Friday, August 29, 2008

News you can use: Twista!

As a vocalist and an audience member, one of my vocal pet peeves is inarticulation. I feel, very seriously, that if you sing with lyrics - it's important that every word to be understood so the audience understands what you're singing about. Otherwise, why sing with words??

So to aid in the agile, facile delivery of words, here's some fun tongue twisters to get those jaws loosened and get you speaking and singing clearer than ever while have loads of...well... fun! Why a giggle or two over a groggy gurgle or grumpy grumble will make clarity a hoot! Say the following exercises 4x round, take a breathe and then move on. Do it again 2x as fast. Now you try:

Nice & easy starts things off...

A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk,
but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

then...

A flea and a fly flew up in a flue.
Said the flea, "Let us fly!"
Said the fly, "Let us flee!"
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

On to more challenging fare...

Betty Botter had some butter,
"But," she said, "this butter's bitter.
If I bake this bitter butter,
it would make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter--
that would make my batter better."

So she bought a bit of butter,
better than her bitter butter,
and she baked it in her batter,
and the batter was not bitter.
So 'twas better Betty Botter
bought a bit of better butter.

More wondrously wordy words and phrases - check out the official Tongue Twister Database:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8136/tonguetwisters.html

See a darn good demonstration:




Tired already? Let's loosen up our jaws in another way - here's our current President having some tongue twisting issues of his own...

No comments: