I Pa Quick Guide
I Pa Quick Guide
I Pa Quick Guide
closed o open o
hard g soft g (more about ) later) note that y is not the symbol!
Other French differences: French is generally spoken and sung without much word stress. French is generally spoken and sung with considerable legato. If you want to accent a word, put weight on the unaccented syllable. Final consonants are rarely pronounced BUT They are often pronounced when the following word begins with a vowel This is called liason, or in English, elision. There are no hard and fast rules for when this occurs. Final e is rarely pronouned when spoken BUT It is usually pronounced as [#] when sung, but never accented. A regular dictionary will not show this in its IPA transcriptions. (You have to know.) French [%] is pronounced more towards [&] than in English. Plosive consonants like p, b, t, d, and k are less explosive in French. (less air escapes at the end of the consonant.) Nasal vowels should not be TOO nasal. There is currently an excellent introduction to French pronunciation with audio examples at: http://www.languageguide.org/francais/grammar/pronunciation/
Other German differences: Like English, much of the emotion of the language is in the consonants. It is often good to accent a word by prolonging its consonant instead of singing it louder. Double consonants are often lengthened, though not as much as in Italian. eg: bitten as compared to Italian fato and fatto. Words beginning with a vowel generally must begin with a gentle glottal. [$] is often modified towards [i] when singing. Do not modify too far! You can change the meaning of the words. Overmodification of [$] is a very common mistake in American singers singing German Italian sounds not found in German, French or English None! (sort of...) Some thoughts on Italian diction: While we have already covered all the sounds, they sometimes occur in strange contexts. Most of us are not familiar with the [*] sound, as in gli occhi. May be written [lj]. Double consonants are literally doubled when sung. They are often held for half the value of the note. ch is pronounced [k], while c followed by e or i is pronounced [t,] (opposite of English) Usually, the emotion is highlighted through the vowels, not consonants. Be careful about diphthongs!!! Really!!! See the quick guide to Italian diction for more things to watch out for
This guide is courtesy of http://artsongcentral.com