The Raman spectra of alkali silicate glasses containing 5 to 30 mol % M2O (M = Li, Na, K, Rb, and Cs) have been fit successfully with pseudo-Voigt lineshapes of dominantly Lorentzian character in order to quantify the Q(n) species distributions. This differs from the more popular Gaussian lineshapes which have been used for the past four decades. There is an increase in asymmetry in the Q(3) band, with increasing M2O content which appears to result from the weakened Si-O force constants of some Q(3) bands due to charge transfer via M-BO bonds. With charge transfer to the tetrahedra, the negative charge accumulates preferentially on Si atoms thus decreasing Si-O Coulombic interactions, weakening Si-O force constants, and shifting the Q(n) A(1) symmetric stretch vibrational frequencies to lower values (eg, from similar to 1100 cm(-1) to similar to 1050 cm(-1)). The fraction of affected Q(3) species increases with alkali content, as does the Q(3) peak asymmetry. We propose that this extends through to all the Q(n) species and postulate that there are multiple vibrational modes for each Q(n) species which are dictated by their proximity to network modifier cations.