Vowel Substitution in Singing: A Practical Guide

Most discussions of vowel substitution in singing are either too abstract to grasp, or too narrow to be applied in real situations. This article aims to bridge that gap with simple explanations, concrete examples, and a clear sense of why vowel substitution in singing is a helpful tool, but a terrible thing to make your master.

Why Vowels Matter in Singing

When we sing, the vocal folds create pitch. But what listeners actually hear as words and vowels comes from the shape of the vocal tract, which filters sound through formants (resonant frequencies).

If the vocal tract isn’t shaped as intended, the vowel that comes out may not be the one the singer thinks they are producing.

For example:

• Many singers try to sing the word “on”, aiming for an “oh” vowel.
• But in practice, the vowel can drift to “uh” or even “ah”, making the note sound wide, unstable, or uneven.

This mismatch between intended vowel and actual vowel is extremely common. There’s a great many reasons this can occur, but we don’t need to worry about every possible reason for the purposes of this article.

Because it’s notoriously hard to hear vowel corruption in your own voice, singers often remain unaware of it. After all, if we could all self-regulate perfect vowels when we sing, we’d all have near-perfect singing voices!

That’s where vowel substitution comes in.

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What Is Vowel Substitution?

Think of a singer’s vowel as a rifle shot at a target. We want the vowels they sing to be perfectly on-target, hitting the bullseye dead-centre.

But if the aim veers 20° to the right at times, a quick fix is to deliberately aim 20° to the left for those tricky moments. The correction isn’t a “true aim,” but it will help land the bullet in the centre.

A vowel substitution works in a similar way. It’s a carefully chosen manual intervention that artificially corrects for the poor aim. By choosing a slightly different vowel than the written one, we can temporarily steer the voice toward balance and even tone.

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Example: Stevie Wonder’s Lately

In Stevie Wonder’s song Lately, the lyric goes:
“I’m a man of many wishes.”

A common problem is the word “many.” On the “eh” vowel, singers often spread too wide, producing a splatted sound.

The solution? Replace the “eh” with a narrower vowel such as “ih.”

• Instead of “many wishes,” try singing “minny wishes.”

The effect is immediate: the tone evens out, the vowel doesn’t splat, and the phrase flows smoothly. This is vowel substitution at work—a quick, mechanical adjustment that compensates for an unhelpful default.

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Substitutions Must Be Precise

The rifle-range analogy shows why substitutions must be tailored:

• If someone’s vowel is only a few degrees off, a huge correction will sound unnatural.
• If their vowel is already stable, no substitution is needed at all.

That’s why vowel substitution is singer-specific and word-specific. There is no “one size fits all.”

Moreover, sometimes I can deploy a ‘perfect’ vowel modification… and it doesn’t work in a given singers voice. Other times a singer can be wildly out, but just me demonstrating what the correct sound for that word SHOULD be, will adjust them to do it correctly – no artificial vowel substitution needed.

It really is on a case-by-case basis, singer by singer, word by word. We need to listen to a singer sing the song, assess the accuracy and quality in their singing, prescribe a suitable solution to whatever issue is facing them, then review if we can improve that solution. This takes time and skill. This means, there isn’t an encyclopaedia of “correct” vowel modifications I can give to you – it doesn’t work like that.

This brings us to the final point I want to make about vowel subs

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The End Goal: Elimination, Not Dependence

It’s important to remember that vowel substitution is a tool, not a permanent strategy.

We don’t want a singer locked into always saying “mini” instead of “many.” That would be a ridiculous end goal. Singers would forever be stuck meditating on a collection of nonsense words. Not a tenable long-term solution for great and enjoyable singing.

Rather, the aim is to use the vowel substitution long enough for the singer’s body to learn the correct coordination.

Once that sensation is ingrained, the artificiality of the substitution can be progressively dropped, and the original vowel will come out naturally and evenly.

Over time, singers who work with substitutions then develop a sharper awareness of vowels in general. They start to notice where lines can be refined, which helps them sing with smoother phrasing across their entire repertoire – without having to introduce such overt manual interventions.

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Conclusion

Vowel substitutions are useful tools, but make terrible masters.

They provide quick spot fixes when a vowel splats or spreads, helping a singer feel and hear a better result immediately.

But their true value lies in training the voice to find the correct vowel shape without needing the crutch. Used wisely, they are stepping stones toward a more even, resonant, and effortless sound—one where vowels flow smoothly and lyrics remain natural.

If this is something you’d like to experience in your voice first hand, I’d love to start working with you on your voice today.

