At 8:08 PM -0700 4/30/07, Mark D Lew wrote:
On Apr 30, 2007, at 1:46 PM, John Howell wrote:
Well, I don't know IPA, but could you describe what you mean by [3]
by analogy with other standard English words. Otherwise I can't
tell what you're suggesting.
Well if you don't know IPA you probably also won't know what it
means if I say "unrounded open-mid central" or "non-rhotic accent".
You've got THAT right!!
I gather you've figured out by now that [3] is the vowel sound in
"bird" as it is pronounced by someone with a proper British accent.
(Think Julie Andrews.) It's sort of like a schwa, or the "oo" in
"book", or the "eu" in "chanteuse", but it's not identical to any of
them.
I can imagine that, yes, but I would not use it. In fact I can't
imagine wanting to coach a British accent outside a theatrical
production, proper or improper!
You're a choral director, aren't you, John?
Yup. Which means I'm painfully aware of the problems involved in
sung English, even without attempting to capture dialect. A special
pet peeve of mine is the word "perilous" in The Star Spangled Banner.
With the Southwest Virginia (read "country") accent around here,
people invariably try to sing the "i" as a
schwa--"per-uh-luhs"--which I hate, and I have to coach them to use a
short "i"--"pe-rih-luhs." More than half the vowels in English--all
of the unstressed ones--migrate toward schwa in speech, but sound
entirely wrong when SUNG as schwa.
Suppose you're preparing your chorus for something that wants a
decidedly British sound, like Gilbert & Sullivan or Benjamin
Britten, and you have a long held note on "heard" or "world" or
"pearl" or "early" or "virgin". What vowel do you ask for? That's
your [3]. It's not just for singing, it's a standard vowel in the
pronunciation of the King's English, whether spoken or sung. We
don't use it in American pronunciation.
Well, as I said, I would not attempt to coach dialect, probably not
in G&S, absolutely not in Britten. At least not here in Southwest
Virginia! I greatly respect actors who CAN switch dialects at the
drop of a hat, and one of the most amazing things I've heard is the
movie in which Peter Sellers speaks throughout in a perfect, flat,
American accent.
I think part of the problem is that when people think of singing an
"r," they automatically think of the hard Canadian or upper
Midwestern "r," which is very tense and blocks the sound with a
raised middle of the tongue. And then they demonstrate it that way,
and of COURSE it sounds ugly and unmusical! But "r" can be sustained
with a low and relaxed tongue and can indeed function as a sustained
sound (I hesitate to say vowel, but in effect that's what it is).
Yup, theological discussion all right. The human vocal mechanism is
capable of an infinite variety of sounds, and someone, somewhere uses
all of them!!!
Now, whatever happened to hyphenation???
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
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
