Consonant awareness, tongue twisters & singing

This Is A Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne and Jeremy Fisher. This Is A Voice. Hello, and welcome to season six, episode five of this is voice.

The podcast where we get vocal about voice

I'm Jeremy Fisher,

and I'm Dr. Gillyanne Kayes.

And we are back on the book. This Is A Voice we're gonna be doing some exercises over the next few episodes from the book. So, and we're gonna start with a wonderful email that we got from Scott, who is a retired professor of communication and media. Mm-hmm. Thank you very much gillyanne and Jeremy too, as a lifelong educator, I have seen the positive impact excellent learning resources can have on students. This Is A Voice provided a life changing opportunity for me.

Do you know that is just, I mean, it was particularly precious coming from Scott. And he actually wrote at length about why it was so good. Yeah. And why the book had impacted on him so much. Um, but it just makes me think that getting feedback is really important. You sometimes, doesn't matter where you are in, in your life or, or how you see yourself in your career path, but to get something reflected back on you, that's very precious. Yeah. We've had a bit of that this weekend, actually.

Yes. So, um, we are gonna start with, an exercise on consonants.

Yeah. I've been badgered into doing the consonant awareness exercise with Jeremy. Well, I'm gonna be reading it. He's gonna be doing it.

Yeah. Consonants. It's, weirdly as a vocal coach it's one of the things that I focus on a lot, and I think people misunderstand consonants and how they're used and why they're there and how you do them as a singer and how things come across. There's all sorts of things that I think are misconceptions.

Yeah. And I just want to say something, which is that, I mean, you know, because you've MD'd for years, you know, um, tongue twisters are very much MD's go-tos, you know, both in the theatre and also in choral training. And I sometimes sort of think. But why, why are we doing it in this way? What's it really about, you know, other than a brain gym. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Well, I have thoughts on tonguetwisters, but we'll go into that in a moment.

Yeah. So I'm challenging him that today that's the plan.

I very rarely use them as an MD, just so that you know. Um, so Gillyanne, I'm gonna read the introduction to this is exercise 24 in the speaking effectively section. This is page 81 of the book. Okay. I'm gonna read the introduction and then, uh, you're gonna take me through each section. Mm. Clearly articulated consonants are important cues for a listener and will be more intelligible if made louder or longer.

Okay. So now you want me to read point 1 and you are going to do it?

And I'm going to do them.

Speak one of the four sample paragraphs on page 82 and use volume and emphasis to kick some of the key consonants, for example, emphasize any plosive sounds - b, p, d, t, g and the hard c (k) at the beginning of words.

Okay, well, I'm gonna choose then a different one from the one that we used in the book, but I'm gonna use one of the four on page 82. So I'm gonna use the one with all the um, stopped consonants in. Yeah. Frank King, burglar extraordinaire cracks the black coffer and slings the bling in the big gig bag, looking like a cocky rocker, but copper Dick Clark overlooks the slick burgling suspect and looks er locks ex-convict wolfgang go-kart in the clink.

You know that wasn't bad. There was one tiny, tiny slip and, um, we'll put this in the show notes, but we had some of these specially written for us. We did in, um, in a competition. I think this was one of them.

It might be, um, I'm gonna do it again, and I'm going to do it by kicking harder all of the, the stopped consonants. Frank King, burglar extraordinaire, cracks the black coffer and slings the bling in the big gig bag, looking like a cocky rocker, but the copper Dick Clark overlooks the slick burgling suspect and locks ex-convict Wolfgang go-kart in the clink.

So where, in what situation might it be useful to do that? Would you say?

Um, all the way through very rarely. Because as an audience listener, you feel assaulted by that. And also we get so involved with listening to what, what consonants are being kicked, that you actually lose the sense of the sentence.

I will say something though, listening to you do it now. Mm-hmm you focused only on those sounds. Mm-hmm . Okay. On the stopped consonants mm-hmm so you weren't kind of kicking the other consonants that were there.

Not much, no.

In, in the text. And I think that's quite important. Yep. I can see that that might be relevant in an environment where there's a difficult acoustic for an actor to work in.

Yes. Very large acoustic, um, ends of words. If the musical genre requires it, then it's quite possible that you don't need to kick the ends, but some genres do.

So give me another version.

