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to listen. Have the volunteers sing again, both demon- out of their mouths. Remind everyone to keep the soft
strating the “uh” and “ah” vowels. This should help palate raised especially when singing the /i/ and /u/
students hear and understand the importance of uni- vowels. Singers tend to equate more closed lips with less
form and elongated vowels. internal mouth space, and that dampens their sound.
Use the warm-up to begin teaching correct vowel Figure 5 includes examples of typical vowel exercises.
shapes. There are five basic vowels that should be prac- Extract words from songs being rehearsed and cre-
ticed daily, and a commonly used sequence is “ee” /i/, ate exercises for use in the warm-up. Daily practice of
“eh” /ɛ/, “ah” /ɑ/, “oh” /ɔ/, and “oo” /u/. This se- these words out of the context of the song will help
quence moves the vowels from the most forward in the create good habits that should transfer to the song. The
mouth to those that are in the back toward the throat. exercise in Figure 6 incorporates words extracted from
Use the hands and fingers to help reinforce the correct Laura Farnell’s Sing with the Lark. The exercise is written

vowel shape. The /i/ and /ɛ/ vowels can be sung with in the key of A to conform to the key of the song. Ask
the index fingers touching the corner of the mouth. students to sing the exercise (or one you create from
This will help singers round the lips and helps prevent current literature) and instruct them on the proper
those vowels from becoming too strident or spread. vowel shape. Record the class and have them evaluate.
Have singers touch the back of their hands to their You can also have sections sing alone and let the other
cheekbones for the /ɑ/ vowel. This should help keep sections evaluate.
the sound more resonant as it is moving toward the
middle of the mouth, and this movement also mimics
the raised soft palate. Six.
When singing /ɑ/, encourage singers to keep their Consistent Ear Training and
tongues flat or relaxed, ensuring that the sides of the Sight-Reading Practice
tongue are not touching the top teeth. For the /ɔ/ vow-
el, it might be helpful to have students use an index Intonation affects tone, so consistent work on de-
finger and make small circles in front of the lips. This veloping pitch accuracy will certainly help to improve
will help to keep the lips rounded. Creating even more tone. Teaching the choir to sight-read helps them learn
rounded lips for the /u/ vowel can be achieved by repertoire quicker and will give the director even more
having singers pantomime pulling a piece of spaghetti time to work on tone within the rehearsal. Many direc-
tors prefer to place ear training and sight-reading work
at the beginning of the rehearsal and include it as part
of the warm-up routine. Another suggestion is to relate
these exercises to the repertoire being rehearsed and
place them before the rehearsed song.
My middle-school colleagues and I had many dis-
cussions about the advantages of one method of
sight-reading over another. Most of us used either mov-
able “do” or numbers. In moveable “do,” the scale de-
grees from 1 to 8 are assigned the pitch syllables “do,”

CHORAL JOURNAL May 2025 Volume 65 Number 8 13