Vowels are the basis of vocal sound. All vowels must be uniformly produced by all members of the chorus. Vowel sounds for any word must be correctly pronounced.
Most common Vowel Distortions
- Failure to resonate vowels naturally, in a uniform manner
- Use of the wrong vowel sound, resulting in mispronounciation
- Sustainging the incorrect vowel sound of a diphthong or triphthong or turning to the secondary sound either too early or at different times
- Failure to sing the final sound of a piphthong or triphthong
- Failure to produce musical vowel sounds
Bold = target vowel sound and 80/20 rule applies in Diphthongs / Triphthongs unless otherwise noted (the target vowel gets 80% of the singing time)
Pure Vowels
- Long —
- EE – see
- AH – hot
- OH – so
- OO – too
- Short —
- EH – set
- IH – pick
- UH – mud
- Ǽ – jazz
Diphthongs
- EH-EE = “a” as in day, play, say, etc.
- OO-AH = “w” as in water, walk, etc.
- OO-EH = “w” as in when, where, wet, etc.
- AH-EE = “I” as in isle, eye, I’ll, my, etc.
- OH-OO = “O” as in grow, rose, slow, etc.
- EE-OO = “U” as in you
- EE-EH = “YE” as in yes
Triphthongs
- OO-AH-EE = as in why, wine, white etc.
