Singing Diction Tidbits #1
Have you ever noticed? Of all the special events and holidays of the year, more singing surrounds Christmas than any other. As a result, we’ve been really busy in the non-cyber world and are still speeding along piu presto (superfast).
Nevertheless, we want to stay in touch with you and reassure our followers of our commitment to maintain an ongoing dialogue about singing. So until we start answering the questions you asked us about, here’s a tiny trick about some word-ending consonants.
The letter D is what’s called a voiced plosive. Plosives have limited duration and require a miniature burst — or explosion — of air to create them; they include: B, D, G, K, P, and T. (Others like J and Q sort of count, but there are reasons they aren’t included. That’s another topic.)
Unvoiced plosives don’t involve vocal cord vibrations at all. There’s no pitch or tone to a K, P, or T. The rest of the group — B, D, and G — are voiced plosives. Add vocal cord activity to P, and you get B. Get the idea?
One of the worst things to do when you’re singing is to force extra air through a plosive to make sure it’s heard. It will explode … literally … out of the texture of the message, and in most cases it will be a huge distraction. If you’re using a microphone, it can sound like the start of World War III.
The professional secret lies in the shape of the vowel — voiced or unvoiced — inside your mouth as you finish the plosive. You need the smaller, narrower space of an “ih” instead of the more cavernous “uh.” Then you can spend less time and air getting the job done, and yet your ending plosives will be heard more clearly, without anyone having a clue why.
Here’s to passionately sung, beautifully and economically enunciated music. May you and yours find new inspiration and joy from the holidays you hold dear!
May we recommend: Andrea Bocelli, Sting, Tori Amos, Dave Koz (not vocal, but noteworthy), Jessye Norman.
A Word about Words: Diction in Singing
Contrary to popular opinion, sung English is a foreign language. Sure, some singers are naturally bilingual, but did you ever listen to, say, Bob Dylan? Not exactly clear, is he? Somehow singing gets in the way of the message.
But without the message, we could hum or play some other instrument, and get the same result without the frustration of ‘Huh? What was that?’
There’s no need to go overboard with exaggerated ‘How now, brown cow?’ enunciation when you’re a soloist. But tape yourself and listen with a critical ear. After all, you already know the words, and your audience may not be so lucky. Can you really understand yourself?
Rule One: with the exception of K and G and NG (as in siNG), virtually all pronunciation is in the front part of the mouth. Keep the tip of the tongue close to the base of your lower front teeth. That’s its natural resting place anyway.
Rule Two: as you sing higher in your range, the automatic tendency should be to open your mouth wider, with the jaw swinging easily down and back on its hinges. This means vowels like EE and OO must also open up. Sometimes that’s fine, and you’ll be understood; sometimes you’ll need to compromise and find a way to reshape the spaces inside the mouth to “purify” the vowel in the troublesome word.
Singers who want to sing well, and sing ever better, explore all kinds of alternatives to make sure the message is foremost while still sounding natural to the ear.
Check out these remarkable elocutionist singers, and learn from the best! Kiri te Kanawa, George Benson, Reba McEntire, John Denver, Barbra Streisand, Chris Tomlin, Anita Baker.
