I have been asked to assist an American church choir in Russian pronunciation. I haven't seen the scores they will sing, and I don't even know yet whether they'll be mainly folk, popular, or classical. I plan to soften the blow to their North American tongues by preparing some simple cheat sheets containing the alphabet, approximate English sounds, and notations on how the true pronunciations differ from the approximate english equivalents. I'm pretty sure I'll also have 10 or 15 minutes to demonstrate what it all sounds like. So far so good. The problem is that while I'm fluent enough in spoken Russian, I really don't have any idea what should happen to certain non-Italianate vowel sounds when you try to sing them, and I'd be not at all surprised to find that it's a matter of taste and style that varies with the type of music being sung. The reason for my sorry state in this matter is that 30 or so years ago when I was learning Russian, I wasn't at all interested in singing, and by the time I took up singing, I had lost my interest in Russian. It goes that way sometimes. Anyway, there must be information available on this, in English, in not too much depth, possibly on the internet even. Any suggestions?
Best, Joel Figen
|
| | |