“The Science Of Vocal Pedagogy” in “The Science of Vocal Pedagogy”
Vowel Migration—The Intellectual
Element of Interpretation
A PHONETIC APPROACH TO THE TEACHING OF SINGING
For years teachers of singing have been searching for a stable point of reference for teaching diction in all languages. The methods presently used are too diverse to be useful for the teacher or student of voice, and the international and dialectal variations of the spoken language prevent the model word method ([ɑ] as in father) from being an effective tool.
Three primary variations in teaching concepts used by the voice teacher today lead to a confused methodology. Each variation shall be discussed and a tool for teaching suggested, which, if used by both teacher and student, will help to reduce this confusion. It will help them to achieve a better understanding of the linguistic problems within a song. The teaching tool will also permit the student to make his own decisions regarding vowel modifications on all pitches, and will provide him with a new awareness of his vocal utterance.
Variation of pedagogical concept may be traced to the following:
1. Diversity of a teacher’s preference of student vocal utterance.
2. Indiscriminate teaching of phonemic accuracy.
3. Misconceptions of vowel modification and of its usefulness in the middle and upper voice.
The first consideration is the diversity of a teacher’s preference of the student’s vocal utterance as a cause of confusion in the teaching of vocal diction.
Throughout the Western world, wherever the art song has flourished, all phases of voice culture have been based upon teacher preference of sound. Teachers of voice have assembled their pedagogical skills by imitation from many different sources and by widely differing means. Most voice teachers today have acquired their pedagogical information through teacher direction; some have had direct contact with internationally famous teachers. Others have acquired their skill by reading and still others have had experience in concert and opera. Some who possess pianistic and musical ability have become voice teachers by observing vocal technique in action. Few teaching procedures, however, have been based on scientific investigation that has yielded stable, demonstrable techniques in the areas of phonation, respiration, and resonation.
Thus, the major cause of confusion for the student has been this wide variation of teacher background and the resulting variation in the teacher’s control of the student’s forces of respiration and phonation and his attempt to “place” each vowel sound and its migrations in the singer’s vocal scale.
Understandably teachers of voice demand and get student loyalty and trust. With such compelling direction, the student is unable to determine by himself what vowel utterance is fitting or proper, for he must have the teacher’s approval as he learns and perfects a song. No matter where a student may study voice, be it in Europe or the United States, he is plagued by the variation of opinion regarding the proper production of a vowel sound. Thus, possibly the goal of textual intelligibility in singing the vowel sounds of all languages may never be realized as long as the concepts of vowel sounds vary within each language and geographically with each nation. The teacher has the prerogative to decide which variation of [ɑ], [i], or [u] his student will sing. Seemingly the ultimate decision as to the choice of vowel to be sung by the student is tempered by the aesthetic judgment of the teacher and not by acoustical measurement.
The second consideration is the indiscriminate teaching of phonemic accuracy as a source of confusion in the teaching of vocal diction. Teachers of voice always have relied upon the auditory process for phonemic identification, and many students have developed fine techniques by imitating speech signals through auditory stimuli alone. Therefore, in learning to produce a sound they are not particularly aware of the fine manipulation of the articulators. Consider as an example the phoneme [ē], or the German e as it is referred to in singing. This phoneme is difficult to teach by sound imitation. The student, if asked what he is doing with the articulators to make the sound, is at a loss to explain the action in detail. The palatogram and liguagram for this phoneme reveal a lateral movement of the tongue from the basic position. When the student becomes aware of this movement, he begins to conceive the vowel physiologically instead of tonally, and his ability to reproduce this phoneme correctly is greatly increased.
The importance of articulatory awareness as a factor in phonemic intelligibility is supported by a report prepared at the Haskins Laboratories, New York:
There is evidence from perceptual studies that speech sounds are perceived by reference to the articulatory movements that produce them, and that this articulatory reference is important for the distinctiveness of speech as perceived. It is well known, at least in the case of simple stimuli, that man’s ability to discriminate (i.e., to determine that two stimuli are the same or different) is very good, but that his ability to identify in absolute terms (i.e., to tell which stimulus it is) is poor. We can, for example, discriminate one to two hundred times as many pitches as we can identify absolutely. Now when a child hears a speech sound and undertakes, conceivably by trial and error, to mimic it, he is limited only by his differential sensitivity—that is, by his ability to determine whether the two sounds are the same or different—and that, as we know, is extremely acute. Given that the two acoustic stimuli are rather similar, but that the ’matching’ responses are made with different muscles, as for example, in the case of /b/ and /d/, the feedback stimulation would be more distinctive than the acoustic signals themselves. Thus, one can, by mimicking, use his keen differential sensitivity as a basis for making absolute identification provided, of course, that the mimicking gestures themselves provide distinctive feedback stimulation.
In general, however, the articulatory reference theory does not rest most directly on such considerations, but rather on the evidence which indicates that the relation between phoneme and articulation is more nearly one-to-one than is the relation between phoneme and acoustic signal. Thus, we have seen in this paper that perception of the phonemes is discontinuous (categorical) or continuous depending on the nature of the appropriate articulatory movements and not on the properties of acoustic signal. Elsewhere we have reviewed evidence bearing on the same general point. In that connection we pointed out that because of the characteristics of the articulators and the vocal tract, and because of the overlapping in time of the articulatory gestures, the relationship between articulation and the acoustic signal is often complex. For example, when stop consonants are articulated into different vowel cavities, as in the normal production of stop-vowel syllables, we find extreme cases in which large differences in articulation produce little or no difference in the “consonant” part of the acoustic signal; there is, also, the opposite case in which essentially the same consonant articulation produces (in different vowel contexts) very different acoustic results. We ask in these cases what happens to the perception and find always that it follows the articulation, not the sound.1
What are the cues for vowel recognition in flowing speech? Linguistic experiments2 suggest that the movement of the articulators as they pass from consonant to vowel and back to consonant creates an acoustic signal which carries information to aid the listener in identifying both vowel and consonant. Since identification of vowels is very difficult when they are isolated from their consonantal environment, a reasonable assumption is that movement of the articulators provides a significant cue for vowel recognition in speech.
Singing demands that vowel postures be held firmly in place for many seconds upon many different pitch levels. Therefore, textual intelligibility in singing depends upon the firmness of consonantal articulation as well as the duration of the vowel produced within well-defined boundaries and sung within a specific acoustic area. (See Fig. 106, p. 245.)