The Psychology of Booking Your First Singing Lesson

Most singers don’t hesitate to buy a mic, a new guitar, or even a software plugin. But when it comes to booking your first singing lesson, the pause is different. It’s not just about the money — it’s psychological. You’re not just buying a service, you’re making yourself vulnerable in front of another human being.

Here are three common factors that cause people to hesitate before booking their first singing lesson. I’ll also cover how best to frame these in your mind to help you take the plunge.

1) Fear of Exposure

Ultimately, you ARE going to have to open your mouth and sing in front of someone that you barely know.

Continue reading “The Psychology of Booking Your First Singing Lesson”

In part 1, we discussed how the voice is made up of various registers, connected by transition points we call bridges. Each have their own colour, sound and feel. But learning about the idiosyncrasies of the voice is hard without some context to place it in. So let’s consider some other instruments first.

In part 2, we identified how every instrument has it’s own idiosyncrasies. We looked at piano and guitar, and how each has their own rules/ins and outs that need to be learned over a lifetime of playing the instrument.

For part 3, let’s look at how this relates to the voice. Continue reading “The Colours of the Voice: How and why different registers have their own sound and feel (part 3 of 3)”

In part 1, we discussed how the voice is made up of various registers, connected by transition points we call bridges. Each have their own colour, sound and feel. But learning about the idiosyncrasies of the voice is hard without some context to place it in. So let’s consider some other instruments first.

 

Part 2: Instrument idiosyncrasies

Every instrument has it’s own idiosyncrasies. Things they do well, and things they don’t. There are always quirks that you need to learn to exploit each instrument fully.

EXAMPLE 1: The Piano

Consider the piano. Up high on the piano, one can play a very dense chord with a LOT of notes very close to each other, and it will sound good. But do the same thing down low, it’s a disgusting mess. Why is this? Continue reading “The Colours of the Voice: How and why different registers have their own sound and feel (part 2 of 3)”

I’ve been trying to write about this for some time, but it’s not easy.

Firstly, it’s a fairly abstract topic.

Secondly, so much of singing well is sensory as well as sonic. As such, trying to get less experienced singers to recognise descriptions of what higher registers should feel like without said singers having experienced it themselves, is a somewhat futile endeavour. The discussion inevitably becomes more academic than instructive.

Thirdly, it’s sufficiently complex enough that it isn’t easy to provide a concise explanation for.

Nevertheless, the idea that different parts of the voice have their own distinct qualities and ‘colours’ to them is evident when you listen to great singers. Whether that’s great classical singers, pop singers, rock singers, musical theatre, etc.

The objective of this article is to help people appreciate this as a concept, and also to understand the idiosyncrasies of the various registers of the voice. To do this, and to make sure the structure of this longer articles is clear, I’ve split the explanation into three parts:

Part 1: How the voice is built – We’ll do a quick tour of how the voice is built and works, to provide context for later explanations.

Part 2: Instrument Idiosyncrasies – Before diving into discussing the voice, we’ll illustrate the same principles by referring to other more easily discussed instruments, e.g. how they work, how they like to played, what works well/what doesn’t, etc.

Part 3: Idiosyncrasies of the Voice – At this stage, we should have enough context and illustrations of the principles we are seeking to discuss, and we can grasp how these relate to the voice.

Feel free to visit these part by part rather than trying to digest it in one go. Either way, let’s get started with part 1.

 

Part 1: How the voice is built

You can read a more fully-featured discussion on the way the voice works here. For now, let’s do a whistle-stop tour.

At the bottom end of our instrument, is what many refer to as chest voice. This is the lowest and darkest sounding register of the voice.

The top end of the voice is, broadly speaking, referred to as head voice.

The chief transition point from chest to head voice occurs in different places for men vs women, but it must nevertheless occur. In our nomenclature, we call this the first bridge (also known as the first passage (passagio), etc).

There are other bridges (read: transition points from one register to another), lying within what we would call head voice. There is a second bridge, a third bridge, a fourth bridge, etc.

These occur at distinct points roughly every half octave, but the first and second bridges are by far the most well-observed aspects in the history of vocal pedagogy.

Who should learn to deal with their first bridge?

Honestly, everyone should. Here’s why. Continue reading “The Colours of the Voice: How and why different registers have their own sound and feel (part 1 of 3)”

Here’s something interesting I’ve noticed over years of coaching.

People put themselves in boxes.

What do I mean by this? Well, in the main, people tend to classify themselves as one kind of singer (e.g. “I’m a soft singer-songwriter”, “I’m a hard rock shouty/screamy singer”, etc). And VERY often they are making this decision as an ill-informed choice based on their current limitations rather than what they are actually suited to… and when we remove those limitations, their TRUE preferences reveal themselves.

