Nasal Awareness
As said earlier, nasalization is based around your velum. You use this muscle a lot when speaking and breathing. Even though you use the velum without thinking about it, it's a 100% controllable muscle.
Controlling your velum first requires a physical awareness of it. In other words, you need to know what it feels like to move your velum, and be able to do it in isolation voluntarily. This is not a physically challenging task at all. It's just going to challenge your brain a bit to place another "feeling" in the "voluntary movement" section of your brain.
Controlling your velum first requires a physical awareness of it. In other words, you need to know what it feels like to move your velum, and be able to do it in isolation voluntarily. This is not a physically challenging task at all. It's just going to challenge your brain a bit to place another "feeling" in the "voluntary movement" section of your brain.
Nasal Awareness - English Examples
We actually make nasal vowels in English quite often without ever realizing it. The only reason English speakers have difficulty with nasal vowels is because nasalization doesn't hold any meaning.
In other words, if I took native English speech and replaced all the nasal vowel sounds with their oral equivalents, the meaning of the words would not alter. In fact, you probably would not even notice the change.
This is NOT the case for Brazilian Portuguese. There are several pairs of completely different words in which the only thing that distinguishes their pronunciation is nasalization. Examples include "yes" and "if", and "tea" and "have."
Perhaps this example will compel you to take tonal mastery seriously: the only thing differentiating the words "bread" and the slang term for male genitalia is nasalization.
In other words, if I took native English speech and replaced all the nasal vowel sounds with their oral equivalents, the meaning of the words would not alter. In fact, you probably would not even notice the change.
This is NOT the case for Brazilian Portuguese. There are several pairs of completely different words in which the only thing that distinguishes their pronunciation is nasalization. Examples include "yes" and "if", and "tea" and "have."
Perhaps this example will compel you to take tonal mastery seriously: the only thing differentiating the words "bread" and the slang term for male genitalia is nasalization.
Your first awareness drill is to listen to and reproduce the nasal vowels that occur often in English:
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In all these cases, it's possible for you to not nasalize at all, but it is more common for the person to DROP the /n/ or /m/ consonants (defined as consonants because you are BLOCKING air) and achieve a similar "nasal" effect by nasalizing the preceding vowel.
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Velar Awareness - /g/ Sound
Now that you have some English references, let's develop an awareness of the actual muscle involved - the Velum. As I explain in the Nasal Page section of the Sound System Primer, the velum is the muscle a the back of your mouth that can move up or down to block either the Oral or Nasal passage.
Aside from this function, we also use the velum to create the /k/ and /g/ sounds. You create these consonants by directing air to the mouth but then BLOCKING the oral passage with the velum.
The air builds up behind the velum, then when you release it and let the air through, you create the consonant sounds of /k/ and /g/. The only difference between these sounds is that /g/ involves the voice while /k/ doesn't. Since vowels, by definition, need the voice, we are going to focus on the /g/ sound.
Aside from this function, we also use the velum to create the /k/ and /g/ sounds. You create these consonants by directing air to the mouth but then BLOCKING the oral passage with the velum.
The air builds up behind the velum, then when you release it and let the air through, you create the consonant sounds of /k/ and /g/. The only difference between these sounds is that /g/ involves the voice while /k/ doesn't. Since vowels, by definition, need the voice, we are going to focus on the /g/ sound.
If you repeatedly say the syllable, "gon" over and over again, you will notice that there is only one thing moving in your mouth - your velum. Do as the speaker in the audio to the right and try to develop an awareness the velar movement. |
Now, if you pay real close attention to what you're doing here, you will notice that the "n" sound is not the same physically as the "n" sound in the word "no", which is made with the tongue. Instead of using the tongue here, you will be creating that "nasal" sound effect with your velum. What's happening is, for the brief period of time that you are closing your oral passage with the velum to make the /g/ sound, you are still producing a constant stream of voiced air, and that voiced air has no choice but to leave your nose, hence the nasal effect. Now let's isolate this sound.
Velar Awareness - Humming
What you are actually doing between those /o/'s and /g/'s in the above drill is humming. Humming is the act of making noise solely through our nose. Typically, we do this by closing our lips, so that air cannot leave out mouths. As explained above, however, you can achieve this same oral-passage closing with the velum.
To develop an awareness of this do the following:
If you don't alter the humming sound when going from closed to open mouth, then that means you are maintaining the complete block of the oral passage with your velum. To further develop your awareness of this muscle, do the following:
To develop an awareness of this do the following:
- Hum a note to yourself, and sustain that note.
- While sustaining the note, part your lips and open your jaw WITHOUT altering the sound AT ALL
If you don't alter the humming sound when going from closed to open mouth, then that means you are maintaining the complete block of the oral passage with your velum. To further develop your awareness of this muscle, do the following:
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Just like the "gongongon" drill, the only muscle moving here is the velum - no other part of your mouth should be moving. In this case, the velum is being used solely to alternate between and oral vowel and humming. Note, humming is NOT the same as a nasal vowel.
Nasal Vowels involve BOTH oral AND nasal sound. In fact, it's actually the combination two the sounds - oral vowel + humming. If you think about it, it makes sense that you are producing two soudns, since the air is coming out of two passageways nose AND mouth).
So finally, to help you develop an awareness of this effect, I've created this last drill.
Nasal Vowels involve BOTH oral AND nasal sound. In fact, it's actually the combination two the sounds - oral vowel + humming. If you think about it, it makes sense that you are producing two soudns, since the air is coming out of two passageways nose AND mouth).
So finally, to help you develop an awareness of this effect, I've created this last drill.
Nasal Awareness Final Drill
Let's review:
- When you flex your velum DOWN, you get the humming sound
- When you flex your velum UP, you get the oral vowel sound
- When you relax your velum, air passes through BOTH passageways and you create BOTH the humming sound AND the oral vowel sound. This combination of humming with the vowel is known as a Nasal Vowel.
So in this final drill, your goal is to try to distinguish between all three sounds with both your ear and your velum.
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Do not move on to the next section until you are comfortable both hearing and producing the differences between these three sounds for each of the five nasal vowels. Once you have mastered nasal awareness, you can move on to the real challenge - developing Nasal Control.