In singing every word has its cue of recognition. Such cues depend upon the musical elements of frequency, intensity, and timbre within a particular linguistic environment; i.e., in one instance the cue may be the initial consonant, in another it may be the vowel. In still another, the cue may be the stressing of a nasal ending or sustaining a lateral. Whatever the cue may be, it may always be found in the prosodic elements of the song text, which have been united with the rhythmic and melodic elements of the music.
To identify these cues, the singer must first consider the pronunciation of the word, for pronunciation involves the choice of phoneme and the degree of stressing necessary to convey its meaning to the audience. Pronunciation should be considered before timbre because, when the singer concentrates upon the timbre of the sound, he frequently destroys the integrity of the vowel, and when he concentrates on the vowel he enhances the timbre.
Lack of textual intelligibility in song is not caused by singing the vowels [i], [e], [ɑ], [ô], and [u]; rather, vowel ambiguity stems from the promiscuous migration of these vowels from their true acoustic center to the vowels [I], [ē], [ɔ], [o], and [U].
The most intelligible sung word is one in which each consonant may be heard and in which each vowel is sung with a preconceived phonemic accuracy.
Model Word and Phonemic Accuracy
While teaching diction, the teacher often directs the student to sing models [ε] as in get or [ɑ] as in father because these are sounds with which to establish teacher concepts. This practice results in a preferred sound within the vocal pattern sung by the student. The student’s task, then, is to remember the sensation and the sound of the teacher’s preference word through the syntax and upon each pitch. However, the student tends to forget the sensation of the word described by the teacher and only retains the concept of the symbol; this result does not assure phonemic accuracy. The student takes into the practice room the model words, which he is able to reproduce with numerous variations of sound. These sounds may be guttural, tense, and unsupported by adequate breath pressure; they may be sung with a tonal concept that depends upon voice quality rather than phonemic accuracy; they may be produced without regard to proper migration within specific pitch areas. In each case, these variations in vocalic utterance are caused by imbalances in the student’s respiration, phonation, or resonance, and he becomes confused by what he hears and feels.
Spelling and Phonemic Accuracy
The students are not at fault in not remembering the teacher-preferred sound, for spelling is inconsistent in the English language. As noted by Daniel Jones:
. . . many letters of the alphabet. . . have multiple sounds and are a source of confusion to the ear and eye. For example, the a in part, the i in wind, the u in pun. These sounds and symbols are easily learned, but there are many words in which these letters have a different sound, such as the a in father, tall, candy, tap, watch; the i in blind, wind, machine, bird; the u in rule, but, put; the o in boat, lord, shove; the e in meat, break, bear.3
Confusion also arises from the numerous ways in which an identical sound may be spelled as in beat, piece, receive; pique, key, quay; boss, sauce; torn, warn; thought, caught, stalk.
Thus, because of linguistic inconsistencies, the singer cannot depend upon the printed word to determine what sound he should use to match the teacherpreferred sound in song.
The third aspect of the diversity of methodology in the teaching of vocal diction to be considered is that of vowel modification.
Pitch and Vowel Modification
Vowel modification, to the best of the knowledge available, was employed first by the Italian teachers of bel canto, and this concept seems to be the yardstick for determining the technical excellence of singers today. The teachers of bel canto taught the development of a vocal scale without interruption or break throughout its length. The transition of registers, while singing up or down the scale, demanded a modification of the vowel in the upper notes to preserve the true vowel sound as well as to prevent such notes from becoming disagreeable or harsh. Thus, for many centuries, teachers have used the modification of vowels as a means of transition into the upper voice.
Acoustically, a sung phoneme is not the same as a spoken phoneme. Spectrography* has proven this point. Duration, pitch, and vocal force demand a larger opening of oral and pharyngeal cavities and prevent the sound from being the same. Therefore, all sung sounds are modifications of speech sounds. One recognizes the phonemes within a sentence that is sung, but one is aware of the vocalic change from speech to song. The singing of crescendos and the changing of pitch, diatonically or by skip, demand a controlled vowel modification of the word concept, or phoneme, that must be maintained if the word is to be understood.
If a singer is sustaining the word lord in the middle voice range, and wishes to crescendo the phoneme, open [ô] on the same pitch over four beats. He must choose between the phonemes [ɔ] as in all or [o] as in oral for his basic phoneme, or the word is misunderstood. Each of these phonemes has many variations of sound that could be understood in textual syntax. The listener is apt to hear these vocalized sounds as some kind of aw, and to depend upon the word order to give the meaning of the text. If the vowel is modified for reasons of sound preference, the word lord could end up sounding like [lard] or [lod]. If the word is properly sung on a pitch on the top of the staff, the word will be heard as [lʌd].
Intensity and Vowel Modification
The rule of crescendo or increased vocal force has been advanced by teachers of singing for many years; any increase in vocal force, whether gradual or sudden must be accompanied by an expansion or enlargement of the resonating system. Therefore, the greater the volume employed by the singer, the more the vowel will be modified from the basic word concept. However, good diction demands that the phoneme be recognized even though pitch and intensity factors change.
Vowel modification is employed by all voices in singing higher pitches. If the word yearning is sung upon the pitch, top line F, or a G above the staff with the General American [r] with the retroflexed tongue, the sound will be pinched and unmusical. If the Eastern [ɜ] is used to sing the lower pitches and is also employed to sing the top pitches, yearning will invariably change to yawning unless the lips are protruded firmly and the retroflex r sound eliminated by keeping the tongue placed against the bottom front teeth, resulting in the Eastern r sound as in urn [ɜn], Extreme rounding of the lips is required for the recognition of the vowel. The proper modification for the phoneme [ɜ] in singing the higher pitch is toward the [ʌ] as in up. Thus, the phonetic system suggests a satisfactory placement of the voice as well as good diction.
The reason each vowel is modified in singing with such an infinite variety of sounds, even to the extent of substituting a remotely related phoneme, is that teachers think aesthetically about a tonal placement and prefer one sound to another, disregarding the integrity of the vowel within the scale as related to intelligibility. Thus, the sound becomes more important than the word.
Vowel Color and Phonemic Migration
Vowel modification and phonemic migration are synonymous in usage but varied in concept. In singing both are controlled by auditory feedback.
Vowel modification is accomplished through psychological directives which suggest vowel coloring, i.e., a lighter or a darker sound for a particular vowel. Phonemic migration is also accomplished psychologically, but it is dependent upon physiological directives. These latter directives deliberately and consciously manipulate the articulators and resonating system. These manipulations effect the movement of one phoneme toward or away from another. By such movement any conceivable change in vowel quality may be realized. (See “Matching the Timbre of Recorded Sound,” p. 232.)
