the
vowel or vowels that will achieve maximum resonance for the pitch you
are using . Most often you will be able hear an increase in the
volume of the loudspeaker tone on the /a/ vowel as you approach it
from the /u/. As you progress to the /i/ vowel you will notice that
the increase in the loudspeaker tone occurs an octave higher, that
is, you will notice more of the first partial in the acoustically
amplified tone. This assumes, of course, that the sound you have
chosen to use from the portable keyboard includes some partials.
Coffin used the flute tone on the keyboard but I have had more
success with a square wave tone because it includes all of the odd
partials. You can find this quality on some portable keyboards with
the oboe tone. I have used a saw tooth wave, which contains all of
the odd and even partials (and is not available on a portable
keyboard) but it is so rich in partials that tuning the vocal tract
to a portion of his spectrum is almost impossible.
Once resonance is achieved you stop playing the tone, take a new
breath, and sing the vowel you just resonated attempting all the
while to replicate the adjustment of the vocal tract that you used to
achieve resonance with the vowel mirror. This is much easier than it
sounds because the body has such fine muscle memory that you are able
to achieve near perfect replication of the new found vocal tract
adjustment immediately after the new breath. It also helps to
sustain the adjustment found for the resonated vowel during the
inhale of the new breath. This is also excellent training because it
encourages the singer to prepare the intended vowel on the inhale.
All vowels can be "found" using the vowel mirror. But you will
discover that some vowels do not work well, or at all, on some
pitches whereas these same vowels will work well on neighboring
pitches. This phenomenon occurs because the pitch selected, and its
associated partials, do not match either of the two vowel formants
for the selected vowel, consequently that pitch will will not achieve
resonance in the vocal tract for that vowel.
The /u/ vowel does not require the extreme pursing of the lips to be
resonated. In fact the /u/ vowel achieves better resonation with the
vowel mirror if the lips are only slightly pursed but are in a gentle
smile position much as one does when responding to a tidy bit of
gossip about a friend. The same is true for the /o/ vowel.
Once you are able to "find" the resonated vowels quickly and easily
with the vowel mirror, you will discover that you have also achieved
a "memory" of how these adjustments of the vocal tract feel and you
can find them quickly without the vowel mirror. You will then use
the vowel mirror only for warm-ups and to find that occasional,
difficult resonance adjustment on a particular vowel in a song or
aria.
--
Lloyd W. Hanson
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