Could someone explain to me what Vowel Tracking means. I went to a concert recently where Nelsons Mass was performed and the Soprano had a very strange face, it was sort of contorted all the time into this cheeks up, forced smile. The MD said he thought she was doing vowel tracking. I just thought it looked incredibly uncomfortable, she never once relaxed her face from this position when singing.

It's an attempt to equalise the harmonics in each vowel so they all ring the same.

It is, however, totally redundant if technique has been taught properly.

It shouldn't look so contorted from the outside, but often it does - usually when it has been taught by those who subscribe to the 'smile' school of singing (equally horrible technique).

Sadly, singers often exaggerate it to show how much 'technique' (ahem) they have. You may also hear it called aggiustamento, which is prententious-twit for changing the vowel a bit as you go up (unless it's being said by an Italian, of course - in which case it's just a word!)

It does horrible things to the pharynx if not executed extremely precisely (as does smiling) and as it's completely unecessary, it's generally best avoided.

It looks funny too for the public if it's not perfectly done.

Sadly, things are only changing very very slowly indeed in the technique world - people do love to hold onto redundant stuff.