How to Sound More Pro by Shortening Your Consonants

What are consonants, but a necessary evil between vowels?  I mean really, what kind of sounds do you think you should spend most of your time singing?  

Option 1:  fff, sss, ssh, puh, kuh, guh, lll, vvv, zzz, ck, sst…. or
Option 2:  ah, eh, ee, oh, oo, uh, ih  

Yeah.  You’re really singing when you’re producing vowels.  Vowels are where you can develop resonance, volume, projection, good tone, balanced placement, and all the other great stuff mentioned in other tips.  

The consonants are there just to make your voice into intelligible words. 

Some people emphasize consonants too much, which makes them sound less professional.  Three ways to sound more pro are:

1) Shorten your consonants, so they take up less time.

2) Soften them, so they are less explosive and lower in volume

3) Voice them, so they still carry vocalization.

Shorten Your Consonants

Record yourself singing a single line of a song.  Really pay attention to the time the consonants take to get out of the way before you get on to the vowel.  Can you shorten your s’s and f’s and n’s both at the beginning and end of the words?   

Shorten your consonants by lengthening the vowels.  And the easiest way I’ve found to lengthen vowels is to try to delay the onset of each consonant as long as you can without falling out of time.  Then you’ll feel rushed to get on to the next vowel!

Soften Your Consonants 

Sometimes when we try to give a song more energy, the energy comes out in overemphasized consonants.  The consonants gain volume, plosiveness, and hiss.  Resist the temptation and express your emotion elsewhere! 

Voice Your Consonants

Add a little voice to “sss” to make it tend toward a “zzz.”  Add a little voice to “k,” to push it toward “g.”  Soften a hard “t” to a “d” (we do this in American English most of the time anyway).  And so on.  Adding some voice to the crunchy, sizzling airflow of these consonants will make them sound more agreeable. 

Thanks to Lee Gattenby in Kenai, Alaska for reminding me about this important topic!

(c) 2010 Adrienne Osborn

Adrienne Osborn is a vocalist and performance coach based in Colorado.   For more free articles and tips, visit https://PerformanceHigh.net.