Retuning vowels using fully interactive IPA Help which is available to PC users.

The Dropbox screen shot mentioned below shows the relevant features so that Apple users can see what they're missing. As you can see by the "red" button at the top, the user is able to sing and record the vowel and then compare it with the vowel that is highlighted, such as the "ah" open vowel is at the lower right corner. Using the form to the right of that highlighted vowel provides a demonstration of the darker form which I understand results in the tuning of the third harmonic to formant two.

It should be mentioned that these are illustrations of speech vowels and that singers need to modify the vowels they use such as to accommodate the demands of formant resonator space derivation so they match the harmonics of the pitch they are singing.

The formant spike we hear is as a result of the harmonic matching some part of the bandwidth of the formant space we have contrived and it is this space we manipulate with vowel modification.

Reg.

I am confounded John. See if this Dropbox version works. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4525282/1a60337.jpg

For PC users looking to download the IPA Help program, here is the web-site.

http://www.sil.org/computing/ipahelp...p_download.htm

Thanks Reg but the link you posted does not work. It just takes us to a login page for Picassa Web Albums.

To insert a picture in a message you should use the "Insert Image" icon in the message editor. This will allow you to either upload an image from your computer or paste the URL of an image on another website.

As Lloyd Hanson has so frequently pointed out, diagnosticians of spoken vowels are often unaware that a singer must modify the speech vowels as identified in their specialty. It is essential to be aware of this but it does, in my opinion, help to have a demonstration of the differences and the variations that result from discrete repositioning of the tongue, lips and pharyngeal space in pursuit of the ideal resonance. Lloyd has recently pointed out the importance vocally of a vertical narrowing of the mouth and the problems created by spreading the mouth horizontally.

This three dimensional approach may be more a custom of umlaut and French speakers but not so for those of broader speech habits. For many English speakers the sounds produced on some of those chart demonstrations would be heard as totally unacceptable but they are still examples of what to expect from simple vowel manipulation.