What most teachers hear as a change in vowel color is actually a migration of the phoneme from its true acoustic center. Teachers and singers alike have been conditioned to think of sounds as “dark” or “bright” without regard to a basic phonemic position. The only reason such thinking persists as a teaching tool is that the singer has no point of reference for identifying a change in sound as a phonemic migration. Physiological changes of the articulators cause a shifting of energy within the sound spectrum; these shifts in energy are identifiable as phonemic changes (Fig. 76-78). These changes, the source of the diversity of teacher preference, have created a huge dilemma. Where is the starting point of vowel migration or modification? Modification or migration from what?
Does the teacher teach migration from the concepts of a speech sound, a sung sound, a sensation learned from another teacher, a variation of vowel color, or a psychological positioning of the sound outside the body?
Nothing is wrong with the psychological teaching technique that employs the foregoing concepts. Excellent singers have been developed using these concepts. However, such techniques tend to make students depend upon teacher opinion and teacher judgment, and they tend to be based more on personal aesthetics than facts.
Obviously one singer’s pronunciation of the vowel sound in father is more closed or open, more pharyngeal or oral, more oral or nasal than another singer’s. If the two singers are heard together the difference between the two types of pronunciation can be detected. Thus the student in the practice room forgets the teacher-preferred model and learns eventually to groove the sound through the laborious process of remembering the preferred vowel color through repetition.
Acoustically Stable Vowels
Another vowel sound, therefore, is needed to stabilize the teacher-student relationship in deciding which migration of the vowel is best. If a student can compare his vowel sound with a known, recorded, unchangeable vowel he will instantly know which sound is being uttered.
Therefore, one must have a series of acoustically stable sung vowels that will serve as a standard scale or measure by which the singer may compare all other sung vowels when they are produced at any pitch level or at any intensity and timbre. Such acoustically stable vowels have been designed by the author and are as follows:
1. The Basic Vowel—A standardized recorded vowel sound to be used as a point of phonemic reference for all singers.
2. The Quality Alternate Vowel—A modification of the basic vowel sung.
3. The Pure Vowel—An identifiable area, surrounding both the basic vowel and its quality alternate, which enables a singer to select the phoneme of his choice for any given pitch or intensity.
The Basic Vowel
The basic vowel is a sung vowel with controlled frequency and intensity that will serve as a standard scale or measure.* It results from a resonating system coupled in a particular manner and reproducing a complex sound; when this sound is analyzed electronically, it has a standardized position on a two-dimensional formant chart (Fig. 101), determined by the frequency of the first and second formant. To identify one vowel sound from another, whether they are in sequence or in isolation, one needs only to determine the frequency of the two lowest resonance regions of the vocal spectrum (Fig. 76, p. 132).
The Formant Chart
In constructing the formant chart the migration characteristics of each vowel had to be evaluated. Considering only formant movement and disregarding formant band width and formant strength—the second formant moves twice the frequency interval for each vowel sound as does the first formant; e.g., in passing from [i] to [I] the second formant moves 100 cycles while the first moves 40; from [I] to [e]—the second formant, 100 cycles, the first, 45 cycles, etc. This characteristic formant movement may be observed in the back vowels as well as the frontal vowels.
Fig. 99. Basic Vowel Boundaries
The formant chart is, therefore, calibrated so that horizontal movement indicates twice the frequency interval as the vertical movement (Fig.99). In establishing the boundaries for the pure vowel a 100-cycle variation for the second formant and a 50-cycle variation for the first formant provided a logical area that could be displayed by means of a circle rather than an ellipse. The student finds it easier to conceive these pure vowel boundaries as a circle and to note the infringement of one phoneme upon another as sounds are sung.
Fig. 100A. The Basic and Quality Alternate Vowels, Male
Fig. 100B. The Basic and Quality Alternate Vowels, Female
The Quality Alternate Vowel
The quality alternate vowel is a sung phoneme in which frequency and intensity are not controlled. It requires a tongue, lip, and jaw position similar to that required by a basic vowel, and it can be easily substituted for its basic vowel in syntax.
The quality alternate vowel serves as a positive position for vowel migration, which enables a singer to preserve the integrity and meaning of the phoneme and still meet the demands of increased sonority and pitch change. For example, let us consider the migration of the basic vowel [i] to the quality alternate vowel [I].
Vowel Migration. Very few teachers teach and very few singers sing the closed (tense) vowel [i] as it is phonetically recognized. The reason for this failure is that the singer is unaware that this phoneme is musically acceptable only at very low intensities (pianissimo and mezzo piano levels) and within a limited range—
Teacher and singer usually reject this phoneme on the grounds that such a vocal position develops tension of tongue and throat muscles and does not produce an aesthetically desirable sound. Most singing for performance is executed at intensities well above the mezzo piano level, where this phoneme loses its stability, and it is often sung above the pitch range in which it is recognizably stable. The necessity for the substitution, therefore, is normal and automatic.
One can readily agree that such a migration takes place. The question is how such a migration should be presented to the singer to enable him to develop a singing technique and to the prospective teacher as an implement for better teaching. Empirical evidence suggests that the singer should substitute conceptually the [I] in the spelling of all words demanding the [i] phoneme, when intensity and pitch demand such a substitution. Such a migration automatically accomplishes three major physiological changes and one acoustical change:
1. A slightly lower jaw position.
2. A slightly lower tongue position.
3. A release of muscular tension in moving from a tense to a lax (closed to open) position.
4. Greater sonority for the sung phoneme.
The greatest advantage in phonemic substitution is that musical and intelligibility goals are accomplished without the student’s having to imitate the teacher’s sound.
When confronted with a word that demands a specific speech sound, such as beat, sat, home, and soon, the singer will be helped considerably if he will conceive a change in spelling to that of the proper quality alternate vowel. Beat will migrate toward [I]; sat toward [a]; home toward [U]; and soon toward [U], depending upon the vocal force the singer is using or the pitch area of the sung sound.
Determining the Basic and Quality Alternate Vowels
Tests of phonemic identification in singing administered within major schools of music have provided evidence that not all vowel sounds are basic; that is, the sung sounds are not phonemically recognized for what they should be. A number of the vowels within a fifteen-phoneme series are mistaken for another vowel, while other vowels have a high frequency of recognition. The closed (tense) [ē] vowel as in ewig, used in German lieder, is persistently mistaken for [I] and [e]. The low percentage of recognition reveals that such a phoneme is a quality alternate of [i], since it is made with a similar tongue and spread-lip position very much as the basic vowel [i] is made. The tongue remains in the same high frontal position but moves laterally. The jaw drops only slightly (See kinesiologic analysis, p. 265 and Records 1-4, Band 7).
