Video transcript
The Arts Unit @home Art Bites - Choral singing tips with Ian - 1. Vowels

IAN JEFFERSON: One of the wonderful things about singing in a choir is that, not only do we get to sing the notes, we can also get to sing the lyrics.

And, as well as communicating the literal meaning of the words, so that the audiences understand what were singing about, the singers can enjoy the sound and the sheer visceral nature of the language.

Obviously the drive of the lyrics is governed by the rhythm of the music, given punch and crispness by the consonants in the lyrics, but one way to make a beautiful, blended sound in a choir is to focus on producing uniform vowels on sustained notes.

Broadly speaking there are five main vowel sounds when we sing in English. The easiest way to remember them is in alphabetical order: A, E, I, O and U. But remember we are talking about the vowel sound, not the letter name sound.

So for A we have ah, for E we have eh, for I we have ih, for O we have orh and for U we have ooh. Note that, with the exception of ooh (where the lips move forward) ooh, the other vowel sounds are made with the mouth in a relaxed vertical position. ah, eh, ih, oh, ooh.

Now the rule of thumb when working out which vowel sound should be used in any given word is to sing it slowly, syllable by syllable with the mouth open in a relaxed, vertical position.

Ive moved closer to the camera so you that you can see my mouth more clearly. Ill now give some examples of short words that represent each of the five main vowel sounds; remember that the spelling of words is irrelevant. It is the way they sound, in these examples, in Australian/English.

I'll sing each of the vowel sounds twice to an F so sing along on the repeat so that you can feel the shape of your mouth, and perhaps use a mirror to see what your mouth looks like. Often our own mouths are not as open as we like to think. Here we go:

Ah star. So sing with me. Ah star.

Eh. Eh stair. Eh stair.

Ih. Ih steer. Ih steer.

Orh. Orh song. Orh song.

Ooh. Ooh sue. Ooh sue.

Its good to run through the five main vowel sounds during warm-ups just to get into the habit of returning to these uniform-vowel-default settings. To begin with my advice is to sing each vowel sound preceded with an n (for November) because your mouth can pretty much remain open in a relaxed manner with your tongue doing all the work:

nah, neh, nih, norh, noo.

So you can run scales for each of these vowels going up and down 5 notes. Lets start on a D. Let's go.

nah, nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah

neh, neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh

nih, nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih

norh, norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh

and noo, noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo

Or you can reverse this pattern, starting high and coming down 5 notes. Let's start on a C in F major

nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah

neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh

nih, nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih

norh, norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh

and noo, noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo

If you want to get adventurous you can try this arpeggio going up followed by a descending scale. Starting on a Bb just listen to the pattern first.

And, nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah

Let's do it, nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah

neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh neh

nih, nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih nih

norh, norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh norh

noo, noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo noo

In the next session we will explore the schwa sound and diphthongs. Keep singing!