Mormon Tabernacle Choir vowel variations
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I departed a total of about 260 miles from my Route 30 / Lincoln Highway running route to come down to Salt Lake City for a few perduring reasons.
1. From the time I was a little boy, I have always wanted to float in the Great Salt Lake.
2. From the time I was in junior high school, I've always wanted to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in person.
3. From the time I was in high school, I have always wanted to visit the world's greatest collection of genealogical records, created at great expense and effort by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
Last night I was privileged to hear the MTC — all 360 members, plus 110 members of the orchestra — during their Thursday evening practice session. Of course, the director paid a lot of attention to emphasis, volume, tonal quality, pronunciation, breathing, and so forth, but what amazed me most of all was the amount of time, attention, and care he devoted to variations in the quality of vowels.
At first I was going to refer to this phenomenon as vowel gradation, but then I realized that expression has been coopted for ablaut and umlaut. So I'm referring to it as vowel variation. What was particularly stunning was the fact that the quality of the vowels he demonstrated was intimately related to the melodic contours being performed. The director paid exceedingly close attention to this linkage, and the 360 members of the choir responded immediately and exactingly.
I don't think that any notation system (IPA or other) could record on a two dimensional surface the fine gradations / variations of the director's demonstrations. It had to be done orally and even visually by perception of the director's vocal apparatus (mouth, throat, lips, and — to an extent — tongue): high, low, front, back, middle, rounded, closed, and so forth, including glissandos from one to the other. It is this dedication to the precise analysis of tone production that accounts for the smooth, full, rich sound of the MTC. Although there were 360 voices, the result was that of an intimate ensemble.
The acoustics of the tabernacle (built 1863-1867) are perfect, so I could hear every detail, though I was sitting at the back of the hall in the balcony. One of the demonstrations of the superb acoustics of the MT is that someone can tear a piece of paper at the front of the hall and you can hear it clearly from any spot in the auditorium.
Selected readings
- "Vowel chart body art" (12/26/09)
- "Tabernacle Choir" (Wikipedia)
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
September 20, 2024 @ 9:38 am
Victor Mair wrote:
Can you "connect the dots" for us? In other words, to which "melodic contour" does a "high, low, front, back, middle, rounded, [or] closed vowel" correspond?
Coby said,
September 20, 2024 @ 10:56 am
What language(s) was the choir singing in?
Jeffrey Kallberg said,
September 20, 2024 @ 11:17 am
The focus on vowel pronunciation and shaping is not unique to the MTC. It's a pretty basic aspect of choral training – any choral conductor worth their salt (perhaps even the salt in which you hopefully floated) will devote significant portions of their rehearsals going over the nuances of vowels (no matter the language of the text). This makes sense, since the majority of duration of any sung note will always be given over to vowel sounds.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
September 20, 2024 @ 12:24 pm
Jeffrey Kallberg said,
Yes, but what is the choral director _doing_ to "tease out" those vowel sounds? In other words, what's the difference in singing in a language with 2 vowel sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDgCNe1JRVI versus one with 31 vowel sounds: https://youtu.be/rjo8h5qLpU0?t=25 ?
Aardvark Cheeselog said,
September 20, 2024 @ 1:22 pm
Came here to say basically what Jeffery Kallberg does upthread: close attention to vowels is part of the basic training of any singer in the Western classical art music tradition. Speaking not as a vocalist buy somebody who bought lessons from an opera singer for two daughters. They are paying attention to that from day 1.
Andrew said,
September 20, 2024 @ 1:24 pm
"a few _perduring_ reasons."
I don't I've never seen that word before – it seems to be an obsolete version of "enduring", but also "existing in such a way as to possess distinct temporal parts", which presumably is the intended sense here.
Victor Mair said,
September 20, 2024 @ 4:22 pm
@Benjamin E. Orsatti
"…what is the choral director _doing_ to 'tease out' those vowel sounds?"
He did it by demonstration / comparison / contrast, enunciating first the natural instinct of the choir members to pronounce the word the way they would in normal speech, then he would say, "not that way; do it this way", and he would demonstrate the vowel in the changed fashion he wanted, in combination with the required tonal contour, and it would always come out sounding better, even though counterintuitive to normal speech.
Julian said,
September 20, 2024 @ 4:24 pm
@benjamin e orsatti.
For example, high notes (that is at the high end of your range) are easier with high front vowels, and low notes are easier with low back vowels. If the words don't suit that, you need to bend the vowel, hopefully in a way that the audience won't notice.
Good song writers pay attention to this.
I often find, singing a stanzaic folk song, that in stanza 1 the high note is easy, but in stanza 2, matched with a low back vowel, it's hard.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
September 20, 2024 @ 4:55 pm
Thanks, Prof. Mair & Julian — those two explanations were the planks missing from my semiotic bridge!
This is all fascinating. So, for example, it's not by accident that Mario Lanza hits the high note at the end of "nessun' dorma" on the "ce" of "vincero", stabilizes, and then "leaps off" from the "ce" to the "ro"?
Jenny Chu said,
September 20, 2024 @ 11:36 pm
As a choir director myself, I aver that the most important thing is the uniformity of the vowel sung – whatever it might be – rather than the selection of any particular vowel for any particular note: it directly impacts pitch as well as the more obvious tone quality. It is one of a choir director's biggest challenges to get a group of native English speakers who all think that their version /e/ or /o/ is the only one to match their vowels and blend. I think the singers from the MTC come from all over so it's no surprise the director has to spend a lot of time on vowel matching. They are presumably all professional level singers so he does not have to teach them the music note by note, and can afford to spend plenty of time in this.
Occasionally, I come across an ensemble where the vowels are perfectly and beautifully matched – although not the way a classically trained choir director would ask for – because the singers are all from the same, isolated home town and have the same exact vowels. The Country Gentlemen come to mind, as do, more recently, the core trio in Pentatonix.
martin schwartz said,
September 21, 2024 @ 1:24 am
In the earfy 1960s I was to the large ancient theater –cut out of the bedrock–of Epidaurus, once in the mornin;. one could hear a finer-
snap thoughot the theater, andonce in the eveninng, during a productionof an ancient tragedy, and one coud hear, again throughout the theater, the swish of the sandals as the chorus came out, as tho they were walking on microphones I was quite amazed at both occasions.
Lucas Christopoulos said,
September 21, 2024 @ 2:05 am
I had the same "magical" experience as Martin in 1989 at Epidaurus attending the performance of the Frogs by Aristophanes. The sound was very clear even though the actors seemed far away. The theater is built in the shape of an ear. In the horizon, a thunderstorm, and we could see the lightnings, all with the sound of crickets as a background. Few years later, another one at the Roman theater of Herodes Atticus with Clytemnestra by Aeschylus. I had also a similar feeling of very clear sounds on silence at the Tennoji Temple, with a gagaku (雅楽) performance.at night with torches. Probably that he laws of geometry join the natural harmony of things and expands them in space.
Mark P said,
September 22, 2024 @ 9:32 am
My mother (b. 1923) grew up in Akron, Ohio, and participated in a high school chorus. Her teacher was apparently quite well-trained and demanding. My mother talked about how the teacher instructed them about how to pronounce vowels similarly to the way the MTC director did. I can’t and don’t sing (be grateful) but even from my mother’s explanation I can hear the difference when I listen to music. I notice that popular singers almost always use the pronunciation of ordinary speech rather than that “trained” pronunciation.