On Apr 29, 2007, at 4:24 PM, John Howell wrote:
Madeleine Marshall informs, "Never sing "r" before a consonant. (p.
9) So, she would have the singers pronounce bird as" b[3]d." I.e.,
she would maintain that the ONLY vowel in said example is [3], and
that the "r" sound does not exist. This approach has worked fine
with all my choirs.
Dean
On the contrary, "r" IS a vowel, the ONLY vowel in "girl," "bird,"
or "heard." (That is to say, since it's easy to get tangled up in
semantics, it is a phonated sound that can be sustained.) The
written vowels are effectively mute. It is a BETTER vowel (better
sound quality) if it is formed by keeping the tongue low in the
mouth and lifting the two outside edges up to touch the upper
teeth, than if it is formed by raising the middle of the tongue to
the soft palate, but it functions as a vowel, and if it quacks like
a duck, etc., etc.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Dean M. Estabrook
http://deanestabrook.googlepages.com/home
Of all hoaxes, the one which is my most vexing bête noire on a
quotidian basis, is the cereal box top which informs simply,
"Lift Tab to Open." Then, "To Close, Insert Tab Here ." Yeah,
right! In attempting to accomplish the first direction, not only
the tab but also the slit intended to accept the aforementioned
protuberance have both been irreparably disfigured and rendered
dysfunctional. This debacle is then amplified by the misbehavior
of the recalcitrant inner bag, which can not be unsealed sans
mangling it, and hence, will not disperse its contents without
exiting the box itself. All I wanted was a bowl of cereal.
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