“The Flat Tongue Technique” and “How
do you make a vowel.”
April 2008
I just took another random scroll
through the first Google page, having entered, “flat-tongue
technique, voice/vocal training.” I did it three days ago
and, while the sites have migrated a tad, there were still
two advocates of that archaic, misguided approach, One
suggested that one “think of a rug lying flat …” or
“relaxed, possibly laying [sic] flat, never rises up …”
I had a friend, years ago—that may
come as a shock to some—who taught that very technique,
until I stood him in front of a well-lighted mirror and made
him try to sing “team,” with a really ringing “E” … with his
tongue flat. Fortunately, I had a bottle of oxygen to revive
him, after his five minute ordeal, trying to attempt the
impossible. (Oh, if you tighten the back of your throat,
just right/wrong, you can make a thin, raspy “eh,” but it’s
really not worth the inevitability of your passing out,
having never approached a pure, ringing “E.” Then I asked
him to run the gamut of vowels with the tongue in the afore
mentioned position. He had obviously not chosen to take
issue with himself for not “noticing” the arch of the
tongues propensity to nearly hit the hard palate above on
all of the closed vowels … and lower on the open.
I teach pure, clean, crisp vowels,
with ringing, spinning focus. It makes singing so much
easier with the tone spinning “way upandforward(I make it
one word),” rather than half-way down your throat. And
“pure vowels doth great high notes make!” You will find many
teachers who teach the “modified vowel,” simply because, I
suspect … they don’t know how to MAKE pure vowels.
Sometimes, when ahm sangin’ country, ah kin sang them other
kinds, too. However, my motto has always been to “Allow the
voice to assume the character and quality of the repertoire,
rather than imposing upon the repertoire, your concept of
what you might think your unique and wonderful sound to be.”
A bit pompous sounding … but, smack dab on!
In all cases, to my ear, the best
singing in any repertoire is achieved by solid, ringing
pinging vowels, focused tighter, brighter, farther forward …
seamlessly spinning in a line …in the “honk!”
One of my rhetorical questions, to
each new student or pro-in-trouble is, “how do you make a
vowel?” Ah, well, only one in seven has an idea because …
they’ve never really thought about it … Why … because the
teachers really haven’t taught it. More recently, the word
is getting out that the vowels are made by the tongue in
concert with the structure of the cavity that house it. But,
make no mistake … the tongue makes the vowel.
Go to the mirror—put on your glasses, no one is
watching—make sure you have enough light to see—and do a
clean set of vowels from “ē” (eve) to “ā” (ate) to “e” (end)
to “i” (it) to “a” (at) to “uhn” (hunt—a most important
vowel, as the “n” locks the vowel in the honk—the core of ä,
and õ). My personal favorite is the “aw” as in “ aaaaww
shucks!” Properly done, a nice full aaaaww opens the back of
the throat . long and narrow and raises the palate all the
way up to allowing part of the tone to go up and forward to
ring in the honk. It is the sound that all major opera
singers use … and most of the really good pop singers
(standards).
To sing the pure vowels it to get all
unwanted tension out of the face and throat … so that any
and all of them ring in the same spot, with virtually no
change in the intensity and quality of the tone, on a
straight line … or up and down … That’s what the core of a
great tone is all about; it is the pure vowel.. Then you can
sing anythang you want … with about two thirds or less, of
the energy you are using right now! I teach you how to do
that.
