The Diction Police

Episode 78-SDU Video Tutorial

This week's episode is from The Diction Police's Special Diction Unit No need to go looking for the text, because you can follow along with the text, IPA, and conversation on the video!

François Germain leads us through the text to "Avant de quitter", Valentin's aria from Gounod's Faust, with readings at normal and slow speeds, as well as our usual Diction Police-style interview and wrap-up. The full IPA transcript, with poetic and word-for-word translation is available for individual sale here. For an audio version of this episode, click here.

Also, don't forget The Diction Police: By the Book webinar series on French Diction continues today (June 11), Wednesday (June 15) and Saturday (June 18) at 11am EDT on Google+ Hangouts--see the FB page for details. We hope you can join us live! The Webinar videos will also be available on our YouTube channel--watch Episode 1 in the series now!

With comments or questions, please feel free to contact us here, at the Facebook page or directly at info@dictionpolice.com

Diction Tip #2-'n' assimilation (Italian)

Since the podcast comes out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we post Diction Tips--very short tutorials on a specific topic in Lyric Diction.

Diction Tip #2 with Simone di Felice is all about the assimilation of the letter N to the consonant that follows it.

For more Diction Tips, go to our YouTube channel or visit the videos section of our Facebook page! Be sure to check out our new Tongue Twisters for Singers series, too, for more ways to exercise your articulators!

Episode 77-SDU Tutorial (audio version)

This week's episode is from The Diction Police's Special Diction Unit! This is the audio version of the SDU Video Tutorial, for people who want to listen while they are out and about.

Simone di Felice leads us through the text to Conti's Il mio bel foco... Quella fiamma che m'accende, with readings at normal and slow speeds, as well as our usual Diction Police-style interview and wrap-up. The full IPA transcript, with poetic and word-for-word translations is available (in English, French, and German) for individual sale here! For the video version of this episode, click here.

Also, don't forget that François Germain is at the Classical Singer convention in Boston right now--stop by The Diction Police table to say hello or to sign up to sing at his master class tomorrow (May 28, 2016) at 11am.

With comments or questions, please feel free to contact us here, at the Facebook page or directly at info@dictionpolice.com

Episode 77--SDU Video Tutorial

This week's episode is from The Diction Police's Special Diction Unit No need to go looking for the text, because you can follow along with the text, IPA, and conversation on the video!

Simone di Felice leads us through the text to Conti's Il mio bel foco... Quella fiamma che m'accende, with readings at normal and slow speeds, as well as our usual Diction Police-style interview and wrap-up. The full IPA transcript, with poetic and word-for-word translations is available (in English, French, and German) for individual sale here. For an audio version of this episode, click here.

Also, don't forget that François Germain is at the Classical Singer convention in Boston right now--stop by The Diction Police table to say hello or to sign up to sing at his master class tomorrow (May 28, 2016) at 11am.

With comments or questions, please feel free to contact us here, at the Facebook page or directly at info@dictionpolice.com

Diction Tip #1-Donc (French)

Since the podcast will be coming out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we will be posting Diction Tips--very short tutorials focusing on a specific topic in Lyric Diction.

Diction Tip #1 is all about the pronunciation of the word "donc" in French. 

For more Diction Tips, go to our YouTube channel or visit the videos section of our Facebook page!

Episode 76

Gilles Ragon is back to discuss French Diction with the text to "Klein-Zach" from Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann. Our focus is on what happens when the same vowel sound appears back-to-back with no consonant between them, liaison, and some exceptional pronunciations in French.

The libretto for Les contes d'Hoffmann can be found at the Opera Guide. Make sure to click on L for libretto and F for French (because it defaults back every time) and then scroll down to Act I scene 4--the aria starts with Hoffmann's "Il était une fois."

The new projects that I announced on this episode are 

The Diction Police: Special Diction Unit (SDU)

Here we offer: 

• Video Tutorials on songs and arias, including Diction Police-style interviews with leading diction experts
• IPA transcriptions with word-for-word and poetic translations of texts from Art Song, opera and oratorio
• Translations into English, French and German
• Diction Tips
• Skype coachings

The Diction Police: By the Book

Our new webinar classes on lyric diction! A great refresher for professionals, an excellent resource for diction teachers looking for new resources for their classes, and a perfect introduction to lyric diction for young singers.

Our first Webinar session on French Lyric Diction will be held June 2016. Registration opens soon, so keep checking back for details!

And don't forget that François Germain will be giving a master class on French Lyric Diction for the Classical Singer Convention in Boston on May 28th! For exact details, check out the Facebook Event page.

