For professional singers, the phonetic alphabet is an invaluable tool for noting differences in pronunciation and absorbing new languages quickly... and it is just as useful for choral singers, as Stef Conner explains:
Having taken up learning Spanish recently, I’ve been reminded of just how hard (some might say ‘impossible’) it is to learn languages from books without a good teacher or native speaker on hand to help with pronunciation. I’m lucky enough to have a fluent Spanish speaker as a partner, and when he’s around I cheerfully soak up vocabulary like a sponge. However, when he’s away I find myself getting stuck on pronunciation and it frustrates me no end. It’s almost better when the books say nothing about pronunciation, since their guidelines are so deficient – like computer software, the most unhelpful thing they can possibly do is try to be helpful! Here’s an example of what I mean: The Usborne ‘First 1000 Words in Spanish’ (my favourite – just as good for adults as it is for kids!) explains that you should pronounce the Spanish word for ‘carpet’ – ‘moqueta’ – like this: ‘mokayta.’ But what does ‘kay’ mean? Is it ‘kay’ as in ‘kayak’ or ‘ay’ as in ‘say’? Well, actually it’s neither because the English words ‘kayak’ and ‘say’ both contain diphthongs, which aren’t used in Spanish. What’s intended is that we read ‘ay’ as ‘é’ (as in the French ‘santé’)… but we don’t use that sound in English, so the diphthong ‘ay’ – the closest English equivalent – must serve as its proxy. And what are the consequences of depending on this sort of approximate guidance? Those of us who learn languages from phrasebooks will find ourselves striding embarrassingly along the Costa del Sol, wittering like the stereotypical English person abroad: ‘Sorry old chap, no hablow Espanyole… much-ars grah-syahs… etc. etc.’ (That’s ‘ow’ as in ‘blow’, not as in ‘cow’… and ‘ole’ as in ‘hole’, not Spanish ‘olé’, by the way, in case it wasn’t clear… which it wasn’t!), and so everyone who knows anything about learning languages will reinforce this important caveat: ‘You must learn with the help of a native speaker!’
That’s all very well for language-learners with time on their hands. But spare a thought for singers, who have to pronounce lots of languages well, and don’t usually have time to learn any of them! Good professional singers must sound native singing in German, French, Italian and English at the very least. And singers who work with mad composers like me also have to master things like Old English, Middle English, Anglo-Norman, Estonian, Chinese, Old Occitan… and maybe even a bit of Babylonian for good measure. And what about Latin? All classical singers come up against Latin sooner or later, but where are the native speakers to help us with pronouncing that? Until someone invents a time machine, we have to make do with books. So how do we cope when we have to learn Middle Mongolian in record time (no, really: the Royal Festival Hall premiere is tomorrow and the piece has only just been delivered!) and the are no Middle Mongolians around to help?
Well, I taught myself Old English from books, and notwithstanding the fact that no-one knows exactly how the language was pronounced, I’m fairly confident that my accent is pretty good. About as good as an accent can be when the language hasn’t been spoken for a thousand years! So how did I learn? (There is a much more interesting question here, which is ‘how did the linguists work out how it was pronounced,’ but I’ll have to save that for another blog, when I have found a couple of spare decades to research it…)
The answer is the phonetic alphabet. It’s a God-send!
So what is the phonetic alphabet? My mum, Sally, is a speech therapist (who happens to be running a workshop on phonetics for Timeline Choir on 15th September, hint hint… click here…) and she describes phonetics, very succinctly, thus:
Phonetics uses symbols to transcribe exactly what you hear – not what you’ve learned to spell. It’s an exact science, and a universal symbol system – UNLIKE SPELLING!!
Aahhhh spelling. And if figuring out how to pronounce words written in sensible Romance languages like Spanish and Italian seems hard, spare a thought for poor people trying to learn ENGLISH as a foreign language. Thanks to successive invasions (grazie Romans, danke Saxons… merci Normans) and a lot of tinkering by monks, English spelling is about as logical as an ice-cream teapot.
Here’s a lovely example, demonstrating just how easy it is for a non-native English speaker to learn how to pronounce the letters ‘ough’:
I thought I saw the tough ploughman, Eddie McGough, cough on a doughnut under a rough bough during the drought in Loughborough – or was it Slough?
I should have thought he ought to have had enough, although my thoughts were worth nought as he fought me off thoroughly and bought a trough– load more through the online Borough Bakery.
(Courtesy of Sally Conner)
Another favourite illustration of mine (and geeky linguists the world over) is the word ‘ghoti.’ How is it pronounced? Why, it’s ‘fish’ of course! Isn’t it obvious? ‘gh’ as in ‘rough’ (f), ‘o’ as in ‘women’ (plural, i.e. ‘wimmin’) and ‘ti’ as in ‘nation’ (sh). Ha!
The phonetic alphabet is the best tool for noting down pronunciation because it is precise and scientific. With spelling, there is always ambiguity, whereas with a phonetic symbol, there is only ever one meaning. Not only does it do away with ambiguity, it also helps you learn pronunciations precisely by integrating more of your senses into the memorization process: each sound you learn is associated with a visual cue: a symbol.
Learning the phonetic alphabet is also an excellent way to understand how the shapes you make with your mouth affect the tone quality of your singing – sometimes a very subtle difference between two mouth shapes is the difference between a hideously flat note and a beautifully in-tune one! If you’ve ever found yourself struggling to make sense of a conductor or singing teacher’s instructions when they talk about ‘raising the soft palette’ or ‘Italianate vowels’, believe me, knowing phonetics will help demystify the whole lexicon of singer jargon. And, if you’ve tried and tried (and failed) to do as you’re told when your conductor is cracking the whip over diction, you’ll find that being able to link the syllable you’re singing to a phonetic symbol (or symbols) will SMASH down the barriers between you and the Holy City of Perfect Pronunciation. Well… it’ll help a bit, at least. And it’s great fun to learn!
Learn Phonetics with Timeline choir
Timeline Choir will host a Learn Phonetics evening on 15th September 2015, at the Punchbowl Inn, Okewood Hill, and interested singers or budding linguists in the area are warmly invited to attend.
The mini-course will be taught by speech and language therapist, and life-long choral enthusiast, Sally Conner, who trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and has been in the SLT profession for over 30 years. More importantly, she is a great teacher (believe me, I know… we are related!), and will make you laugh out loud, with songs, games and team tasks that make a serious learning exercise seem like a bit of a party!
If you’d like to attend, please book yourself a place online! All money raised from ticket sales will help Timeline Choir to cover the cost of releasing their debut CD.
Kerry Andrew is a freelance composer, performer and writer based in London. Her work has been heard on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC 6Music and Classic FM and is performed internationally. She is the winner of three British Composer Awards for a choral work and for two chamber operas. She was 2010-12’s Composer in Residence at Handel House Museum and is visiting China in 2016 with on a British Council Musicians in Residence scheme. She is a Visiting Professor at Leeds College of Music in 2015/16.