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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 61 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all over.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later
but our question for this week comes from Rodrigo C. in Valencia Spain.
And Rodrigo writes simply, "Dear Justin, more vowel videos please!"
Thank you so much, Rodrigo, for that.
And I suppose what that means is that today
I get the choice of what vowel we're going to work on.
So I chose for us today the open O vowel.
So first, we're going to start off with, such an important vowel,
with "Oh My" the characteristics of O.
The characteristics of O are so, so important to get right.
In American English, at least, we have O actually as two sounds.
It's a diphthong.
We talked about diphthongs in the past.
So an American O vowel would be O plus U, O-oo.
So we really have two vowel sounds for our O vowel.
But in other languages, say Italian, the O vowel is just
O. [Demonstrates different sounding O]
And many languages have O the vowel.
So it could be O-oo or O or some other variations.
But in any case we need to get the O vowel right when we sing.
Now the O vowel is not just a diphthong in some
and a pure vowel in others.
In all languages an O vowel is a round vowel or a dark vowel.
So a bright vowel would be something like an AY vowel.
Or maybe an E vowel.
And a dark vowel would be something like O,
or maybe OO, or for example UH.
But O is one of our darker vowels.
So today we're going to be discussing what are some
of the problems of O, what are some of the benefits of O.
We're going to look at a song and I'm going to give you
some exercises to practice working on your O vowel.
So let's first talk about oh no, the problems of the O vowel.
Some of the problems that I see with the O vowel
are first of all that people don't use their lips enough
when they do the O vowel.
O, is O.
You have to use your lips to do the O.
I don't use my lips at all, which is sometimes very common ,
I'm gonna have to use something else.
Watch...
O...O...
I can still make O.
O...O...
But now my tongue is having to pull back
to make that O sound.
We don't want that tongue retraction
so we need to get the lips busy.
O...O...
You have to get some lip involvement in your O vowel.
So that's one problem is that the lips are too slack.
And they're not active enough in the production of the O.
Another problem is that tongue retraction.
If the tongue is pulling back and jamming back
for your O, O, that is going to cause some
problems with the larynx.
It's going to be stabilized by the tongue.
And we don't want the tongue interfering with the larynx.
So not enough lip involvement and too retracted of a tongue.
The other thing is this dark vowel that O tends to be
can cause us to not have enough nasal resonance.
Sometimes when people have a dark round vowel
they forget to add their nasal resonance
and the sound gets buried and gets too deep
and lacks that ring and that shine that we love in the voice.
The other thing is that the larynx sometimes can get
shoved down and can stay too deep, too dark,
when we're doing O.
So O, O, could get a little bit too depressed
or down with the larynx.
So those are some of the problems with the O.
Some of the limitations.
Now let's talk about oh yes, some of the benefits of the O vowel.
The benefits of the O vowel are many.
First of all, we just talked about that larynx being too far down.
Well, what if your problem is that your larynx is too far up?
Right?
A lot of people have that squeezed, high larynx.
The O vowel could really help us
get a darker, deeper, rounder larynx.
Right?
So if your sound is too bright,
too high of a larynx, too squeezed,
the O vowel is going to help you find a
little bit more neutral or low larynx.
Another common issue people have is, of course, spreading.
And we're going to look at this in a second with a song,
but hopefully you're not singing "Ow",
but you're singing O.
And the O vocalizing on that can help prevent the spread.
Finally, we also know that we don't want jaw thrust.
And an O is particularly good at getting that
down and back position of the jaw, alright.
So we don't have this, but we have O
with the backwards, down jaw.
So those are a lot of the benefits that we have
from doing the O vowel and doing it right.
So now, okay, we're going to be looking at a song.
And today we're going to be working on
"Let It Go" from the movie musical Frozen.
I think I've heard this song about a billion times by now
because so many of our young ladies here in New York
and also over Skype are wanting to sing
this very, very difficult song.
It goes very high up into the female belt range.
But it has a lot of O vowels which can be a challenge.
So I thought we would look at "Let It Go" from Frozen today.
So this is "Let It Go"...
♪ Let it go, Let it go ♪
♪ Can't hold it back anymore ♪
♪ Let it go, Let it go ♪
♪ Turn away and slam the door ♪
Now you can see that I kept the roundness of the O
even way up there in a high belt.
I didn't have to spread it out, sort of like...
♪ Let it gow ♪
Right?
I didn't have to open and widen to hit the note.
I could keep the roundness of the O even in the belting.
♪ Let it go ♪
Right, I can keep that roundness.
Now that's not even the highest part.
The highest part also has an O vowel up there.
It's...
♪
♪ I don't care what they're going to say ♪
Now you can hear that up there
and that's a high E flat in a belt.
I didn't have to do "gah", I did "go", right?
♪
♪ Going to say ♪
♪ Let the storm rage on ♪
♪ The cold never bothered me anyway ♪
So there you see that you can keep the roundness,
the true purity of the O vowel even if you're belting sky, sky high.
So that's a little bit of application of that O vowel
to a high belt.
So now, oh yes, we're going to do an exercise
to help you guys master that O vowel in your technique.
So the exercise is going to be M-W-O-H-M, mwohm.
So that W sound in the front is going to round the lip corners.
The M is going to bring the sound up into the nasal resonance.
And then we're going to keep that nice round O vowel.
So, mwohm.
Try that with me!
Mwohm.
So nice.
Keeping that roundness, I love it.
So we're going to do the pattern, 1-3-5-5-5-3-1.
♪ MWOHM ♪
We're gonna keep that round O the entire time.
So guys are going to be down here...
♪ MWOHM ♪
Ladies up here...
♪ MWOHM ♪
And here we go together...
♪ MWOHM ♪
So nice!
♪
That's it.
♪
Good for you.
♪ MWOHM ♪
Nice.
♪
Good.
♪
Mhm!
♪ MWOHM ♪
Right.
♪
♪ MWOHM ♪
Good for you.
♪
Yep.
♪
Good.
♪
Mhm!
♪ MWOHM ♪
Good.
♪
You got it!
♪ MWOHM ♪
Excellent!
♪
Good.
♪ MWOHM ♪
Good for you.
♪
So nice.
♪
♪ MWOHM ♪
That's right.
♪
Good.
♪ MWOHM ♪
Keep it up!
♪
Good.
♪ MWOHM ♪
So nice.
♪
That's it!
♪
♪ MWOHM ♪
Good.
♪
Yep!
♪ MWOHM ♪
A few more...
♪
Right on.
♪ MWOHM ♪
Last one...
♪ MWOHM ♪
♪♪♪
Fantastic!
So, Rodrigo and all, I hope that that gives you
some great insights into this O vowel.
This open O vowel, and what you need to do with it.
Now you've got a great exercise to practice
and lots of great concepts for keeping
a truly great O vowel in your singing.
If you've got questions that you'd like to see us answer on the show,
you can send an email to Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com.
So I just encourage you don't lose that joy,
don't lose that passion.
If you've got people that tell you you can't sing
or you shouldn't sing, let it go.
Just like the song says, right?
Because we know that's not true. [♪]
We know that if you keep working hard [♪]
at your voice every day, [♪]
you will get where you want to be. [♪]
Get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
Or if you guys are in the New York City area [♪]
you can visit us at www.NewYorkVocalCoaching.com. [♪]
Or we also do Skype with students from all around the world. [♪]
And if you like these videos I really encourage you to [♪]
download our free app. [♪]
It's for iPhone, iPad, and hopefully more in the future. [♪]
Or you can visit www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney. [♪]
We'll see you next time. [♪]
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