Sound of vowel æ

I'm reading Ann Cook's book on American Accent Training and she says:

æ is a combination of the tense vowel /a:/ and lax vowel /e/

Is this a true statement? I tried hard but I couldn't glide into that. from /a:/ to /e/ in order to produce /æ/

Solution 1:

I think that's a confusing way to explain the sound of /æ/, though not categorically wrong. Like /a/, /æ/ is made with the lower jaw descended relative to other vowels. /a/ and /æ/ are both slightly nasalized. Like /e/, /æ/ is pronounced with the tongue body pulled forward (while /a/ has the tongue body in more of a neutral position). As others have pointed out, both /æ/ and /e/ pattern phonologically with the lax vowels (which only very rarely appear at the end of a word).