Carrie Bickner

Can you hear me, Major Tom, (Bowie, 1969)

The Art and Science of Diction

I was transfixed, awash in an endless stream of David Bowie’s television appearances. YouTube decided this was what I needed today, and, as is so often the case, the algorithm was right. Watching Bowie reinterpret his material on stage and in interviews gave me a new perspective on his work. I was taken in by his articulatory system—the all of moving parts of his vocal tract—and how they shaped the color of every phrase.

Bowie’s voice is an instrument of contrasts: reedy yet theatrical: small but capable of carrying a big story; narrow in dynamic range yet broad in tonal range. He was also an excellent technician. He made up for his smaller dynamic range by developing his own microphone technique, which, in turn, became an essential part of his soundscape. By leaning into the microphone or pulling back, Bowie manipulated dynamics to amplify emotion and texture, turning technical limitations into creative strengths. He was as adept with the microphone as he was with his lyrics.

The Phonetics of Transcendence

As I listened, I could not help but notice how the shape of his words, their clipped articulation and unexpected rhythms, connected to the cosmologies he built with his lyrics. His voice and his words seem inseparable, each amplifying the other to create something singular and unforgettable.

Bowie’s phonetics are as much involuntary as they are the deliberate evolution of a style. How he formed sounds, emphasized consonants, or stretched vowels—are were choices, but so much of his sound is result of his unique physiology, and his vocal tract is one key to understanding how his music resonates so deeply. His lyrics, fragmented and evocative, function like sonic puzzles, and his voice not only linked the pieces, but opened doorways to new dimensions. He built a morphological universe where each word, sound, and phrase had a role, but that’s a story for another article. Here, we’ll focus on the phonetics of David Bowie’s voice, how it shaped his identity, and how it compares to another rock and roll icon: Freddie Mercury.

Anatomy of an Artist

The anatomy of a singer’s mouth—its shape, size, and the position of their teeth, the shape of the soft palate and so on constitute the —plays a crucial role in the shape, tone and color of a singers voice. These parts of the vocal tract are commonly refereed to as places of articulation, and together they create a vocal fingerprint. David Bowie’s mouth, for example, was relatively small, with irregular teeth that created subtle air turbulence and softened certain consonants in his early recordings.

Before his orthodontic work in the 1990’s, these “imperfections” lent the breathy, textured quality to his sound, particularly in his fricatives and sibilants. You can hear this clearly in his early work, especially on songs with spare accompaniment. On the original 1971 recording The Bewlay Brothers, for example, he sings close to the microphone giving us an opportunity to observe the mechanical elements of his voice. It is the texture and color of his voice that makes us “feel gone” and “turned on”: as much as his lyrics. If you listen to his recordings after his dental work, his sound gained a sharper, more polished clarity, though his essential vocal timbre remained intact.

I am not suggesting that one is better; this change is one of the reasons his reinterpretations of past work are so exciting. (You can hear his “new teeth” and the if you listen to this 2002 performance of Everyone Says ‘Hi. I am linking to a video of this live performance in Berlin of the song instead of the official video so that you can watch Bowie’s mouth. All of the video examples I link to will have been selected with this criterion in mind. I want you to see the best illustration of the techniques I am discussing.)

To understand just how important Bowie’s mouth and teeth are, let’s contrast his articulation with Freddie Mercury’s. Mercury had a famously pronounced overbite caused by extra teeth in his upper jaw, giving him a larger-than-average oral cavity. These physical traits were integral to his extraordinary resonance and rich timbre. Combined with his expansive resonance chamber incredible natural breath support, they allowed him to deliver big, clear notes with operatic power. Mercury only needed to drop his jaw to send a sound from the stage to the back of the auditorium. His ability to project a bold, theatrical was the result of the precise arrangement of his tongue, lips, and teeth. It’s difficult to find a song that does not showcase this aspect of Mercury’s vocal brilliance, but this 1975 concert footage of him performing Love of My Life will suffice. You’ll need to supply your own box of tissues—mine are all used up.

