Shape Your Sound: Why Embouchure is Important in Singing

The word used to describe the shape of the mouth and lips when singing is "embouchure." This fancy French term refers to the positioning and shaping of the lips, jaw, tongue, and other facial components that affect vowel formation, vocal fold compression, and overall sound production in singing.

The embouchure involves how the mouth is shaped for different vowel sounds, such as an oval shape for "ah," a round shape for "oh,".

Effective embouchure helps maintain vocal tract resonance, vocal quality and ease of singing.

An ineffective embouchure can significantly impact vocal production in several ways. It plays a crucial role in sound production for singers.

When a singer develops less effective embouchure habits, such as using too much of a "smile" position (lip spreading) it can affect vocal efficiency. This excessive smile can create tension in the facial muscles that impedes proper vocal fold compression and resonance. They may develop vocal issues over time.

An efficient embouchure for singing usually involves a more vertical / oval shape rather than a horizontal smile or other distorted positions. This positioning allows for optimal resonance, and more efficient vocal production, making singing both easier and more effective.

Moving the lips slightly forward away from the teeth will often enhance resonance, due to the vocal tract being lengthened.

Without effective embouchure, singers may experience:

- Limited vocal range

- Poor tone quality or "timbre"

- Inconsistent sound production

- Vocal fatigue or strain

Ensemble implications

Ensembles have a goal to unify their approach to vowel production.

I firmly believe that for an ensemble to produce a unified sound, there must be a reasonably unified embouchure across the singers, accounting for individual mouth shape differences of course.

How unified will this ensemble sound be?

It's always interesting to study close up photographs of my chorus in full flight, singing a song. Firstly I look for a pic that is taken when everyone is singing the same vowel. A picture tells a thousand words as they say! I'm looking for:

• Tension free singing

• Similar mouth shapes (embouchure)

• Good alignment

• Story telling (facial animation)

• Physical energy

Regional contest candid photos are a gold mine of information for both singers and Music and Visual Leaders! Apart from embouchure, photos can reveal:

• Neck, jaw tension, facial tension

• Body alignment issues

• Tongue tension

There’s been a move away from focussing on “mouth shapes”, and probably for good reason - we know that most vowel production occurs on the inside of our mouth / vocal tract, but if an ‘OH’ vowel isn’t rounded, it just ain’t 'OH'.

Lea Baker - Voice Teacher / Vocal Coach

MFA Voice, ANATS, ASME, NAfME

Music / Artistic Director, Endeavour Harmony Chorus

Raise your voice / Better singing