Words, Words, Words

There are a lot of things about singing which can be fixed easily and quickly by connecting singing to speaking.  It’s simplistic to say but still true – singing is in a lot of ways just elongated speaking.  In this respect, studying English diction has a tendency to improve one’s singing because your throat and articulators (tongue, lips, jaw, etc…) already have an idea of what they need to do to pronounce the proper vowels and consonants.  

This is true of today’s aspect of singing which I’d like to touch on as well.  It’s true in every language but it’s perhaps most obvious in English because it’s your language.  In any vocal setting, each syllable of every word gets at least one pitch; sometimes two or three and sometimes, in baroque music for instance, dozens and dozens.  However, no matter how many pitches are covered by the syllables of a multi-syllabic word, the word remains the word.  Therefore, as English words only have one accented syllable, that syllable must be stressed whether or not it’s on the week beat or on a lower pitch.  Of course, composers generally take this into consideration – but not always.  Singers have to sing words – not syllables.  If you talk like a robot, you do so by giving each syllable equal attention in terms of duration and stress.  Often times, young singers do this same thing imagining that all that is needed for clarity is a change in pitch.  Not true.

I want to mention one other thing though I may write something more extended about this at a later time.  Volume is not the only factor utilized in giving a word the proper stress on the proper syllable.  Vowel brightness is the other thing.  If you have a two syllable word with the same vowel sound in each syllable – the word ‘neatly’ for instance, the second [i] sound isn’t as bright as the first.  This is obvious where the word has what should be two [a] sounds – like the word ‘drama’.  In English we just change the unaccented syllable to [Ə] instead.   Say the word with exactly the same sound.  No matter how much you deemphasize the weak syllable you can’t make it sound normal.

There is a third way to deal with this which we will talk about a lot.  But with these two ideas in mind, I have two videos by way of illustration.  Both videos are of a song by English composer Roger Quilter (1877 – 1953) called “O Mistress Mine” on a text of Shakespeare.  The first video is of a young singer called David.  David isn’t a bad singer but notice how he consistently gives every syllable (and therefore every pitch) equal stress.  He even uses his right hand (and sometimes both and sometimes his head and sometimes his whole body) to conduct big beats.  

Everyone should get to know the singer in the next video.  His name is Anthony Rolfe-Johnson and he died just a few years ago at a fairly young age.  Tony had a fantastically beautiful voice and a remarkable way of using language when he sang.  In contrast to the first video, notice how Tony is very much singing words and meaning rather than just notes and syllables.  What else do you notice?  What are the aspects that make one singer sound professional and accomplished and the other, though talented, less so?  It’s easy to say that one sounds better but why is it?

R

David

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff7lkZt9EeA

Anthony Rolfe-Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTTjPd2jsPU

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

O stay and hear, your true love's coming

That can sing both high and low.

Trip no further, pretty sweeting;

Journeys end in lovers' meeting,

Ev'ry wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;

Present mirth hath present laughter;

What's to come is still unsure:

In delay there lies no plenty;

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;

Youth's a stuff will not endure.