The open (lax) vowel [e] is considered basic because of the high frequency of recognition—81 percent.* For the same reason, [ӕ] is considered a basic vowel. In addition [a] is considered a quality alternate of [ӕ] since it so frequently is mistaken for [ӕ] in the identification process. The percentage of error is 56.
Other phonemes having low percentages of recognition and considered to be quality alternates are [I], [ε], [ɔ], [o], [U]. Those six with high percentage of recognition and considered to be basic vowels are [i], [e], [ӕ], [ɑ], [ô], [u]. (For the basic vowels and their quality alternates, see Fig. 100A and 100B, p. 225.)
The singer’s awareness of infringement upon a neighboring phoneme during phonation must be developed through ear-training. The student must develop an awareness of articulatory changes, particularly tongue-backing and lip-rounding.
To be useful for a singer, the position of any phoneme in relation to a basic vowel position must be judged conceptually. When the phoneme he is singing starts to migrate toward another, the singer should be aware of this occurrence and make the necessary physiological adjustments to bring the phoneme into the proper acoustical area.
The Pure Vowel
An Acoustic Definition. The pure vowel in song is determined by the pronunciation of any vowel within any linguistic environment when that vowel is sung within the stable vowel pitch range.
To determine the acoustic position of a pure vowel, one must first analyze it and place the position of its first and second formants upon a formant chart.
The pure vowel in song is a sung sound whose first and second formants are stabilized by a coupled mechanism for the duration of any note or series of notes whose second formant lies within an acoustical area 100 cycles from a basic vowel position or quality alternate position and whose first formant lies within 50 cycles from a basic vowel or quality alternate position (Fig. 101).
The theory of vowel migration is based upon the dominance of the “steady state formant structure characteristic”4 of every sung vowel over the influence of environmental consonantal sounds as the primary cue to meaning and intelligibility. Speech sounds generally derive their cues of recognition and meaning from transient, slow-moving environmental sounds which surround each vowel, where sung sounds do not. All drills and exercises are directed toward the acquisition of phonemic awareness by the singer to establish, for a brief moment, the steady state characteristics of a vowel with well-defined boundaries in its proper acoustic position.
Fig. 101. The Pure Vowel
This acoustical definition of the pure vowel, to be used only for analysis purposes, is the first of its kind for the sung vowel. Most phonetic texts accept any vowel to be a pure vowel “where the mechanism is held relatively stable in contrast to a vowel glide where movement is the essence of the sound.”5
Thus, for phoneticians, the time or duration aspect of a vocal sound is the sole criterion of judgment in determining a pure vowel. Any variation of a phoneme could in this way be pure so long as it is relatively stable.
With the acoustic definition, the pure vowel sound need not possess duration as much as phonemic accuracy, for any deviation of more than 100 cps laterally or 50 cps vertically will be an infringement on the area of the adjacent pure vowel sound. Such infringement may be easily detected by the untrained ear.6
The Pure Vowel Area. The combined areas of the basic vowel and its quality alternate form the pure vowel area. Any sung phoneme which falls within this area during the production of rapidly moving speech forms will be recognized as the proper phoneme for a particular word provided the word is pronounced correctly.
A Psychological Definition of the Pure Vowel. A pure vowel sound is one which lies within the pure vowel area. It is a vowel in which the vocal mechanism is stable for the duration of any pitch and in itself is identified by the singer as the basic vowel or its quality alternate that provides the correct phoneme for the pronunciation of any word.
Fig. 102. The Pure Vowel Area
When one is singing and needs to conceive a phoneme for a particular pitch or spelling of a word, the phoneme conceived should be a basic vowel that closely approximates the proper pronunciation of the word or its quality alternate. Either will be a pure vowel. In visualizing the vowel’s position on a formant chart, such a pure vowel can be conceived of as a circular area with a radius of 100 cps laterally and 50 cps vertically measured from the basic vowel position, which is the center of the sung phoneme (Fig. 101).
When a sung sound has migrated away from the phoneme necessary for proper pronunciation to a position near the neutral vowel [ʌ] or an adjacent phoneme that is not the quality alternate, it is no longer a pure vowel. The integrity of the phoneme, which gives meaning, has been lost. For example, when he is singing within the stable vowel pitch range, the singer permits the word [kɔl] to migrate to [kʌl] or [kal], the integrity of the proper phoneme [ɔ] has been lost. The meaning has been changed and the vowel is no longer pure (Record 4, Band 30).
CRITERIA FOR REPRODUCING THE BASIC VOWEL
The foregoing basic acoustical phonemes help the student to become aware of the stability of each of his vowel utterances and permit him to control them at will, depending entirely upon the teacher’s preference and efficient diction. These vowels have been chosen using the following criteria:
1. Each vowel must be an intelligible and a musically well-produced sound.*
2. Each vowel represents certain well-defined, physiological positions involving the tongue, labial orifice (lips), velum, mandible, and larynx, which have been determined by x-ray photographs and cinefluorography.
Tongue. To produce the basic vowel, the tip of the tongue must be placed against the bottom front teeth during production of all vowel sounds sung on pitches within the area of stability. (See “Pitch Range for All Vowel Sounds” presented below.)
Lips. In the high frontal, mid-frontal, and low frontal vowels, the lips are more spread than unrounded. In the lowback, mid-back, and highback vowels, the lips are rounded progressively more from lowback to highback positions.
Larynx. The laryngeal position is more lowered during phonation than the passive position assumed during normal breathing.
Vowel modification at various pitch levels is based on acoustical laws concerning cavity resonators and pitch. (Explanation of these laws and an application to vowel migration is found on p. 119.)
Pitch Range for All Vowel Sounds
All vowels are stable when they are sung within a very limited pitch range. When these pitches are exceeded or when the intensity increases, or when both occur together, a vowel migration occurs.
The basic vowel is stable in these pitch areas:
The top pitch range of each vowel has been determined through experimentation. For the female voice, the lower pitch range has been selected to include the chest register transition point. The transition into this area is taught as a change of mechanism, but rarely is it taught as a vowel migration. (For specific migration on these notes, see Fig. 49, p. 91.)
