Dear Vocalisters:
I have had a request to clarify some of the information I presented about the "Vowel Mirror" developed by Burton Coffin. I have paraphrased the questions asked followed by my answer in hopes that this may help with an understanding of the apparatus sans a diagram.
"Is the speaker connected to the earphone jack of the portable keyboard? And if so, why is there a need for an additional amplification?"
Yes, the speaker is connected to the earphone jack. The audio output from the earphone jack is very small because it does not need to be very strong to run earphones which are close to your ear. However, the speaker that is connected to the earphone jack must produce significant volume for use as the vowel mirror. For this reason a low wattage amplifier is desirable in the line from the earphone jack to the loudspeaker.
"Should the tone from the speaker be projected into the mouth?
Yes, the concept of the "Vowel Mirror" is to to generate a tone, in this case from a portable keyboard, which you then project via the speaker into the mouth cavity. You hold the speaker close to the mouth almost touching the lips.
"From which source do you hear the tone being amplified when resonance has been established?"
You will hear the tone from the speaker become louder as it is acoustically amplified by the sympathetic resonance in the mouth cavity when the mouth cavity is correctly adjusted to make this happen. It is necessary to go from a back vowel (/u/) to a front vowel (/i/) (or a front vowel (/i/) to a back vowel (/u/) in a continuum to find the vowel that best achieves this goal. In effect you are tuning the mouth cavity to the pitch being played into the mouth and because each vowel tends to favor certain pitches only certain vowels will respond to achieve maximum resonance with a given pitch.
"Can you once again define the items making up the vowel mirror and how they are to be connected?"
The portable keyboard is connected via its earphone output jack to the input of a small audio amplifier and a 3" loudspeaker is connected to the output of the small amplifier. Thus the loud speaker will play whenever a key is pressed on the keyboard. You select pitches on the keyboard in this manner and you sustain these pitches by continuing to press the key for the pitch you selected.
"Once again, how is the vowel mirror used.
Youhold the loudspeaker close to the mouth and project the tone into the mouth cavity. In order to achieve resonance in the vocal tract only, you must take a medium breath and hold the breath thus closing the vocal folds. If the vocal folds are open you will be attempting to find the resonance of not only the vocal tract but also the area below the vocal folds (sub-glottal) and this is unnecessary.
You silently mouth vowels (no whispering) , preferably beginning with the /u/ vowel and moving toward the /i/ vowel in a search for the vowel or vowels that will achieve maximum resonance for the pitch you are using . Most often you will be able hear an increase in the volume of the loudspeaker tone on the /a/ vowel as you approach it from the /u/. As you progress to the /i/ vowel you will notice that the increase in the loudspeaker tone occurs an octave higher, that is, you will notice more of the first partial in the acoustically amplified tone. This assumes, of course, that the sound you have chosen to use from the portable keyboard includes some partials. Coffin used the flute tone on the keyboard but I have had more success with a square wave tone because it includes all of the odd partials. You can find this quality on some portable keyboards with the oboe tone. I have used a saw tooth wave, which contains all of the odd and even partials (and is not available on a portable keyboard) but it is so rich in partials that tuning the vocal tract to a portion of his spectrum is almost impossible.
Once resonance is achieved you stop playing the tone, take a new breath, and sing the vowel you just resonated attempting all the while to replicate the adjustment of the vocal tract that you used to achieve resonance with the vowel mirror. This is much easier than it sounds because the body has such fine muscle memory that you are able to achieve near perfect replication of the new found vocal tract adjustment immediately after the new breath. It also helps to sustain the adjustment found for the resonated vowel during the inhale of the new breath. This is also excellent training because it encourages the singer to prepare the intended vowel on the inhale.
All vowels can be "found" using the vowel mirror. But you will discover that some vowels do not work well, or at all, on some pitches whereas these same vowels will work well on neighboring pitches. This phenomenon occurs because the pitch selected, and its associated partials, do not match either of the two vowel formants for the selected vowel, consequently that pitch will will not achieve resonance in the vocal tract for that vowel.
The /u/ vowel does not require the extreme pursing of the lips to be resonated. In fact the /u/ vowel achieves better resonation with the vowel mirror if the lips are only slightly pursed but are in a gentle smile position much as one does when responding to a tidy bit of gossip about a friend. The same is true for the /o/ vowel.
Once you are able to "find" the resonated vowels quickly and easily with the vowel mirror, you will discover that you have also achieved a "memory" of how these adjustments of the vocal tract feel and you can find them quickly without the vowel mirror. You will then use the vowel mirror only for warm-ups and to find that occasional, difficult resonance adjustment on a particular vowel in a song or aria. -- Lloyd W. Hanson
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