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To: "VOCALIST" <vocalist>
Subject: Re: TECHNIQUE: singing "ah"
Date sent: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 10:32:36 -0500
Send reply to: VOCALIST <vocalist>

Lisa's post made me laugh remembering days gone by. I spent my sophomore
year a million years ago with a new teacher doing little but saying "Ah",
waiting for her to say, "No, that's not it" or :"that's closer" and then
trying again. Eventually I got it, but boy oh boy was that frustrating!
Apparently she wanted to use my speaking "ah" to help me find my singing
"ah", but discovered she didn't even like my speaking "ah"! Maybe because
she was from Alabama and I was from Chicago?

Anyway, if my students have a good spoken "ah", I too will use it as Lisa
does, "Say AH, good, don't move, now sing it." If their spoken ah won't do,
I might start with a little vowel exploration of how the tongue moves as the
student moves from vowel to vowel on the way to ah. We begin with E, move to
IH, EH, AH, UH, OH, OO. Once they are aware of the tongue ballet going on we
have a mutual language to use to effect a change. If her tongue is jammed up
against the roof of her mouth I can say, "say UH, now think UH and say AH."
They usually strike a happy medium and land closer to the place we want.

Even just sliding on one pitch through the vowel sequence above (E though
AH) might lead you to a happier ah. Have fun discovering it!

Laura

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisa M. Stachowicz"
(snip)It's also helpful to just say "ah" and then try to sing it in
exactly the same way without changing anything inside the mouth.