Most Resonant Vowel

[Guest]

Just curious.... what is the most resonant vowel? That creates the most overall resonance or "physical" sound vibrations through all pitches of the voice. Hope someone can help answer this!! Also what is the correct embouchure for that vowel?

- JayMC

[Owen Korzec]

All of them.

They are all resonant, they just resonate differently, and depending what pitch you at, it might not resonate as well and you'll have to modify it. But there is no such thing as a universal most resonant vowel.

[VideoHere]

may i add this is something that i believe can get easily overlooked when you are a d.i.y. learner. you need to know when a vowel is right in the pocket and when it's "off" because the irony is you can still sound decent and be off..

with classical singing there is no margin for error...with pop you can be a little bit sloppy

i always say it's very similar to tuning in a radio station on an old slide rule analog radio.....(old school electronics).

my brother ron must know what i'm talking about

...for the younger folks, before there were digital tuners you had to manually tune to a station. if you didn't get it just right, there was static....yet you could still listen to the station....but when you tuned it just right, the static was gone, and the station came in crystal clear.

i don't know how many friends i had that didn't know how to properly tune a station with an analog tuner....so many would be slightly off and either didn't care about the static or couldn't hear it.....lol!!!!

it's the same with your singing vowels...a good teacher will hear your vowels and teach you to make adjustments to make them efficient and maximize resonance.

that's how you can tell a really great singer from a good one.....they just have such precision with their vowels.

[MDEW]

I have to agree with the others. I recently recorded a song that ended a phrase with a drawn out "You". When I listend back to the song the words sounded in the same "Pocket" or gave a consistant tone except for that "You". I had to fool around with it for a while to get the same tonal effect through all of the words.

Some have mentioned before to find the vowel that feels right and is most resonant for your own voice and shape the other vowels from there.

The vowel that is most resonant may be different for each of us.

[VideoHere]

the skill with hitting the bullseye for the vowels is what makes singing feel easier....i find when you're off on the vowels you get a sense of blockages.....when you hit them right it feels like they're all going into appropriate slots without scraping the edges......and sometimes the slot can feel very deep.

[ronws]

Bob's right about the differences. Digital tuning is mostly solid state and these days, with computer based streaming radio and streaming video and music to your mobile device, it's not really different "channels" like old. You are still getting it from the same wi-fi.

Back in the good old days, when Bob and I were young lads, radio stations were actually different frequencies. And the way to tune in was with a variable capacitir (more sturdy than variable inductor coils.) This changed the resonant frequency of the "tank circuit." At one point, you would have the strongest signal. Going past, either way, you would hear the signal get more crackle, hiss, and pop, as you were getting away from it.

Point being, in such as classical music, you are looking for the "fidelity" of being exactly on pitch and in full resonance. As opposed to pop music, where if you sound a little off center, that just adds "character." I think we all know of some singers who were and are pitchy but they have made more money than two old dinosaurs will make.

I also think, ala Jens, that our first musical experiences can go quite a way toward defining our own sound ideals.

[Steven Fraser]

Just curious.... what is the most resonant vowel? That creates the most overall resonance or "physical" sound vibrations through all pitches of the voice. Hope someone can help answer this!! Also what is the correct embouchure for that vowel?

- JayMC

JayMC: Depending on the note and voice type, its 'Ah'. The formant structure of Ah has a high first formant and low 2nd formant, so they form a single, very tall, very wide resonance region. When men are singing this vowel below the passaggio, especially in the low and mid range of the voice, a large number of harmonics are in this frequency region, and are emphasized.

For trebles (unchanged voices, and for women above the passaggio), and for the same reason, the note range is above the passaggio, though the harmonic that is most prominently emphasized is the fundamental.

The 'correct' embouchure for this vowel is the one that makes it the most resonant :-) in an individual voice.