[BariTenor17]

First of all, I'm gonna say how much I'm missing you guys while I'm back home in Berea for the holidays.

To extend the topic of dipthongs that so many people have viewed the past two weeks, it is important pay close attention to consonants in music as well. After all, they make one word distinct from another. One of my favorite and silliest vocal exercises is to sing "Amazing Grace" with no consonants at all. If you don't laugh yourself silly at that one, you're just not human.

First of all, there are two main phonetic families of consonants: voiced, which have pitch, and unvoiced, which do not.

Voiced consonants have are sung and spoken with a pitch, and utilize the tongue and lips for their creation (mostly). I'll start a list of voiced consonants, and you try to provide the rest:

b, d, g (as in go), j, l,.....

Unvoiced consonants, however, as also known as aspirate consonants, because their creation is made up strictly of air released without pitch. These consonants are somewhat "percussive", meaning that they sound like vocal imitations of percussion instruments. The teeth tend to govern the sounds of these consonants. Here are some of the unvoiced consonants:

k, f, h, ....

How do these concepts apply to vocal technique? There are three main ideas that come to mind:

1) The pitch of a voiced consonant at the beginning of a word should match the pitch of the first vowel in that word. What happens in amateur ensembles is pitching the consonant lower than the vowel, and sliding up to reach the correct pitch. All too often, the ensemble never reaches the correct pitch when sliding up, and that leads to flatting the actual key of a whole song--an intonation disaster.

2) An unvoiced consonant at the beginning of a word should occur a fraction of a second before the beat of that word--i.e., the pitch and the vowel should match up exactly. Otherwise, the ensemble produces what I call a "machine-gun" start. "t-t-t-t-t-t-t-take me out to the ballgame". Yuk. The same principle applies to the ends of words with unvoiced consonants; how many times have we heard vocal ensembles and quartets sing "yes, Lord-d-d-d-d--d!"?

Finally, the third point is that two consonants in particular, w and y are actually vowel diphthongs where we reverse our traditional rule. "W" starts with an "oo" sound (the pure vowel u), then moves to the first vowel sound in the word. "Y" starts with the "ee" sound (the pure vowel i) and then moves to the first vowel sound in the word. Here are some examples:

"what" is actually [uat], where u and a are pure vowels (see previous post).

"you" is actually [iu], and actually has no consonant sounds at all.

For these two consonants, the initiating vowel and the follow-up vowels must match in pitch. That means (with the exception of a few jazzier cases) that one shouldn't slide through the "w" and "y" sounds.

I hope this sheds a little more light on some common vocal production downfalls. As in any art form, there are times when exceptions to these rules take place, particularly in jazz and blues.
_________________
"BE-HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII" <gasp> "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNND!"

[Jacey]

In a class I teach for adults, I recently did the “unpardonable.”

　　I gave the class homework! (world of warcraft power leveling)

　　The assignment was to “go to someone you love within the next week and tell them you love them.

　　It has to be someone you have never said those words to before

　　or at least haven''t shared those words with for a long time.”

　　Now that doesn t sound like a very tough assignment, until you stop to realize that most of the men were over 35

　　and were raised in the generation of men that were taught that expressing emotions is not “macho.”

　　Showing feelings or crying (heaven forbid!) was just not done. Aion kina

　　So this was a very threatening assignment for some.

　　At the beginning of our next class,

　　I asked if someone wanted to share what happened when they told someone they loved them.

　　I fully expected one of the women to volunteer6, as was usually the case,

　　but on this evening one of the men raised his hand.

　　He appeared quite moved and a bit shaken.

　　As he unfolded out of his chair(all 6 2" of him), world of warcraft gold

　　he began by saying, Dennis, I was quite angry with you last week when you gave us this assignment.

　　I didn`t feel that I had anyone to say those words to, and besides,

　　who were you to tell me to do something that personal8?
　
　　“But as I began driving home my conscience started talking to me.

　　It was telling me that I knew exactly who I needed to say I love you to.

　　You see, five years ago, my father and I had a vicious disagreement and really never resolved it since that time.

　　We avoided seeing each other unless we absolutely had to at Christmas or other family gatherings.

　　But even then, we hardly spoke to each other.

　　“So last Tuesday by the time I got home I had convinced myself I was going to tell my father I loved him.

　　“It’s weird, but just making that decision seemed to lift a heavy load off my chest. ffxi gil

　　“When I got home, I rushed into the house to tell my wife what I was going to do. She was already in bed, but I woke her up anyway. When I told her, she didn’t just get out of bed, she catapulted out and hugged my, and for the first time in our married life she saw me cry. We stayed up half the night drinking coffee and talking. It was great!

　　“The next morning I was up bright and early. I was so excited I could hardly sleep. I got to the office early and accomplished more in two hours than I had the whole day before.

　　“At 9:00 I called my dad to see if could come over after work. When he answered the phone, I just said, ‘Dad, can I come over after work tonight? I have something to tell you.’ My dad responded with a grumpy, ‘Now what?’ I assured him it wouldn’t take long, so he finally agreed.

　　world of warcraft power leveling,“At 5:30, I was at my parents’ house ringing the doorbell, praying that Dad would answer the door. I was afraid if Mom answered that I would chicken out and tell her instead. But as luck would have it, Dad did answer the door.

　　“I didn’t waste any time – I took one step in the door and said, ‘Dad, I just came over to tell you that I love you.’

　　“It was as if a transformation came over my dad. Before my eyes his face softened, the wrinkles seemed to disappear and he began to cry. He reached out and hugged me and said, ‘I love you too, son, but I’ve never been able to say it.’

　　“It was such a precious moment I didn’t want to move. Mom walked by with tears in her eyes. I just waved and blew her a kiss. Dad and I hugged for a moment longer and then I left. I hadn’t felt that great in a long time.

　　“But that’s not even my point. Two days after that visit, my dad, who had heart problems, but didn’t tell me, had an attack and ended up in the hospital, unconscious. I don’t know if he'll make it.

　　“So my message to all of you in this is: Don’t wait to do the things you know need to be done. What if I had waited to tell my dad – maybe I will never get the chance again! Take the time to do what you need to do and do it now!” wow power leveling