Phrasing Depends Upon Breath Control

Bowie’s voice and phrasing were short, sharp, and often unsupported by traditional diaphragmatic technique. His purposeful, clipped delivery made each phrase feel like important. On the 1977 title track from “Heroes,” his voice shifts from an intimate murmur to a strained, emotional cry, creating tension by manipulating proximity to the microphone rather than relying on breath support. Listen to the phrase, “nothing will keep us together,” and how each small sound almost runs out of air. The closed, and self -contained sounds of each word add to the sense of longing and isolation the invoked by the lyrics. He is not struggling, but there is an effort in his breathing as he shoots out each staccato sequence.

Mercury, on the other hand, effortlessly sucks in oxygen. Air seems to move from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. The result is a sound that is loosed like an arrow: clear, long, sustained, sweeping phrases. Watch him in this 1981 “Somebody to Love“ performance in Montreal. Watch Mercury’s mouth. Notice that his phrasing is often legato, with notes flowing into one another to create a, easy big, broad sound. Yet, in tunes like Queen’s 1977 “We Will Rock You,“  he used percussive phrasing to punctuate his delivery, blending Bowie’s rhythmic sharpness with his own fully supported, forward-facing diction. Every kind of sound he makes is technical correct and anchored in a good, sound breath.

Diction and Soundscapes

Diction shaped the soundscapes that both Bowie and Mercury created. Bowie often used clipped consonants and unexpected syllabic breaks, as in “Ashes to Ashes” (Live On Later With Jools Holland 1999) and “TVC 15,” (Live Aid 1985) to inject rhythm into his delivery. His sibilants and fricatives often carry an airy, haunting quality, adding texture to his sound.

Mercury’s articulation, by contrast, is smooth and deliberate. In “Bohemian Rhapsody,”(this is the of the official video which was directed by Bruce Gowers, recorded in 1975 for Top of the Pops) his clear enunciation of every word, even in rapid, tongue-twisting passages, adds to the song’s theatrical drama. They diction shapes the interrogative: is this the real world, is this just fantasy? The lush layering of the vocals do invite us to look up to the skies and see. But this arrangement would be nothing without Mercury’s warm and precise diction. His diction is both precise and evocative; it is a storytelling device.

Phonetics and Emotional Resonance

Bowie’s phonetics, involuntary and elected, place emphasis on breathy sibilants, clipped consonants, and fragmented phrasing. This creates an emotional immediacy that feels raw and intimate. In his 2000 interpretation of Dimitri Tiomkin’s “Wild Is the Wind,” recorded for Live BBC Radio Theatre, his voice cracks and wavers, each sound suggesting an unleashed, fluttering vulnerability. Even after years of singing lessons, Bowie never dropped this breathy fragility.

Mercury, by contrast, uses phonetics to heighten drama. His ability to move words from his mouth far out into the world, as in his 1990 performance of “The Show Must Go On,” matched with his mastery of dynamics. He used this magic to suggesting yet-to-be-discovered emotional heights, and we followed his every word. Bowie had power and drama, but he built it with his lyrics and arrangements rather than his mouth.

Phonetics is Identity

David Bowie and Freddie Mercury each used their natural phonetics to craft voices that were as unique as their personas. Bowie’s clipped phrasing and haunting sibilants created self-contained worlds, while Mercury’s operatic articulation and dynamic control transported listeners to grand, theatrical realms.

Despite their differences, Bowie and Mercury each had an ability to make the human voice a vehicle, a space ship if you like, that could transport us to another world. Bowie’s fragmented, jagged impressions and Mercury’s sweeping, operatic notes represented two distinct but complementary voices within the glam rock universe. Together, they shaped a sonic landscape that was as dazzling and outrageous as their personas, defining an era of big, beautiful, glamorous songs.

Each of their voices, their lyrics reminding us of the the hold that human sound has on our hearts and minds.

If you want to have a good time, go watch both of these rock icons on YouTube. Watch them a lot, especially their television appearances on shows like Top of The Pops and keep going until you hit Live Aid. Then turn left and let YouTube give you everything its god. I promise you will rediscover each of these extraordinary men. You will get a chance to fall in love with both of them, one more time.

Can’t we give ourselves one more chance?
Why can’t we give love that one more chance?
Why can’t we give love, give love, give love, give love
Give love, give love, give love, give love?
(Queen & Bowie, 1982, track 1)