Dear Randy and Vocalisters
You wrote: >That's the point of pure vowels in a sense, they're recognizable. The >modification of vowels in the lower portion of the female voice especially >makes them unrecognizable. This is not a vowel line, but a variation of the >schwa phoneme line.
Your least sentence is not clear to me. Do mean that any vowel that is not defined according to some standard is not a vowel? Or that a vowel that is pronounced differently from your understanding of its pronunciation is not a legitimate vowel?
Every Diction teacher I know has quickly become aware of the different vowel pronunciations that occur within their classes once they begin to teach correct pronunciation for that classes native language. In addition to this great discrepancy of pronunciation is the fact that each student is not capable of even hearing vowel differences until such differences are constantly repeated. Teaching such a course is an eye opener and tends to destroy the concept of "pure" vowels rather quickly.
However, there is always a need for vowel definition such that a text may be understood. Any time a vowel in a word is changed and the word becomes some other word, text understanding is damaged. But migration around "pure" vowels is common and often necessary. It should not become a trademark nor a personality of the singer but rather a necessary alteration to achieve some other goal than a strict production of a predetermined "pure" vowel sound.
I know of no language in which any vowels are consistently pronounced the same way, whether in speech or song. Even the French, who try to control their pronunciation more carefully than most have great variation in their spoken and sung language. It is always a goal that a common standard be used for singing any language but that common standard is mostly a benchmark, not an absolute.
-- Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice, Pedagogy School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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