Singing & Vowels

Why are Vowels important for Singing?

If you have ever had a lesson, you have probably heard your vocal coach talk about the importance of vowels. But why are vowels so important for singers?

To answer this question, lets take a look at the instrument voice. 

See the voice is the only instrument that can constantly change its shape by changing the resonance space. 

What is the resonance space and how does it relate to singing and vowels?

Generally speaking it is an acoustic space that allows a sound wave to vibrate and therefore boost certain frequencies and attenuate other frequencies. 

If you compare it to a room, you would have different acoustics in a large church compared to a small closet. 

It is somehow similar with our voice. The acoustic space in our body is the area above the vocal cords, namely the pharynx, oral cavity, oropharynx, nasal cavity. 

This is why every voice sounds so different from one another. It’s not only that no two sets of vocal folds are the same, but also that our acoustic space varies.

The interesting thing is that, while we cannot spontaneously change the shape of a room, we absolutely can change the shape of our resonance space by moving our tongue, mouth and the pharynx. 

By doing this, we can boost certain frequencies in our voice, get rid of unwanted frequencies, amplify our sound, and manipulate our sound. Isn’t this fascinating?!

Vowels are the key to sound changes in our singing voice

While consonants are important to make sense of our speech, vowels are what carries the tone and the resonance. 

If you sustain a long note on any consonant, let’s say /k/ you probably wouldn’t be able to produce a very loud or nicely ringing sound. 

Now try is with the /a/ vowel! Just relax your face, drop your jaw and say /a/. 

Hopefully you’ll have a more pleasant, ringing sound now. Try it with other vowels.

Ok, so we observed that vowels are more resonant than consonants. Why is that important?

When you sing, you want to sustain your vowels rather than your consonants. This will give your voice more richness and resonance. 

But how we shape our vowels will also have a large impact on our sound.

You can try this by sustaining an /a/ and the slowly moving your jaw. Start with a very open and relaxed mouth and then move towards a smile. Did you hear how the sound changed?

You might perceive some shades of that vowel as more pleasant while other might sound more brassy. 

Placement of the Vowels

Singing is a lot of sound placement or working with your acoustic spaces. 

Overall you want to keep your vowels centered in the middle of your mouth. This means that the front vowels such as an /i/ or /ae/ will have to be opened up a little so that they resonate more in the center, and back vowels such as the /u/ or /o/ by adjusting the shape of the vowel. For example, you might want to open up an /i/ vowels by opening your jaw slightly or narrowing down an /ae/ sound by not spreading your lips but instead opening your mouth narrow and open. 

Adjusting your vowels becomes more important as you move through your passagios as it will help you in navigating through those areas in your voice.

Vowels and different genres

The shape and sound of your vowel is also an important factor when it comes to music style. A more front place vowel is considered appropriate for belters, while a back resonating vowel would be used for legit singing, and pop sounds are somewhere in the middle. 

Qs

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