Use your upper lip when singing!
As an American woman, I come from a group of people who speak a language with “lazy lips”. I mean no critisism to my people when I say this, it is just a fact. In general, Americans barely use their lips to aid in pronunciation when speaking. Think about the French. When you watch them speak their lips (mainly referring to the upper) are moving like crazy back and forth between their oohs like a little pucker, probably part of the reason we find the French irresistable when they do speak to us.
What they are doing is engaging the muscles on their upper lip to create a good diction. As a result they develop the upper part of their musculature in their mouth and face. Americans just don’t have this. So as a singing exercise on your next vocal warmup, www.voicelessonstogo.com (my singing lessons CDs), I ask you to engage your upper lip. Use it to come forward for your “ooh”. This is a resource of strenth in your face that will help you in creating a rounder more flushed out sound in your vowels and ultimately your voice, giving more definition to each individual trait of each individual vowel. I also find that it helps to get the sound out more “in front of your face”, and out of your throat.
Start off by exaggerating the whole process. Sing though the exercises in a mirror and make sure your lips are moving to create the vowels. Each vowel should have its own particular look. Mimick the french in some fake french speak and see how it feels and looks. Then try and transfer that same feeling into English. Take note of each vowel and its shape in the mirror. Find the shape in your face that creates the ultimate sounding version of each vowel. Then put it into your Vocal exercises. Exaggerate your lips at first singing a Vocalize that uses more than one vowel so that you can practice changing from one vowel to the other. This should really wake up your face and engage the musculature in your sound production.
Now I am in no way suggesting that you be making strange faces when singing through a song, just engage your upper lip. Getting to that point though, after years of “lazy English speak”, may take some strange faces in the mirror to find it during your singing warm-ups!
Now think French and go use your upper lip!
written by: Ariella Vaccarino creator of Voice Lessons To Go- singing lessons on CD, and author of Vocalize!
Need a professional ear to assess your Voice?- sign up for a Vocal Assessment on my site www.voicelessonstogo.com- you send me your voice and questions, and I get back to you with my assessment and advice within the week!
Tags: engaging your lips when singing, healthy singing, singing diction, vocal production
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February 2nd, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Ariella,
This is exactly what I find out after practixing voice lesson in your Pure Vowel CD. Thank a lot for reinforce the thought. I wish I can take private lesson from you. I have read and enjoy every Blogs that you sent.
I sing in Vietnamese, and the lanuguage has 11 vowels compare to 5 of English. How would I handle the other vowels that are not cover in your lecture?
Thanks,
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Hi David,
Thank you for your email. I love hearing from people. Regarding singing the 11 different vowels sounds; On my 3rd and 4th Cds the second half of both of them are just the piano accompaniment to all the exercises taught in the first half. Use this accompaniment and put whatever vowel sound you want to work on to them. You can use the same accompaniment to practice all 11 vowels if you want to. Some vowels may be more suited to specific vocalizes and you need to make that call of course.
This is true for all singers who use my CDs. You can practice an ahh on any exercise that I use an ee, just do so in the accompaniment section.
Regarding wishing you could study with me, that is very sweet thank you. You can of course sign up for a Vocal assessment on my site where you send me your voice and questions and I get back to you with my feedback. The other option is skyping voice lessons with me. Contact me if you are interested and we can work out the details.
Good luck David!