For the male voice, the vowel is stable on pitches lower than indicated. The lower pitches are selected as normal tessisturas for a mature male voice.
Obviously if these basic and quality alternate vowels are going to be used for singing, the student must know them so well that he can identify and sing each one with accuracy. The best way to do this is to imitate the vowel as it is reproduced from a record. Experiments have proven that this method of imitating physiological adjustment and vowel identification is highly reliable.7 Once the basic vowels for singing have been learned, the work of comparing them can begin, and this procedure is invaluable for identifying and describing vowel sounds as they are sung in foreign languages. This method may also be used with equal success in the examination of variant pronunciations in English.
The teacher and the student must remember that these stable vowel points are in no way intended to be preferred centers of vocal utterance. They do provide an acoustical location which is the exact center of that phoneme for a sung tone. The teacher may prefer a warmer, darker sound for that particular phoneme than the basic vowel sound and may demonstrate it for the student to follow. For example, as the student sings father with a very frontal [ɑ], the teacher preferring a darker sound would suggest that the student sing the next low, back phoneme [ɔ] as in all, and the result would be fawther. If the central phoneme [ʌ] as in up is suggested, the resulting word would be futher. The trick is to modify the vowel without migrating too far from the basic vowel position. To fulfill the teacher’s directive, the student need only lower the jaw and thus increase the vertical dimension of the oral cavity. The lip position must be unrounded and the laryngeal position firmly stabilized. Such acute vowel recognition requires a well-trained ear.
Matching the Timbre of Recorded Sound
To set an arbitrary acoustic standard for a specific phoneme is not difficult; however, it is very difficult, but not impossible, to suggest a standard for timbre.
One must remember that what a singer hears as a change in vowel color is actually a migration of the phoneme.
Phoneme and timbre (vowel sound and voice quality) are not synonymous, yet, in the singing process, the direction of the singer’s thought toward one will affect the other. If the singer concentrates upon timbre he impairs the integrity of the vowel. If he concentrates upon the phoneme he enhances the timbre.
In reproducing the vowel sounds recorded here, matching the timbre should not be considered the major vocal objective for the following reasons:
1. When singers of any voice classification imitate the recorded examples of the basic vowels or their quality alternates, it is possible for each voice to reproduce phonemes within the same acoustic area but with different timbre.
2. Timbre may be imitated by the employment of several combinations of breath pressure and laryngeal controls within a similar resonating system; i.e., two voices of the same classification, sonority, and tessitura can match timbre by using different techniques. (See “Vocal Pedagogy and Laryngeal Controls,” p. 102.)
However, primary positions of resonation and articulation directly affect the migration of each phoneme, and if the positions of the resonators and articulators are duplicated when matching the recorded sound, the timbre will be more similar than if such controls are disregarded.
In the production of the basic vowels and their quality alternates, preserving the integrity of the phoneme involves only the controlled positioning of the articulators (tongue, lips, mandible, and the resonators, oral and pharyngeal cavities). To increase the intensity of the sound (vocal force), thought is always directed toward the control of the resonators and articulators and not toward the control of the timbre. Variations of the breath pressure will affect both vowel and timbre, but in this volume, the author can only assume that proper breathing techniques are employed that will result in a balanced effort in effecting each sound. (“Laryngeal Action and Pitch Change,” p. 101.)
To summarize, in imitating the basic vowel and quality alternates from recorded sound, matching the timbre is accomplished by concentrating upon the phoneme and disregarding the timbre. If the recorded phoneme is matched, the quality or timbre of the vowel will be more nearly similar within each pitch range and intensity variation. In this instance phonemic aspects of the word are conceived before quality. Quality thus becomes a result of and not the cause of the vocalic utterance.
Vowel Migration Above the Stable Pitch Range
When singing a pitch that skips into the area above the stable vowel pitch range (Fig. 103, p. 234) or in singing a sustained sound that stays above the stable vowel pitch range, vowel migration is necessary to preserve an even scale and phonemic identity.
The frontal vowels will migrate downward to the phoneme directly below them (Fig. 103) with the exception of the quality alternate [I]. This vowel is stable in all voices to top space E, treble staff, except for the bass voice in which [ē] is stable to D and [I] is stable to F above the bass staff.
For the central and back vowels [ɑ] and [ɔ] the migration is always toward the neutral vowel [ʌ]; the [ô] and [o] will migrate toward the quality alternate [U], which remains stable throughout the vocal range; only at extreme levels of intensity does [U] migrate to [ʌ].
The Migration Chart (Fig. 103) serves as a guide for teaching transitions into the upper voice and brings to the student greater intelligibility and ease of production, provided breath support is constant. Specific information for each vowel and its migration within the entire singing range is given in Chapter Ten.
Fig. 103. Vowel Migration Chart
Extreme Lip Positions
In speech, unstressing is an outstanding phenomenon of Germanic languages, and especially of English. In English the vowel of any unaccented syllable tends to be reduced to either [I] or [ə], i.e., city [sItI] and reject [rIdӡεkt], or open [opən] and Cuba [kjubə].
In singing, most vowels and consonants are formed with much more vitalized muscular tonus in lips, mouth, and tongue than in speech. This vitality must be present in passages sung piano as well as in those sung forte. Relaxation of the articulatory musculature causes vowels to migrate toward either [i] or [ə] and the integrity of the phoneme suffers. For example, sing was [wɑz] instead of [wʌz], don’t [dont] instead of [dʌnt], also event [ivεnt] instead of [Ivεnt].
Fig. 104 illustrates the ever present tendency of vowels to migrate toward schwa when lip tension is lost.
Fig. 104. If the Vowel Posture is Lethargic or if Lip Tension Is Not Maintained, the Vowel Tends to Migrate Toward Schwa
In singing pitches above the staff, the schwa is approached, yet never completely embraced. The characteristic lip position of the phoneme being uttered must be maintained to preserve the phonemic qualities of the vowel.
A pedagogy which advocates immobility or relaxation of the articulators for reasons aesthetic or musical thrwarts textual intelligibility and presents the singer with problems of both range and flexibility of vocal utterance.
Proper pronunciation, which involves the choice of phoneme and stress, will preserve linguistic characteristics.
