Módulo IV: Diction

Singers are distinguished from other musicians in that their range of artistic
expression includes the beauty of language.
Speaking can be quite imprecise, full accents, and dialects, and when singing
these “flaws” can be magnified. Impure vowel sounds and unclear consonants
become evident, often making it difficult to understand the words.
The danger of working on pronunciation is that we can get overconscious, thus our
delivery becomes choppy rather than smooth and connected, instead of forming
consonants quickly and clearly, we overemphasize them. In order to avoid this, we
must keep a rich, round,resonant sound.
“It is essential that singers sing the words with long, pure vowels and short, clean
consonants. This is the basis for excellent diction.”

An Open, relaxed Throat

 Jaw
Having a free and fluid jaw involves relaxing it at the hinges and allowing it to open
softly. Jaw and tongue tension often go hand-in-hand, and singers with one will
often have to contend with both. The jaw should not move in conjunction with the
tongue as it forms consonants. While the mouth should be open enough to
produce clear sound, it should not be extended enough to cause strain. Excessive
strain on the jaw can cause complications both for singing and general activites
such as chewing and speaking.

 The Tongue
The tongue is strong and agile, able to move quickly to produce sounds in
conjunction with the lips and teeth. For optimal sound, singers should be mindful
that the tongue does not crowd the mouth. Tension in the tongue can also interfere
with tone as well as hinder correct positioning.

 Soft Palate
Raising the soft palate increases space and retracts the ventricular vocal folds to
create more room for resonation of sounds in the vocal tract.
  The Mouth and the Vowels
Vowels are formed by the tongue, lips, and jaw. Proper vowel formation ensures
that a singer’s words are easily understood, and can also help with overall sound
quality. While the lips should be shaped properly, they should be relaxed enough to
prevent jaw tension. Tension in the jaw or tongue will interfere with vowel quality.

Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that focuses on the production and
classification of the world's speech sounds.
Pronunciation in English is the most challenging part as the written forms not
always resemble the spoken ones. E.g. jewelry /ˈʤuːəlri/
Phonology is the classification of the sounds within the system of a particular
language or languages.
Grapheme is the smallest unit of a written language whether or not it carries
meaning or corresponds to a single phoneme.
Morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning that cannot be further divided.
 Phoneme
It’s the smallest unit of sound. A phoneme is the smallest unit of spoken sound
and is often the one thing that distinguishes one word from another. E.g. Put vs Cut
There are 44 phonemes in the English language from which 21 are consonants, 12
pure vowel sounds and 8 diphthongs.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabet developed in the 19th
century to accurately represent the pronunciation of languages.
As we said before, the vocal cords are the ones in charge or producing sound (the
air, coming from the lungs passes through them, thus resulting in vibration that our
brain interpret as sounds). In phonetics, this vibration is called voicing. All vowels
are normally voiced, but consonants may be either voiced or voiceless.
 Consonant
They are sounds in which the breath is obstructed in some way. We have 3 way of
classify consonant sounds:

1) Manner of articulation: how the airflow is obstructed and then released in the
vocal tract.
Plosives/stops: The airflow is blocked and suddenly released in an
explosion.
Fricatives: The air is released through a gap causing friction.
Affricates: There’s a blockage of the airflow and then is released with
friction.
Nasals: First the air blocked and it’s released through the nasal cavity.
Approximants(semi vowels)
Laterals: The tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge, to the air escapes
through the sided.
 Glides: The articulators come together without touching.

2) Place of Articulation: The point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the

vocal tract.
Bilabial: when there is a block/constrict of the airflow out of the mouth by
bringing your lips together.
Labiodental: when there is a block/constrict of the airflow by curling your
lower lip back and raising it to touch your upper row of teeth.
Dental: when there is a block/constrict of the airflow by placing your slimy
tongue against your upper teeth.
Alveolar: when there is a block/constrict of the airflow by raising the tip of
your tongue to the alveolar ridge.

Palatal: when there is a block/constrict of the airflow by raising the blade, or

front, of the tongue toward or against the hard palate.
Velar: when there is a block/constrict of the airflow by the back part of the
tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate(velum).
Glottal: It’s not exactly a place of articulation as the sound is produced by
air passing from the windpipe through the vocal cords, so the articulators are
relaxed.

3) Voicing
This category classifies consonants accoring to the activity of the vocal cords, so a
voiced consonants means that there’s vibration, wheareas, a voiceless sound
means that there’s no vibration of the vocal cords. (all semi vowels are voiced).
  Vowels
A sound which is produced by open configuration of the vocal tract and
vibration of the vocal cords.
All vowels can be divided into two main categories: monophthongs (which
are the vowels) and diphthongs (also triphthongs) which are
characterized by a change of quality, starting with one sound and moving to
another.

Vowels traditionally have been specified in terms of:

1) The position of the tongue in reference to the roof of the mouth when
making vowel sounds. Tongue Height can be high, mid, or low.

High: The tongue is positioned high, near the roof of the mouth, to make
these sounds
Mid: These sounds are produced when the body of the tongue is positioned
in the mid section of the mouth, somewhere between the roof of the mouth
and the bottom of the mouth.
Low: These sounds are produced when the body of the tongue is positioned
at the bottom of the mouth, farthest from the roof of the mouth.
2) Tongue Advancement.: Refers to the position of the body of the tongue
compared to it in a resting position in the center of the mouth. Front,
Central, and Back tongue advancement are used to describe vowel
sounds.
Front: These sounds are produced when the body of the tongue is
positioned forward of the resting position in the front of the mouth.
Central: These sounds are produced when the body of the tongue is
positioned at resting position in the center of the mouth.
Back: These sounds are produced when the body of the tongue is
positioned slightly to the rear of resting position, at the back of the mouth.

