Singing, Speaking, Walking, Running

If you can speak, you can sing. How many times have you heard that? It is, in my experience, a true statement, but it doesn't take account of the factors that can lead many of us to feel unable to sing, even though we speak all the time.

If you can walk, you can run. Does that sound more plausible than the previous question? Do you at least feel that progressing from one to the other is possible?

It can be helpful to think of the relationship between speaking and singing as being akin to walking and running. Walking is an everyday, functional activity that gets us from place to place and which hardly occasions a second thought from those of us who are able to do it - as is speaking. Running, by contrast, involves using our legs in a broadly similar way but for many of us it can seem impossible to sustain for any length of time. Ever since school, I have been convinced that I was not cut out for running longer distances, even though I'm generally OK at physical activity (e.g. my Song Cycle). I've had a couple of attempts at getting into a running habit, but each time I've ended up either giving up because of injury or because I didn't feel I was making any progress.

That changed for me when I was taken along to a group training session by two colleagues (thanks, Mike and Vanessa!) while on tour. With proper preparation, stretching, and some examples of good and bad running technique, I found that actually I was able to run after all, and that I really enjoyed it! I didn't injure myself, and I was able to go further and faster than I'd ever thought possible. What changed?

Relative to their everyday counterparts speaking and walking, singing and running both require more sustained energy input and greater coordination of muscle groups. When using our bodies in a more intensive way, we run a greater risk of getting fatigued or even injured through less-than-ideal coordination. If the way you walk places undue stress on certain joints and muscles it will take years to feel the full effects, but if you start to run then you'll feel those stresses and strains only too soon. These higher-energy, higher-coordination activities are precisely where we benefit most from coaching - running is much easier when you learn to work with your body, rather than trying just to push on with brute force, and the same applies to singing. In that training session, I was able to see for the first time that the way I'd been running before was both making it harder for me to sustain over a long distance and leading to the persistent knee pain that I'd always encountered. The coach's knowledge helped me make small adjustments that made the whole process of running easier and more pleasurable. The same can be true for singing.

Let's think now about one of the fundamental differences between speech and singing. When we sing, it takes longer to produce the same number of words. Try it for yourself now: say 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' in your normal speaking voice. I just tried it myself - it takes about a second and a half, I reckon. Now sing those same words to the famous tune. How long did that take? It obviously depends on your preferred tempo, but it took me about seven seconds at a moderate pace, and I noted that the first note alone lasted about 1.5 seconds. That is to say, it took as long to sing the first syllable as it did to speak the whole phrase.

So clearly we have to stretch some of the sounds in the words to fill that extra time, but which ones? Do we just stretch them all equally, as if talking in slow motion? Or do some deserve more stretching than others?

Another experiment for you: sing that same phrase again, but this time stretch out all the consonants. Ssssommmmwherrrrrovvvverrrrthhhherrrrrrainnnnnbbbow. How does it sound? Were you able to find the beautiful flowing line that we associate with that melody? Now try the same thing but stretch out the vowels instead, keeping the consonants crisp and short. Sooooooooomwheeeeeeeeeeeerooooooooooveeeeeertheeeeeeraaaaaaaainboooooow. How did that feel by comparison?

Hopefully you felt that it was easier to produce a consistent tone and to join the notes into a musical phrase when you stretched the vowels rather than the consonants, even if the feeling was a bit strange. In English speech we tend to give emphasis by stressing consonants rather than vowels, so stretching out the vowels can seem counterintuitive, but if you don’t stretch them then it’s a bit like trying to run without doing up your shoes: possible, but not pleasant.

We can create sustained, resonant tone on vowels. They are, by definition, sounds in which the flow of the breath is not blocked or restricted by the articulators (the tongue, teeth and lips), and we can therefore shape our mouths to optimise the resonance. In contrast, a consonant is any sound in which the breath is blocked or restricted in some way. Some consonants have pitch and we can sing on them - 'm', for example - but none of them resonate as well as the vowels.

The pictures below show the waveforms of recordings of me doing the long consonant vs long vowel exercise on 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'. Notice how the stretched-vowel version (green) has, in general, a much fatter waveform than the stretched-consonant one (purple). You can consider the height of the waveform here as a proxy for quantity and richness of sound, so there's one clear conclusion: if you want more sound, and a more consistent tone, you need to prioritise the vowels.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: long vowels

Somewhere Over the Rainbow: long consonants

Imagine a machine that produces an endless stream of your favourite chocolate. The unbroken stream of chocolate emerging from the machine represents your endless vowels. The consonants are represented by the cutter that turns that endless chocolate into manageable chunks, making the finest cuts possible so as not to lose any of the delicious goodness.

Try it for yourself on a song you're currently learning. Let the vowels stretch right out and then crisply carve up them up into syllables with the consonants.

Want some help with finding freedom in those long vowels?

A disclaimer: of course, sometimes we want to stretch out certain consonant sounds for emphasis or effect. The trick is to learn to do this without getting tight and compromising the quality of the vowels either side!