Shape the vowel

The note lives in the vowel. The consonant only starts it. Stay on one pitch and change the mouth: ah, eh, ee, oh, oo, then the do–re–mi shapes. Listen should keep saying do. Same idea as the eastern vowel warm-up.

Every syllable on the hub is really a vowel wearing a consonant hat. Fix the vowel first on one pitch.

The recordings are models for mouth shape, not the only key you may use. Your do comes from the practice bar.

If Listen jumps off do while you change vowels, the mouth moved the pitch. Slow down and shorten any start consonant.

Choir directors and vocal coaches both start here for a reason: bad vowels make harmony sound like two different songs.

Five pure vowels on do

Drone on. Each cell is the same note; only the mouth moves. Hold until the check says do · in tune. If the name jumps, the vowel change pulled the pitch — shorten the consonant you used to start and stay on the vowel.

Press Play once and listen before you sing. Your turn is for testing, not for guessing.

The check names the pitch you actually sang — adjust until it matches the lit syllable in tune.

Play is that vowel, sung on your do. Hear a person say it first.

• ah — key of C
• ay — key of C
• ee — key of C
• oh — key of D♯
• oo — key of C

Recordings by Denelson83, CC BY-SA 3.0: ah, ay, ee, oh, oo. The mp3 is the same take, louder, so a phone can play it.

The same mouths are what Play uses on every degree, in whatever key the practice bar is set to. do, sol, and high do are oh. re is ay. mi, fi, ti, and the low ti are ee. fa and la are ah. me, le, and te are eh. Play also puts the consonant on the front, so the scale says doh, ray, mee, fah, sohl, lah, tee, not only the vowel. A word on the line does the same: hot starts with h, buns with b, doo with d. The counting marks 1, 2, 3, and 4 stay a tick.

1. Press play on ah. That recording is in the key of C. Listen for the open mouth.
2. Look at the practice bar. The note named there is your key.
3. Press Play. It sings ah in your key, for three beats. Then Your turn: same mouth, your key, until the check says do · in tune.
4. Do ay, ee, and oo the same way. Those recordings are in the key of C. oh is in the key of D♯. The drill still sings in your key.
5. ee and oo often slip. Ease the jaw, and keep the mouth you heard in the recording.

Solfege vowels on one pitch

These are the mouths you will use when the scale moves. Here the pitch stays on do; you practice the shape. Say the word in the table from Western singing · Solfege.

Solfege vowels are not the same as spelling. “Ray” is ay; “mee” is ee; “doh” is oh.

Practicing them on one pitch builds muscle memory before the metronome asks you to move.

Major and minor differ on three degrees — me, le, te — but do, re, and fa stay familiar.

Natural minor lowers three vowels. Same exercise, minor mouths:

Vowel shift on one breath

Legato between vowels, not between notes. The pitch stays; the mouth slides ah—ee, then oh—ay. Same idea as legato, but here you train tone color.

Songs change vowel on the same note all the time — “love” moving toward “ee” on a held pitch, for example.

The shift drill keeps the pitch on do while the color slides. That is harder than it sounds.

If the check wavers, you probably opened a new attack instead of continuing the same tone.

Uniform vowel in ensemble starts with this exercise on your own.

Same vowel, moving pitch

Hold the mouth still and let the pitch walk. If ah turns into uh on the way up, the jaw closed. The check names do, re, mi, fa, sol. The vowel you chose does not get to change with them.

Press Play once and listen before you sing. Your turn is for testing, not for guessing.

The check names the pitch you actually sang — adjust until it matches the lit syllable in tune.

If anything pinches, stop and reset on SOVT or a lower do in the practice bar.

Short daily reps here beat one long session on the weekend.

1. One vowel per play. Listen, then Your turn. The check walks the five notes and back.
2. If ee goes sharp, ease the jaw. If oo goes flat, the lips closed too far. Fix the mouth, then sing the note again.
3. When ah, ee, and oo each survive the five notes, you can change pitch without losing the vowel.

Then hold it

When ah, ee, and oo can walk those five notes, the next job is keeping one pitch steady: a long hold, soft and loud, and an onset you chose.