Point, Projection, and Focus
In singing, point, projection, and focus are related directly to the approximation of the vocal utterance to the basic vowel or quality alternate position. Any sung sound that migrates too far toward the neutral vowel when sung within the stable vowel pitch range will lose all three of these qualities. In this regard, the proper lip-spreading and lip-rounding, mandibular position, and tongue position must be observed to maintain maximum point, projection, and focus within this pitch range. This rule also applies to the first migration pitch range. The singer must permit the frontal phonemes to migrate toward the suggested phoneme below, but he must avoid phonemic migration to the neutral vowel. For the central and back vowels, where the normal migration is toward the neutral vowel [ʌ] or [U], the singer should attempt to move toward but not to the [ʌ] or [U] and to preserve the integrity of the phonemes as much as possible. In the upper range when the neutral vowel is embraced, slight lip-rounding will, in most cases, bring the sung sound into focus and increase the projection or carrying power of the phoneme.
Sung sounds that tend to migrate toward the schwa or neutral vowel may seem to possess more depth or to be more unctious to the singer or listener when sung within a small hall or room. In a large hall, the sung sound loses its depth, sonority, and volume, and intelligibility suffers.
RULES OF DICTION AND THE BASIC VOWEL THEORY
Diction is a complex word. It embodies the following:
1. Pronunciation considers the task of utterance with regard to the phoneme and stress; meaning depends upon pronunciation.
2. Enunciation considers the utterance of each word with regard to fullness, clearness, and sonority. This concept involves the vocal force that energizes speech in song.
3. Articulation considers the action of the speech organs in forming the vowels and consonants. Without articulation, pronunciation and enunciation cannot be realized.
Spatial Problems
With textual intelligibility as the major objective, this basic vowel theory rests upon the premise that good diction imposes two rules on singers; both involve phonemic accuracy, audience proximity, instrumental masking, and the size of the auditorium.
The First Rule. If the auditorium is large and the distance from the stage to the total audience is great, the singer’s first consideration must be to sing in the exact center of the basic vowel or within the pure vowel area, and to give the vowel its greatest possible duration in note value. His second consideration must be to overstress his consonants by giving them longer duration.
When instrumental accompaniment masks the vocal sound as in opera or oratorio, the singer uses greater vocal force in all pitch ranges, thus making the previously described articulatory exaggeration mandatory; for as the vocal force increases, the dimensions of the vocal resonators also increase, forcing the singer to seek phonemic accuracy for greater intelligibility.
The Second Rule. The singer’s primary concern, if the auditorium is not large or if a microphone is to be used, is to sing near the basic vowel or within the pure vowel area, and to give the vowel its proper duration in note value—just as he would do in a large auditorium. In the small auditorium, however, the consonants must be normal and not overstressed.
The Consonant and Legato Singing
Clear enunciation of the consonant is essential to the intelligibility of the sung word, and great care must be taken so that the formation of the consonants does not interfere with the proper resonation of each phoneme in a manner that would destroy the vocal line.
Psychological imagery has often been used in the teaching of consonants to assure a definitive action of the articulators. One such illustration by the teacher is that the interruption of the vocalized sound by the articulators while forming the consonants should be similar to the act of quickly passing a knife through a column of water extending from faucet to sink. The water column, representing the vocal line, has not lost its cylindrical contour by the interruption of the knife blade, but consonants formed in this manner are much too brief. Rapid articulation of the consonants is not the goal of good diction and such an illustration is very misleading. The maintenance of a legato line depends upon a rapid movement from one vowel position, through the consonant to the following vowel in such a manner that neither vowel is affected by the consonantal articulation. The consonant must have enough duration to possess undeniable entity in the vocal line. It must complement the vowel, but although it is of shorter duration, it must never be of lesser importance than the sustained sound. To move rapidly and accurately from vowel to consonant to vowel, always within the rhythmic framework, demands flexibility of jaw, lips, mouth, and tongue. This positive action must occur slightly before each beat point to permit the vowel to sound on the beat; therefore, every consonant must be slightly anticipated by a proper preparation of the articulators. The major mistake in forming consonants is that the mouth, lips, and tongue are not sufficiently supple to provide timing of mouth, tongue, and jaw movements for each successive sound. The total effort often is not synchronized and coordinated muscularly.
In viewing the x-ray studies of the consonants the reader will notice the dramatic change that occurs in the total resonating system particularly within the laryngeal area. The larynx is thrust violently forward and upward in producing the voiced continuants and must recover its stability for any vowel which follows. Such interruption and recovery of the phonatory mechanism is a most constant and complicated process. However, in artistic singing this articulatory act has been molded into an artistic unity through vocal discipline.
To instruct a singer to articulate his consonants rapidly may discourage the singer from placing sufficient emphasis on the consonants to make them audible and may prevent the singer from using them intelligently for dramatic effect.
The vowel provides the emotional warmth to the sung sound but the consonant provides the eloquence of singing style. This fact is particularly important in a consideration of stress within a word or phrase. For when consonant and vowel are properly stressed and unified, a word becomes alive and persuasive.
The Use of Consonants in Opera
All consonants may be used to intensify the words in dramatic situations, but some are more difficult to control than others. Exaggeration of voicing in the voiced continuants and increasing the duration of the friction sounds of those that are unvoiced becomes one of the most important factors in the dramatic use of consonants where instrumental masking is employed. The voiced sounds are more dominant than the unvoiced, and the dramatic nature of the plosives is expressed in their plosive release. The voiced plosives are extremely useful in creating dramatic effects.
Complete understanding of the function of each consonant and the pressures and tensions of the lips, tongue, and mouth necessary to produce them are most essential to the singer if he is to successfully master articulation.
Fig. 105A and 105B indicates the area of variation of each of the basic vowels and their quality alternates with the exception of open basic [ô] as they are used during normal communication in speech.
In conversational speech, each vowel may vary 250 to 500 cycles from its normally used center and will be understood. The child’s voice and the extremely high-pitched voice will have higher first and second formants, which will cause the vowel to appear to the left of the dot that indicates normal clustering of that particular phoneme. The female voice, also having high formants, will appear more often to the left of the dot than to the right. The male voice and lower-pitched female voices will appear around the clustering dot.8
Despite the extreme variation of phonemic utterance in speech as indicated by Fig. 105A, textual intelligibility is achieved. This is largely due to the speaker’s tendency to repeat each phoneme occurring within the same “linguistic environment”* with the same articulatory positions.
“As a rule, the more consistently a phoneme is pronounced within a particular linguistic environment the greater the intelligibility.”9 Such intelligibility also has social causes and when the lax phonemic demands of speech are compared with the specific phonemic demands of song, the reasons for discipline within singing become self-evident (See Fig. 105A and 105B.)