Please feel free to contact me here, at the Facebook page, via Twitter, or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 75

This week, French tenor Gilles Ragon works through Don José's aria, "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée", from Carmen with us. We concentrate on the letter "e" and how to tell whether it's the open epsilon [ɛ], the closed lower case [e] or the schwa [ə]. We talk about the accent grave (è) and accent circonflex (ê) which both open the vowel to [ɛ] and the accent aigu (é) which closes it to [e].

The libretto for Carmen can be found at the Opera Guide. Make sure to click on L for libretto and F for French (because it seems to default back every time, and in that order, because it will keep reverting!) and then scroll down to No.17 Duo--the aria is just a little beyond that indication.

The diction book I mentioned in this episode is the second edition of Jason Nedecky's French Diction for Singers: A Handbook of Pronunciation for French Opera and Mélodie, available from the University of Toronto bookstore. It's a great resource, which includes a list of common spellings and their pronunciations as well as over 7,000 proper names with their phonetic transcriptions!

The YouTube that I promised to post is this one, of Gérard Souzay singing "Clair de lune" with Jacqueline Bonneau on the piano. Please feel free to comment below, I would love everyone's opinion as to whether or not you think he is singing "les" open or closed (there are a whole bunch of "les" starting at about 1:55) :-)

With questions, comments or suggestions, you can get in touch with me here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 74

In this episode we finish up our conversation with Martin Koch, with the text "Wenn sich zwei Herzen scheiden" and an exercise from Dr. Augustin Ulrich Nebert's article "Das einzigartige -IG". Obviously we are focusing on the ending -IG again as well as devoicing/unvoicing final consonants and the voiced initial S.

The text Wenn sich zwei Herzen scheiden was written by Emanuel von Geibel, a 19th century poet who was part of a linguistic society in Munich called Die Krokodile (the Crocodile Society). This text has been set by Mendelssohn and a plethora of other composers. For the exercise text, see Dr. Nebert's article "Das einzigartige -IG" and scroll down to page 10 under "Übungstext".

The resources and summer programs I talked about in the episode are:

• Dr. Nebert's Sprechatelier--based in Halle, Germany, they have classes in every kind of public speaking in German, from diction lessons to media related speaking to debate and rhetoric, from Hochdeutsch through to every dialect. Dr. Nebert also studied singing as well as speech science. Special thanks to Dr. Nebert for recording his Übungstext for us!
• University of Miami Frost School of Music's summer program in Salzburg, Austria--a 5-week program for young singers and pianists, with many opportunities to take advantage of being in Salzburg during the summer Opera Festival (Festspiel)
• IPAI (The International Performing Arts Institute)--in Kiefersfelden, Germany (near Munich, on the Austrian border), a 3-week program for young singers and pianists with divisions for Classical/Opera and Musical Theater
• IMFA (The International Music Festival of the Adriatic)--in Duino, Italy (near Trieste), a 3-week program for young singers and pianists as well as composers and string players, which makes for a very interesting possibility of vocal chamber music and modern music
• AIMS (American Institute of Musical Studies)--in Graz, Austria, a 6-week program that has been around for over 40 years, for singers and pianists, plus an orchestral program to create their own festival orchestra

Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com

Episode 73

This episode is the beginning of a conversation with German tenor Martin Koch. With the text to Mendelssohn's "Frage", we focus on the -IG suffix, whether to roll an R or to use the near-open central vowel [ɐ] (which I keep calling the upside down bright A) and a few notable exceptional words with long, closed vowels followed by two consonants.

Originally attributed to H. Voss, it appears that Mendelssohn himself wrote the text as well as the music to "Frage". This song also became the basis for his string quartet in a-minor, Op. 13.

Please note that Lydía Zervanos has allowed us the use of some of her texts with IPA and translation for Episode 71 on Greek diction, feel free to download them!

As always, please feel free to contact me here, through the Facebook page, on Twitter or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com (I'm trying something here, not sure if this link will work... if not, please cut and paste into your email program!)

Episode 72 - Special Edition - Rolling Rs

This is a mini-episode with some tips on learning how to roll Rs. Kerry Deal (from the faculty of Boston Conservatory and MIT) and Michael Strauss (a vocal coach with New England Conservatory and Boston Conservatory) talk about the problems we have rolling our Rs and give us some exericises and tricks to help us practice! We've been working together at the International Performing Arts Institute for the past few summers.

Don't forget that there are already two episodes with tongue exercises as well, Episode 48 and Episode 49!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments or suggestions here, at the Facebook page, on Twitter or directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com