On Mon, February 22, 2010 6:47 pm, John Howell wrote: > Yup. It was Fred Waring, and the choral charts published by his > company, Shawnee Press. I'm trying to remember what he called them, > but it escapes me at the moment. > > His point (and the way he coached his singers in the Pennsylvanians) > was that to be understandable, choral singers had to (a) pronounce > all the sounds in all the syllables in all the words, and (b) do it > all together at the same millisecond. The Tone Syllables (that may > be what he called them) were his attempt to transfer it to paper, and > it was pretty effective as long as you understood the system and what > it was designed for. > > My mom, as a choir director, was invited to attend his summer > rehearsals where he put the touring show together, back in the '40s, > and I grew up with the system. Fred was a real perfectionist (much > like Robert Shaw on the classical side), and could not abide choral > singing when the words couldn't be understood.
John, I knew you'd know ... I just didn't know quite how much! I recall seeing one of the scores and trying to 'translate' the sounds, but of course got totally confused because it looked like a foreign language and I tried to pronounce it that way -- but it was supposed to be English sounds. Amazing idea, though. Many thanks, Dennis _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