Oh, uh, I'm gonna elongate. Um, I'm gonna do something quite specific with these stopped consonants. Because it's a stop you can't elongate any noise, but I'm gonna elongate the stop. This is gonna take a bit of time. Frank King, burglar extraordinaire, cracks the black coffer and slings the bling in the big gig bag. Looking like a cocky rocker, but copper Dick Clark overlooks the slick burgling suspect and locks, the ex-convict Wolfgang Gokart in the clink.

That, so reminds me of one of our British actors.

That's the late Harry. That's the late Harry Potter. Harry Potter was a fictional character. It's alright, he isn't dead yet.

So a very well known actor, the late Alan Rickman, who characterized Snape in Harry potter. Yeah. So absolutely immortalized. And he was known for this way of using his consonants.

When you hear somebody imitating Alan Rickman speaking, it's the first thing they go to is the absolute elongation of the consonants. And then the pause is between them.

Very distinctive.

Yep. What's so extraordinary about that is although it takes longer, uh, we get absolutely every word and there is an element of, of, um, evil or,

It's kind of like, there's a hidden agenda. There's a hidden subtext. Absolutely. There's a little bit of threat.

Ab... Absolutely. Yes. And I think, um, obviously I did the more exaggerated version so that you can hear what I was doing. If I take the exaggeration down a little bit, but I still do some of those stops. Here's what it's gonna sound like. Frank King, burglar extraordinaire, cracks the black coffer and slings the bling in the big gig bag. Looking like a cocky rocker. But copper Dick Clark overlooks the slick burgling suspect and locks ex-convict Wolfgang Gokart in the clink.

Do you know what? I mean it's just the singing teacher in me. I love the idea of. Bling in the big gig bag. Yeah. Bling in the big gig bag. It's quite challenging, isn't it? Yeah. And then looking like a cocky rocker. Yeah. I think those would make fabulous little sung tongue twisters.

Yeah. So, um, in terms of singing, what's just happened to the legato line. Because there ain't no way you can do legato line with stopped consonants like that. And the answer is you don't need the legato line. There are so many stopped consonants in this, that in fact it would be nigh on impossible to sing this really, really legato in, in the true sense of the word legato so you fake it.

Okay. So I've got a challenge for you now. Yes. I want you to sing some of it. Yes. Um, In two styles, one more like a patter song. Okay. Which is fast. Yeah. And the other, um, with some legato approaches, and we're gonna discuss how you're doing it.

Oh gosh. That's a challenge. Okay. We have not rehearsed this, um, right. Patter song. Um, okay. Frank King. Frank King burglar extraordinaire cracks the black coffer and slings the bling in the big gig bag. Looking like a cocky rocker, but copper Dick Clark overlooks the slick burgling suspect and locks ex-convict go.. Wolfgang Gokart in the clink.

That tells me that you've been an opera repetiteur in your life because that is fabulous recitative. Isn't it people. Absolutely. Okay. It's fabulous narrative singing. Yeah. Okay. Now do something a little bit more lyric or where some of it's a bit where you've got slower approaches into some of the consonants.

Okay. Um, I can tell you what I'm gonna be doing, which is elongating the consonants, but I'm still gonna keep the stops in elongating the vowels, but I'm still gonna keep the stops in. Frank King, burglar extraordinaire, cracks the black coffer, and slings the bling into the big gig bag, looking like a cocky rocker. But copper Dick Clark overlooks the slick burgling suspect and locks ex-convict Wolfgang Gokart in the clink.

I have to say, I knew you were a genius, but you have absolutely excelled yourself. And I think what's so interesting about this. Again, is it's to do with performance decisions.

Yes, absolutely.

You chose, I mean, as it happens, you chose to sing more on the ngs, like looking and bling.

Oh, any, any voice consonants, any particularly any liquid voiced consonants like the ngs and the LS I absolutely extended.

And you also chose to feature the, uh, character Dick Clark. So we had two characters, we had Frank King, who's a burglar and we had the copper Dick Clark. Yeah. And that was very, very clear. And we also, of course, we had Gang - Wolfgang Gokart. I can't even read it, let alone sing it. Um, so you were actually featuring those. Were you aware of that or did it just happen instinctively?

I'm still doing the story, even though I'm, even though I'm doing lyrical line, I'm still doing the story.