In ordinary conversation phonemic accuracy is not demanded because:
1. Each speaker speaks the same dialect.
2. The speaker is close to his listener and does not have a spatial problem; vocal force is kept at a low level.
3. Both persons have an awareness of and an interest in the subject being communicated.
Fig. 105A. Formant Averages for Vowels in Speech
Fig. 105B. Basic and Quality Alternate Vowels in Singing
4. The attention of each person is focused upon content and not upon the quality of the spoken word.
In singing, phonemic accuracy is demanded because:
1. The amount of space between audience and performer varies; in addition, instrumental masking may also be used.
2. The singer conveys unfamiliar textual material to the listener; often it is poetry with strange vocabulary and word order.
3. The singer encounters articulation problems while singing flowing, connected sounds. In these instances he is most likely to place the sound ahead of the word in vocal importance. Singers strive to sound well at all times, and intelligibility tends to be forgotten. In such instances he should sing the phoneme within the pure vowel area and stress consonants. Such stress will not disrupt the legato line. This fact is difficult to teach to one who has not had stage experience.
4. The singer faces problems pertaining to the duration of the vowel sound, pitch, rhythm, and stress.
5. The singer must shape the oral and pharyngeal cavities into larger molds and hold them in position much longer in song than in speech.
6. The singer must exaggerate the textual lines through physical deportment. His face and body must reveal interest that can be seen by the audience in order to avoid an impression of lethargy and to provide the text with animation and buoyancy. These personality factors are singers’ tools that greatly aid intelligibility in song.
Phonetic Instability. A singer cannot possibly repeat any vowel sound exactly as he first stated it; no matter how hard he tries, infinitesimal variation will occur. Thus, as in cases of dialectical differences, hearing plays a major part in the development of dialect, for the speaker will always follow the line of least resistance and control his phonatory muscles to conform to his environmental pressures. He will tend to speak and sing what he hears.
The influence of neighboring sounds upon both vowel and consonant causes a variation in a singer’s diction. The sound may be of long or of short duration. As an example, consider the phoneme [t]. When one pronounces the words but, bit, bent, or best, everyone recognizes the final letter t, but few singers realize that each one is produced with a slightly different tongue position.
When one pronounces the phoneme [ɑ] as in bar [bɑr], father [fɑðə], nat or fine [fɑIn], the variation in tongue position causes an alteration in the spectrum although the phoneme may seem to be the same.
Once the singer confronts a vocal pattern involving pitch changes and duration, alterations of the mechanism are made that affect this consonant or vowel, alterations too numerous to mention here. However, a fundamental movement for the [t] or the [ɑ] always remains the same and permits the observer to recognize the meaning of the word.
Because of this tendency for phonemic variation in singing the student should think of each sung sound as some specific phonetic symbol. In doing so, he will soon become skilled in forming the lip, tongue, and jaw positions that are necessary to produce such specific phonemes. In developing this awareness, he will also create concepts of the acoustic qualities of the sung sound and the manner in which it differs from the speech sound as he sees it upon the printed page.
This conceptual transition from printed symbol to the sung sound is a task from which the singer will never free himself. No vocal technique becomes so perfect that the performer no longer needs to plan or predesign his vocal utterance through thoughtful observance of and respect for that physiological adjustment which will yield the most accurate phoneme possible for any particular word within the vocal text.
The word is not more important than the sound, nor is the sound more important than the word. However, a vast difference exists between speech techniques for communication and speech techniques for singing. Problems of vowel production encountered by singers are not encountered in communicative speech.
DICTION PROBLEMS IN SINGING FLOWING TEXT
While diction involves the analysis of the physiological position of single speech sounds, one cannot overlook the fact that speech in song is continuous and generally flows smoothly. The muscular process is coordinated in such a manner that, despite problems of duration and pitch, one sound is linked to another. This act is consummated by the expert singer with an economy of articulatory movement and vocal force; however, an overwhelming majority of singers do not fulfill this ideal. The problem is obvious when one considers the difference between the tasks of speech and of song.
The average speech rate is about 250 words a minute with a continuous vocal flow blended into numerous vowels and consonants. Speech in song is much slower, sometimes 50 words a minute. Time signature, tempo, and, most of all, duration of the notes compel the singer to sustain a muscular position for the phoneme for several beats before he can consider the next phoneme. Theoretically, this process should make the singer’s text intelligible, but usually this is not the case. He often is instructed to link all words in continuous sound and to smooth out pitch skips into a rounded line, but, until he can see each phoneme separately in his thinking, he will be faced with diction problems.
In all artistic utterances articulatory lethargy tends to encumber speech. E. L. Stevens describes the problem as follows:
In general, the actualization of a given phoneme as an acoustic signal is achieved through a given set of instructions to the speech mechanism, including the larynx and the various structures above the larynx. When instructions for a particular phoneme are given, the mechanical response of the muscles and the structures to which they are attached is not immediate and a certain time elapses before the structures are displaced to positions appropriate to the phoneme. If instruction for a sequence of phonemes are given in rapid succession, the structures spend most of the time in transit from one position to another and frequently do not achieve configurations corresponding to one phoneme before they begin to maneuver toward positions appropriate to the next phoneme. Superimposed upon the rapidly changing instructions to the articulatory structures are somewhat slower commands to the musculature that controls the breath stream and supplies the steady air pressure that is modulated by the perypheral structures. . . . As a consequence of the smooth and continuous motion of the articulatory mechanism, sharp boundaries marking changes from one phoneme to another are not observable in the speech wave.10
This statement by Stevens emphasizes the tendency toward phonemic lethargy in song. A basic rule of diction is that the integrity of the phoneme must be considered constantly throughout the vocal scale. Analyzing the movements of continuous speech is impossible, but one can examine the sung phoneme in isolation, for the basic concept of this book is that each phoneme must be conceived separately.
In flowing speech singers tend to approach the phonemes promiscuously and to neglect to approximate them—
However, each phoneme should be conceived separately and lifted out of its contextual environment—
A list of problems encountered in singing flowing speech follows:
1. The singer’s attention is directed more to the sound than to the words.
2. Unless the singer has mastered respiration and phonation problems related to the support of the tone through various pitch skips upward, he is constantly plagued with the question, “Am I singing correctly?” It is an inherent trait among all singers to want to “above all, sound well."
