Hey there, this is John Henny and today I want to talk about Understanding Vowel Perception.
Vowel Perception is very interesting because it’s something that actually happens in the listeners brain. They take the soundwaves that have many multiple pitches within them the sound waves of the human voice and depending on where the bulk of the energy is, we will hear one sound is an uuh and other as an ohh, another is an ahh and so on.
Now, the shapes that we use to filter the sound waves to create these vowel perceptions can be very different on higher notes. In fact, they can almost seem like you’re not doing the right vowel. That’s because the nature of the sound wave on higher notes is very different than on lower notes.
So very often singers associate specific shapes with a vowel sound, but if you’ve ever tried to belt a high note on an ohh or an ehh vowel, you can see how hard that can be these vowels actually need to change shape. The important thing to remember is what is the perception that the listener is hearing, because acoustically trying to keep the same shape as a lower note can create problems. So when you start to look into vowel modifications, in vowel tuning on higher notes, don’t get stuck thinking you’re making the wrong vowel. It’s not the shape, it’s the perception.
Hey, if you want more vocal tips, subscribe to my podcast The Intelligent Vocalist and check out my website johnhenny.com.
Thank you so much.