Voice 101 page 8
learning to sing better
Tongue twisters get the muscles in your mouth moving and warmed up. Most of them will force your mouth to move from one extreme position to another very quickly which is why they are so difficult to say! You may find some tongue twisters quite easy to repeat and others to be almost impossible to speak clearly. Work on the ones that are difficult for you - these are the positions your mouth is a bit lazy on. I recommend trying to quickly repeat each tongue twister three times in a row. If you can easily and clearly speak all three repetitions you're doing well. If you're having trouble getting all three repetitions out clearly keep working on it.
For vowel sounds:
Me, may, my, moe, moo toy boat
For consonant sounds:
A quick witted cricket critic
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Seth at Sainsbury's sells thick socks
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Willy's real rear wheel
Send toast to ten tense stout saints' ten tall tents
Now that you understand your body is your instrument and found out how it produces sound you need to know some common terms that are used to describe people's voices. The following section contains some commonly used vocal terms and their definitions.
VOCAL TERMS DEFINED
1. Range
When you talk about a singer's range you are talking about how many different kinds of notes they can sing.
A vocalist with a high range can sing high notes.
A vocalist with a low range can sing low notes.
A vocalist who can sing both high and low notes has a wide range.
You can make your range wider with practice.
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