Mm mm. That is so fascinating.

Um, I mean, I personally think that's quite effective. If you wanted to go more classic, more operatic, Frank King, burglar extraordinaire, cracks the black coffer and slings the bling into the big gig bag. You would probably not do as many stops or as hard a stop in the consonants.

And that of course is because if you are wanting to, you know, if you are in an acoustic environment and you, you need to make the sound carry, you do need to feature the vowels. Yeah. Um, could you, we discussed earlier because we did rehearse some of this, we discussed earlier. What happens if you attempt to do that kind of acoustic, um, projection and you kick all the consonants?

Ooh. Oh, kicking the consonants like that? Mm-hmm. Wow. Okay.

Just do a couple of lines.

Yeah. I value my voice. Frank King burglar extraordinaire, cracks the black coffer and slings the bling in the big gig bag.

See, I think what's so interesting about that. Well, first of all, I feel assaulted.

So do I.

And I, and I'm not getting the story because everything is so kicked because we, you know, we tend to emphasize the consonants that we want people to really hear.

This is also, this is the big difference for me. And it's a huge one between diction and intelligibility. Diction is basically kick every consonant and make, make sure the audience can hear absolutely every single thing you sing, but it becomes like a machine gun and you'd get no sense from it. Intelligibility is what do I, what signals do I need to give the audience to understand what I'm saying, as I'm saying it.

And that's partly to do with performance decisions, isn't it? You know?

It absolutely is.

How do you want the narrative to go?

Um, so I might, if there are 15 kicked consonants in that sentence, then I might only kick two of them because those are the two that you... are the really important words that the audience need to hear. And I might just fade away on the others that's, which is sort of what I did. When I sang it the first time more operatically.

Yeah. And you know, the other thing is, I dunno, if you, um, clocked this, Jeremy said I'm only gonna do a couple of lines cuz I value my voice. Yeah. You use that much pressure on every consonant and you are also trying to project the vowels. You're gonna get vocally tired and I'm not even singing.

And there's something else as well, which is, it's almost like a miscon... this is another misconception, which is, um, voice is carried on on the breath. And therefore you must have a continuous flow of air.

Everything's smooth and even.

And if you are trying to produce a continuous flow of air coming out of your mouth and you are doing stopped consonants, the air has to stop. And every time the air stops in, if the vocal folds are closed and you are trying to keep the same amount of airflow going out, then you build up extra pressure underneath the vocal folds. And that's when things start to go wrong. If you're gonna do stopped consonants, you have to stop the airflow at some point.

Yep. So you will be officially stuffed if you work as hard as Jeremy did just now.

It's a technical term. yeah. Um, the exercise to go to, uh, number 24, page 81. And in fact, we have four tongue twisters like this. We've got one, which is. Frank King, which is the one I've just done, which is all stopped consonants. We've got some sublime palimpsest of Sunbeams, which is a cross... It's a mix of stopped and liquid consonants. Then we've got unsurprisingly sister Susie's sewing of shirts for sailors was a short lived career, which is fricatives.

You're showing off now.

I did notice that I didn't actually read the second half of all of them. The second half's more difficult.

Cause they do, they do get challenging.

I will say one thing though, before we finish, I'll say one thing about, um, the difference between the kicked consonants, um, and the elongated consonants, the lengthened one. The kicked consonants are much quotes "easier" to do, because they're easier to think about. You just, you just go, here's a K I'm gonna work it harder. And also with so many choral conductors saying, I need to hear the consonants and the whole choir goes "UH" behind them. And then you can hear them.

Cause when you're singing, it's going to impact on the timing isn't it. When do you arrive on the vowel?

Anytime you elongate a consonant, if you want to stay in tempo, the next vowel has to come on the beat, which means you elongate backwards into the previous note. And that's a really important thing to know. The first time you do it, it's going to feel like you are interrupting all sorts of things. Mm-hmm , but the moment you get used to it, it becomes a phenomenally good way of getting your words across without you working any harder at all.

Um, so we would love to know what consonant exercises, what kind of tongue twisters or, or, you know, routines you use with your students, um, either as a speaker or singer or things that you use as a warmup that you find effective. Let us know.

Thank you very much. We'll see you next time. Bye! This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. This is a voice.