Vocalist.org archive


From:  Jennifer <ihateegroups@y...>
Jennifer <ihateegroups@y...>
Date:  Fri Nov 10, 2000  9:17 pm
Subject:  English diction (was Rhymes in older texts)


Sorry for the late reply. The past couple of weeks
have been hectic!

> The vowel in "discover" matches whatever vowel is
> used in that regional
> accent for guts, ugly, jumble, bug, love, mother and
> bubble.*
>

Same for me (except for love, which is slightly more
back).

> The vowel in "hover" matches the vowel in got,
> fondle, off, moth, swan,
> John and hotpot (twice)
>

How interesting. All of those words are pronounced
with the same vowel for me except hover.


> The vowel in "hover"
> matches that in "wander". Now, the folk song/carol
> "I wonder as I
> wander" has been attributed to various places, but
> I'm sure one version
> I've seen said it came from Canada. So, do you
> pronounce those two words
> identically?

Nope. Wonder and wander are pronounced differently in
my neck of the woods.

> What _is_ interesting is when you have grown up
> understanding one vowel
> to be identical in hundreds of words, and then find
> in one region that
> there are two distinct groups. I found this during
> my one sojourn in the
> US, in Massachusetts.

Actually, there are many different pronunciations of
English. Go to different areas of England, or the US,
or Canada (yes, even in Canada there's west coast
English, Toronto English, Newfie English, and several
others), and you'll hear a wide variety of English
accents. I took a linguistics class where we discussed
the many different variations in English
pronunciation, and the conclusion was that there can
be any number of correct ways to say a given word, as
long as there are at least several people who say it
that way.

The question this raises for me, however, is when
singing an English song or aria, should I use my own
dialect, or a generic version of British English, or
try to figure out how the original poet would have
said it (especially difficult if the poem was written
centuries ago!)? I made a recording a couple of days
ago (why I was so busy), and in listening to it I
noticed a couple of glaring examples of my own
regional diction coming through that really didn't
sound very good. I'm not sure if that's because they
had an effect on my technique (although I don't think
so), or because I'm so used to hearing singers using
British English, or because I didn't realize I was
doing it...

Anyway, I find this whole topic fascinating. Ever
since I took that linguistics class I've been
listening to people's accents and trying to figure out
the differences and how to imitate them. I love the
sound of language - must be why I like singing so
much!

Jennifer

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