INTONING
This is how I learned to intone. It is a difficult thing to master, but one can get the gist of it quickly. All I can say is practice, practice, practice! Start with the vowels UOAEI.
Ready? Here we go. What I want you to do is start with U as in ooo. Make your mouth nice and round and it helps if you put your finger in your mouth to get what I trying to describe. Now place it high and sing this out. Do not use vibrato if you can help it. What you are trying to find is a note that creates a fifth above it and a fifth below it as well. Listen carefully and don't sing too loudly. Play with your tongue, play with how nasal you get (I find this helps for me) play with where you are placing the vowel.
Now, transition the U carefully into O. This should be OH. Do the same thing and if you need to take another breath by all means do so. Raise your eyebrows, if you need to go higher. I have found that if I close my eyes I can hear the fifths better.
Now transition into A. This is not a drawn out AAAEEEEE it should be Awe. Make it nice and tall. Here is where you really need to start playing with your tongue. Still strive for that one note that vibrates the fifths.
Now what my teacher told me to do was make a wuh sound. OUA. Just try that a couple times slowly. Try not to transition too quickly, we want to hear all those vowels and the overtones that they create. And when you are doing A try not to go quickly into E, which is difficult.
The E should sound like Eh or AEEE. Transition slowly, the further you go in the vowels the harder it is going to be to keep on the vowel in question. The transition into I. This should be a drawn out EEEEEE sound. Now the amazing thing about this EEE is that you can start to hear the U again and you can repeat this for minutes on end. Just remember to breath. If you can circular breath (I can not, I will have to learn though) then power to you.
Just remember to hear the fifths and practice every day. If you listen carefully it will sound as if you are going up in the pitch as you go through the vowels. This is an illusion. You should still be able to hear the main pitch that you started with if you listen carefully.
Intoning is used by a lot of ceremonial magicians when intoning the names of gods or entities or angels. This is what is used when monks chant their mantras, save for the fact that they do it a bit lower than what I am suggesting here. You can do it lower as well, but that takes a lot of time. One can hear the fifths a lot easier when one is intoning starting at a higher pitch. I am not sure why this is, that is what my teacher taught me. You can certainly practice lower if you want, but know that this can ruin your vocal cords if you are not careful.