3) Muscular Tension: Refers to the amount of muscular tension around the

mouth when creating vowel sounds. Tense and lax are used to describe
muscular tension.
Tense: These sounds are produced with a great amount of muscular
tension. They are often referred to as long vowel sounds.
Lax: These sounds are produced with very little muscular tension. They are
often referred to as short vowel sounds.

4) Rounding: Refers to the rounding of the lips in creating vowel sounds.

Vowels can be either rounded or unrounded. All the back vowels in
English are rounded except /ɑ:/. All the front vowels and central vowels in
English are unrounded.
Rounded:This feature describes sounds formed in part by a rounding of the
lips.
Unrounded: The lips are not rounded when making these sounds.
The Schwa
It is also called the “Lazy sound” and it’s the most common sound in the
English language. It is a weak, short, unstressed sound. The purpose of the
schwa is to allow unstressed syllables to be said quicklier so the main beats
of spoken words are easier to place on the stressed syllables.
 In unstressed syllables
Any vowel letter can be pronounced as schwa and the pronunciation of a
vowel letter can change depending on whether the syllable in which it occurs
is stressed or not.
E.g. Man /ˈmæn/  Stressed syllable.
Postman /ˈpəʊstmən/  unstressed syllable.

Regular verbs in the Past

When we conjugate regular verbs in the past, we add and –ed ending to the
original verb. There are three ways to pronounce these new words:
 Voiced sound /d/
E.g. Call/ˈkɔːl/  called/ˈkɔːld/
 Voiceless sound /t/
E.g. Help/ˈhelp/  helped/ˈhelpt/
  Verbs ending in /t/ or /d/ ɪd /
E.g. Want/ˈwɒnt/  wanted /ˈwɒntɪd/

Connected Speech
When we speak, we don´t do it separately, but continuously. That is to say, there is
a significant difference between the pronunciation of words in isolation and the
pronunciation of full sentences in which speech is connected.
 Linking: It happens when the end of one word blends into another.

E.G. that orange –> thadorange

 Intrusion: when a sound inserts itself between others

E.g. tuna oil / ˈtuːnə ɔɪl / /ˈtuːnər ɔɪl

 Elision: when a sound disappears when we have a consonant

cluster.

E.g. Next door /nɛkst dɔː/  /nɛks dɔː /

 Assimilation: when when a sound disappears when we have a

consonant cluster.

E.g. do you smoke? /dʊ  juː sməʊk /  /ʤuː  sməʊk/

 Gemination: when one word ends with the same letter as the
beginning of the next word you erase one.

E.g. This smile /ðɪs smaɪl/  /ðɪsmaɪl/

Allophones
Allophones are a kind of phoneme that changes its sound based on how a word is
spelled. Think of the letter “p“ and what kind of sound it makes in the word “Pain"
/peɪn /compared with "stop" /stɒp/. It's pronounced with a more forceful, clipped
sound in the first example than it is in the second.
Homographs
Words with the same spelling but having more than one meaning.
E.g. Live(verb): to be alive or have life, or to continue in this state.  /lɪv/
Live(adjective): to have life, as an organism; be alive.  /laɪv/

Homophones
Words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling.
E.g. Blue /bluː/  Adejective. of a colour intermediate between green and violet,
as of the sky or sea on a sunny day
Blew /bluː/  [Link] Tense. (of wind) move creating an air current.

Minimal Pairs
Words that vary by only a single sound, be it vowel or consonant.
E.g. Pin /pɪn/ ≠ Bin /bɪn/

Practice Time!
Always remember!
 Consonants must be thought on the same pitch as the vowel they precede, to
prevent the tonal onset from being scooped or flat.
 Consonants should be articulated distinctly, freely and flexibly, rapidly, and as
naturally and plainly as in dramatic speech.
  Articulate the proper sound of each consonant; do not substitute one for
another.
 Make vowels long, consonants short. Do not shorten the complete rhythmic
length of the vowel by anticipating the ending consonant.

Exercise 1
Tongue Twisters: Sing any of the following sentences on a repeating single note.
Repeat until you can sing each very quickly and accurately.
 Sneeze, snort, sniff, sniffle, snuff, snuffle, sneer and snicker.
 Ninety-nine nuns in an Indiana nunnery.
 Millions of monks in a Minnesota monastery.
 Lemon liniment, lemon liniment.
 Clunk, junk, skunk, flunk.

Exercise 2
Sing an entire song on one open "Ohh” vowel sound, rather than voicing the words.
After practicing in this manner, try to keep the same open, relaxed feeling as you
add the words of the song, thinking "Oh," but singing the words through the open
"Oh" feeling. Ideally, the vocal line will be an almost continuous tone, as it was
when you sang the vowel sound only.
Exercise 3
Smile and get the feeling of singing the vowels with the jaw relaxed, the molars
apart, the ribs and the sternum high and wide. Memorize that feeling. Two groups
of vowels are suggested but you can try some of your own.