Let me explain with some based-on-true-singers examples…

Anna
Let’s say I get a classical singer (not trained) called “Anna”. She sings the highest soprano part in her local choir and NEVER sings the lowest notes. She says she loves singing in that part of her range and it’s where she sounds best.

OK, we’ll accept that for now and more onto our next example.

Bob
Let’s say I get a singer in called “Bob”. Bob has a soft voice, so he sings soft singer-songwriter songs, often very lilt-y and very breathy. He says he sings them because he likes that material.

Now it’s not that Bob is being untruthful, but it’s impossible to say whether he TRULY loves that genre of music because he loves it, or because that is ALL he can sing because of his current vocal limitations.

Carrie
Let’s say we’ve got another singer, “Carrie”. Carrie has a loud and full voice, so she tends to sing belting musical theatre with a narrow range because she finds she sounds best on the lower notes. Again, it’s not that Carrie is lying, but her current limitations prevent her from utilising her upper range, so she categorises herself as a particular type of singer to side-step that her vocal limitations have literally put her in a box.

Dana
Let’s say we’ve got another singer “Dana”. Dana wants to do riffs at every possible moment in every song, even when it’s not always appropriate. When we ask her to hold a note, she finds she struggles to do so, sustaining and vibrato is not present (some limitations there).

In Dana’s case, we’ve got someone who wants to riff all the time – but why? It’s the only thing she can run to in order to disguise her lacking vibrato and the ability to sustain notes.

In all of the above cases…
…these singers have categorised their musical output based on vocal limitations… which are not absolute, but merely their current vocal stage of development.

What tends to happen with these singers with training
Now I have had SCORES of people within each category, and there’s still more categories I could describe, but here’s what happens as we train their voice

As we fix the underlying technical issues, their REAL voice appears, and their REAL preferences start to emerge. The “classical” warbly singer suddenly discovers low notes are possible and they acknowledge they’ve always secretly wanted to sing gospel but never thought they could. The soft singer songwriter admits they always wanted to sing some belting pop. The musical theatre belter realises they want to still sing musical theatre, but they’ve always loved the extended range melodies that they thought were out of reach. The riffing wannabe superstar suddenly realises the power of simple ballads sung with quality and they realise they find the riffing far too fatiguing for the output they get.

Conclusion & Your Challenge
If we could erase your vocal limitations, what would you CHOOSE to sing?

Not because it’s the “in-thing”, not because you think other people want to hear it, but because YOU would love to sing it.

Just take 5 minutes (or maybe longer) to be honest with yourself, and really ask what you want to sing if you didn’t have the limitations you currently had. Seriously, be honest with yourself, and you may just surprise yourself.

Here’s something I thought would be a fun feature, a challenge for you once a month, where I pose an idea to you, and (if you’re game, which I sincerely hope you are) you give it a go…

This month’s challenge:

Learn a song in a COMPLETELY different genre to your usual selection.

If you like rock, try some RnB.

If you like classical, try some pop.

If you like musical theatre, try some singer-songwriter material.

These are not restrictive choices, just some genre pairs that don’t typically go together to give you an idea of the direction to go in.

Step 1: Browse YouTube

Whatever you normally sing, try spending 15 minutes browsing Youtube (or even my blog!) for suggestions that might sit outside your normal repertoire choice.

Step 2: Listen to an album or playlist on repeat

Immerse yourself in an alternate genre. Notice how the music and singers have to do things differently. Either longer held notes, or shorter/more staccato notes. Perhaps the timbre is more aggressive vs more genteel. Whatever you’re used to, different genre’s ask different things of your voice.

Step 3: Have a go

Then, have a bash at it. And by that, I don’t just mean sing it once and give up or remain satisfied. Spend a bit of time learning it every couple of days, and try to polish it to a similar standard as your other songs. You may love it, you may hate it, but every song has it’s own little nuances that can make even the most hardened ear go ‘ahhhh, THAT’S new!’.

You’ll be surprised what you discover about music when you really try and capture another genre’s little idiosyncrasies.

Some of you will find yourself still not especially digging the song, but finding there’s certain things that are tricky or even cool about the alternate genre. Some of you may even want to modify how you do some of your more established pieces based on the new things you find out about the alternate genre… and in some cases you may even find an entirely new genre you want to turn your attention to… I had that exact experience when someone suggested I check out some old soul ballads – SO wonderful to sing.

Give it a shot, see what you come up with.