At 12:36 AM -0700 4/30/07, Mark D Lew wrote:
For this particular song, my personal choice would be to sing it
like "fye-er". I think it's what the composer intended, and it's
consistent with the style in which I would sing this song,
I disagree (though not very strongly). The reason is that the two
words that are rhymed with "fire" are "desire" and "pyre"... both
words that are spoken as diphthongs, but not single syllables, and I
like re-creating speech wherever possible. However, one very famous
recording of this song is definitely "FI-YUR" and it doesn't make me
crazy. But I'd write the words "fire," de-sire" and "pyre" and let
the chips fall...
John (I think) writes:
and I entirely agree. (Oh dear, 2 or 3 syllables in "entire"; 3 or
4 in "entirely"???)
Same thing. I don't like to separate diphthong/quasi 2-syllable
syllables. But that's just me.
which is a more colloquial pronunciation not at all like proper
choral diction.
Maybe not, in American English, but writing "fi-re" encourages a
really gross pronunciation with the ugly "YUR" emphasized at the end.
Ah, this is a very important point. Colloquial pronunciation is
NEVER incorrect
True. And ugly isn't incorrect either. But it IS ugly.
"dee-sye--YUR" ugh. It will happen, and that's OK, but I don't like
to promote it.
Nevertheless, if I were editing the song I would not actually write
out "fire" as two syllables. (Nor would I write "want to" as
"wanna", even though I would surely sing it that way.)
I write "wanna" sometimes in kid songs, because bless 'em, if you
write "want to" they often enunciate every letter and it comes out
sounding unnatural. It depends a lot on the song, but I do "wanna"
and "gonna" if it feels just right. But not for grownups singing
love songs. I mean, really...
I would rather leave those choices for each singer's styling and
instincts, and if some other singers choose to sing "fire"
differently, so be it.
Bingo.
Linda Worsley
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