On Sun, 02 Apr 2000, Reg Boyle wrote:
> Is it your experience that the cardinal vowels require very little lip
> reforming from 'nee' to 'neh' 'noo' 'nor' and 'nah' and if so, does this hold
> true for the higher pitches?
Dear Reg and Vocalist:
Thank you for your kind words, Reg! I'm knee-deep in preparing students for
performances of The Consul and I needed a pick-me-up (I've completely fallen
in love with the opera, but it is such a downer!). Thanks!
Reg, I have experienced something very similar to what you're describing. I
personally don't advocate rounding the [i], [u], and [a] vowels at all. And
the [u] and [o] vowels need minimal or subtle rounding. When I was younger,
I over-rounded the back vowels, thus illustrating the singer's tendency to
over-correct when given instructions. We can make a fetish out of anything,
can't we? If a little rounding is good, a lot must be better, right?
This over-rounding contorted my facial muscles, and prevented my jaw from
relaxing as I sang higher in pitch. My teacher at UT-Austin really worked
hard with me to achieve a much easier use of my jaw, and the lip rounding
became more subtle. Once I realized that I, personally, could not sing a
pure [u] on a high B-flat (as in "so wird Ruh" in Pamina's aria "Ach, ich
fühl's"), I started to sound less like a mosquito and more like a (human)
soprano!
I've also had a lot of opportunities to think about this since I started
teaching diction 7 years ago. When I gently round my lips for [u] and [o],
I try to think of that gentle and subtle rounding as coming all the way from
the back of my face (back by my ears), rather than only in the lips. This
helps me to encourage a relaxed tempro-mandibular joint, especially as I
sing higher. For me, when only the lip muscles are working, that gets
rather tense.
Cheers!
Jana
--
Jana Holzmeier
Dept. of Music
Nebraska Wesleyan University
5000 Saint Paul Ave.
Lincoln, NE 68504
jjh@n...
402-465-2284
Visit the Music Department website at http://music.nebrwesleyan.edu/
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