Seth Deconstructs PURE Vowels (w/Betty Buckley)

[@BenDGrimm]

“No vowel modification” is my gospel and Betty Buckley is my prophet. Listening to and imitating her truly transformed the way I sing

[@CraigFrancisSoto]

Betty Buckley. What a thrilling and beautiful voice. I saw her in Edwin Drood in the mid 80's. Her voice gives you chills. It just seems to cut through the air like a knife. Listen to some of the 'bootleg' audio recordings here on YT of her in the 'Carrie' show that closed so quickly in1988. The resonance and power of her voice is astonishing !

[@sushicourier]

Yay Betty! I've seen her in concert twice (with Seth on piano one time at a very small venue) and she could not be more enthralling! What a CAREER! From 1776 until today and still going strong!

[@janhoke7796]

Betty Buckley ♥️Xxxooo

[@HamCubes]

“Change the 🔑 ... kay!” Bwahahaa!

[@susansokoloski2233]

Love it! Seth is great!

[@MikeBorofsky]

Wow - that make's all the difference when she finally fixed the vowel. So much more powerful, and you actually know what the word is, but way more POWERFUL !!!!!!!

[@kateparker8546]

I learn so much from these videos 😍

[@elizabeth6824]

Yaaass thank you Seth!

[@briandelpiano3864]

You are SO right!!

[@DirectorNeale]

Thank you! This annoys me so much! I say if you can't sing the words without modifying the vowel, then you can't sing the song as written. If there aren't enough Betty Buckleys in the world (and there aren't), then theater composers have to stop trying to write for American Idol contestants, and write good songs with achievable notes. High belting is not the end all and be all. (And on the flip side, singers just need to plain train themselves to sing high notes without modifying the vowels!)

[@kevinwilson3609]

So many sang I'll bay may!!! for essentially no reason

[@yoboi01]

AGREED !!

[@marcuspd7502]

Seth, am I dreaming that Betty addressed this either with you or someone else, and said that she was told to sing the “eh” instead of “ee” vowel by her English musical director, and that she just eventually switched it back to “ee” during the Broadway run, because she thought it was dumb not to sing the pure vowel?

[@fletcherhc653]

Bravo Seth & Betty! What do you think of Lea's On My Own? kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJvJnoNtnZiaeNk

[@bengrimm1015]

Yes! Yes! Yes! These young BFA bitties are taking hideous shortcuts and singing "yo" instead of "you", "bay" instead of "be." It's awful. And they think it is soooo stylish. Stick to the classics (minus Patti, who is guilty as anyone of vowel desecration), and look to the masters for guidance! Betty Buckley is THE standard for vowel placement.

[@scottmorwitz2753]

Nope. This is when you know Seth is a pianist not a singer. #1 We aren’t all Betty Buckley. #2 As much as I Love her, this is characteristic of her sound and doesn’t always make for the same voice throughout the entire range, which is generally the goal. This would actually be the equivalent of asking a pianist to NEVER drop a note when playing or sight reading or transposing onsite. If we can hold you to that standard you can hold us to spoken vowels.

[@SethTV]

I I've been a vocal coach for around 30 years on Broadway. It's not about sounding like Betty, it's about singing the way you speak. If you obviously modify a vowel, an audience is taken out of the moment and they are aware that you are a singer and they stop believing you are experiencing what you are singing about. For sure, it is difficult to keep vowels pure on high notes and that's why keys should sometimes be transposed. But to sing pure vowels is not equivelant to saying not to drop a note while sightreading or transposing. Sightreading/transposing on sight is something that is done with no preparation. I'm talking about singers who are told by coaches to modify the vowel. The singers practice that way and they perform that way. Yes, if they're singing it for the first time, it may come out modified, but the goal has to be to sing pure vowels.

[@scottmorwitz2753]

@@SethTV They are told that by hundreds of years of vocal instruction to produce the most efficient resonance with the least amount of effort. Vowels can be modified in the back of the mouth/throat and not as much in the front for articulation. It’s just that non-singers have formed much of modern day musical theater style and so we’ve come to accept bright and some find garish vowels. The R’s that have become vowels themselves rather than trying to eliminate their harshness. It is stylistic preference that you like to hear spoken vowels, not good singing. The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, but if you are learning to sing, you’ve got to at least make an attempt to make register shifts while sounding like the same person and that is physically impossible without vowel modification somewhere along the vocal tract. I equate singing pure spoken vowels throughout a range to not dropping notes when sight reading because both are not impossible but shouldn’t be the expectation of all singers/pianists who are considers to pass muster in their profession.

[@scottmorwitz2753]

Additionally. And dear GOD I love Betty! I would argue that even in the second version on the “Me” she may have been singing eeee in the front but there was a hint of ih as in sit in the back.