3. The singer’s attention is directed to pressures and tension throughout his body during the changes of pitch. He is often told that these changes of pitch must be sung without tensions and pressures, and he will often sing a phoneme remotely related to that demanded by the text because it feels easier. The singer must learn that the words pressure and tension are not synonymous; that many vowels on high pitches demand pressures to sustain both pitch and vowel form; that tensions in the production of vowels, although often present with pressure, will disappear to a degree (but never altogether) when forces of respiration and phonation and articulation are properly balanced.
When rhythmic problems are added to the flowing speech, phonemes tend to be only approximated—
When singing such songs as Mausfalien Sprüchlein, each singer must give duration, be it ever so slight, to the home base position of each vowel. Such action may be conceived as overarticulation by many teachers, but the rewards to the singer in intelligibility are great. The articulatory organs cannot be held in an absolutely fixed or rigid position during phonation. Numerous imperceptible movements always occur in the speech mechanism; they are uncontrollable and cause slight but discernible changes in the vocalic sound.
Even so, singing is at its best when the singer conceives of the vowel sound in flowing speech as a series of rectangular sections linked together by consonantal break points. This concept is a most important one in achieving good diction in song.
The singer gives maximum sound to the pure vowel utterance by locking the mandible, tongue, and pharyngeal area into place for the duration of the pitch. Such a system assists him in reaching his goal of maximum sound for every word that he sings.
Fig. 106. The Singer Should Conceive Each Vowel in the Vocal Line as a Rectangular Area
Since vowels are parts of words, each vowel sound is approached and followed by a different sound. The inexperienced singer tends to conceive of his vowels as a series of elliptical sections instead of rectangular sections.
Fig. 107. The Inexperienced Singer Tends to Sing the Vowel as an Ellipse
In such undisciplined singing, the pure vowel area is approximated and has an extremely short duration at the point of maximum sound. It is always coming from one sound and going to another.
The environment (or consonants that surround a vowel) previously described, is the cause for the vocal fault. The elliptical shape is indicative of the intervowel glides or dipthongs, ai, oi, iu.
Vowel Size and Auditory Feed Back
The concept of “vowel size” as described by Rose11 brings to the student a recognizable sensation which he must learn to associate with a proper breath pressure ratio. The term suggests an enfoldment of an imagined specific area by the oral cavity. The resulting lowered jaw position gives the singer a new sensation of vowel recognition as it is instantaneously fused with tonal sonority through his ability to hear the sound and feel the stretched position of the articulators as he applies the pressure of breath.
Every singer must eventually create for himself a sensation table of “vowel size” involving vowel recognition, articulatory position, and breath pressure for every type of sound he wishes to sing. This sensation table is usually acquired through the singer’s experience in singing specific passages within song literature, for every mood that the singer interprets demands an open or a closed vowel, sung piano or forte, and these choices change as each pitch is raised and each intensity varied.
In the very early stages of training, the singer is reluctant to accept a large vowel size because his enlarged resonating system and his inability to control the breath pressure create a sound which sounds extremely loud to him and since he is only aware of the sensation of producing such a vowel at the speech level of normal communication he fails to fuse the auditory-articulatory sensation and does not open his mouth.
At this point the teacher should reinforce the preferred concept by using the term vowel size rather than the directives: lower the jaw, sing louder; sing more darkly, etc.
Physical Problems and Diction
The physical problems of respiration, phonation, resonance, and articulation are usually presented in that order by most voice teachers. Logically, diction problems would be the final consideration of the teacher in teaching a song to a student. In singing a phoneme, however, all singers ultimately synthesize the resonance and diction aspects into a unity. The twofold aspect of singing—as a unity and also as a sum of parts—requires that one learn the phonemes first. For example, one can learn to write fluently by first learning letters; one can learn to dance rhythmically and harmoniously, as though the body were in constant unified flux, although one learns single steps one at a time. Instead of thinking of lowering the larynx, opening the mouth, rounding the’lips, and placing the tongue forward, the experienced singer would unify these separate acts into a composite pattern; the resulting sound will become his hallmark, and he will always be judged by this particular vocalic quality.
This chapter can not serve as a directive in how to unify and coordinate the sensations respiration, phonation, resonation, and articulation, it provides only a point of departure for the phoneme in the basic vowels; therefore, it shall not linger on the problems of presenting the numerous parts which form the gestalt or whole pattern of each of the above mentioned forces in singing. It is sufficient to point out the impossibility of avoiding positions and movements of the lips, tongue, mandible and size of oral and pharyngeal opening (vowel size) when one attempts to imitate the basic vowel. The best procedure is for students to synthesize the movements of these parts as they listen.
The basic vowel will find its greatest acceptance in the teacher training institutions, which need to teach young singers how to impart their singing skill to another potential singer, or to teach young singers how to teach others to teach. Psychological teaching is tolerated where learning how to sing is terminal and where there is little concern for the manner in which a teacher may direct a student to produce a tone. The student may be told to place a tone at the forehead, the top of the head, or the front teeth. Any of these positions provides a point of reference by which the student focuses his attention and remembers his sensation during the production of the sound so that he reproduces it to the teacher’s satisfaction. This student may develop into a fine singer with such a method, but to impart such information to a potential teacher is to thwart his development into an educator who knows the proven physiological and acoustical reasons for the sound’s existence and who can produce any of the sounds repeatedly.
Good diction is forever bound to singing style and personality. These last two qualities are often endowed characteristics and cannot be taught convincingly. However, the mechanism of diction and phonation can always be analyzed and directives can be given to the student which will enable him to produce a tone that may be evaluated and reproduced by all teachers. This is as far as science dares to go, for style and personality are aesthetic elements that give song its wings. From this point on the teacher’s directives are at their very best.
___________________
* The analysis of the tonal spectrum (Seep. p. 132) by means of the sonograph
* The basic vowel is similar to the Daniel Jones cardinal vowel only in that it provides a specific acoustic point of reference from which vowel migration may be determined. The acoustic locations of the cardinal vowel and the basic vowel vary greatly because the extreme position of the articulator and the muscular tension present in the cardinal vowels [i], [a], and [u] are not used in forming the basic vowel. The basic vowel position was selected as a musically acceptable position that can be used by singers in all musical situations. (See p. 228.)
* Descriptions of the test and test results are to be found in the Appendix.
* Each vowel has been judged as to intelligibility by classes in phonetics at Indiana University and the University of Michigan, for results of testing see the Appendix, p. 401.
* Linguistic environment is a term used to identify similarity of phonemic usage in pronunciation, i.e., if e, preceded by b and followed by tis always pronounced [bit] (beet); the environment is considered to be similar. This rule applies to all phonemes.
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