Enunciation proper diction for the singer

enunciation proper diction for the singer look at these singers what do they all have in common look how open their mouths are first two slides are popular singers on the radio you see Pharrell Justin Timberlake Christina Aguilera Luke Bryan the last slide here is of Sarah Brightman on the right she was the original Christine from Broadway's Phantom of the Opera and idina menzel of frozen's let it go rent and Wicked's Elphaba they are musical theater people and they've put a lot of emotion behind everything they sing what is diction the definition of diction is a clearness of a person's speech or in this case the clearness of their song enunciation what it means to enunciate means to pronounce the words or parts of the words very clearly but it's more than just words here's some tips from vocal coach calm most people know the diction is all about making your message understandable to the listener but for the singer there's a lot more at stake than just the message there are local issues to issues like tone quality keeping your pitch and vocal stamina these areas are more impacted by the way you pronounce your words here's an example if you're a mumbler there's a good chance your lair next is working overtime to fix the unclear words coming out of your mouth it can't of course since diction has to be taken care of with lips tongue and teeth and ear in order to know what to listen for clearing up your diction will reduce your vocal stretch and make you a better singer another example if you have sloppy diction when you record and depend on fixing in the mix then you're building some really bad habits sure it's true that our popular artists nowadays allow the music engineer to correct their pitches reduce the amount of s and harshness even more than syllable within the phrase but some things are better being done correctly in real time every time plus it's healthier for your voice and makes a better performer so how can we get proper enunciation we start with our vowels and consonants as you know vowels are sounds formed in the throat with the assistance of the tongue and mouth that would be a I owe you and why sometimes vowels can be spoken alone we use them in our warm-ups all the time we might go or II and so on a good singer must understand the difference between vowel sounds and consonant sounds consonants are formed by controlling the breath flow and the shape of the mouth and tongue consonants cannot be spoken alone examples are D T P C and B when it comes time to sing the vowels you always want to find the aw for almost every vowel we can find the and open up the sound let's go back to these girls remember Sarah and Adina they've got a very open vowel here don't they The Vow opens up from all the way down into the throat way up through your jaw and then in your lips finally these looks familiar don't they we have our vowels here listed on the left on the right side as you cross to the arrows you'll find what these vowels may sound like in the words that we use in theme a the letter becomes aa or a the harsh a E is either a or the harsh E I could be E or i/o is an open o or an ooh like who like a little owl or you can also be ooh or Oh let's look at these lyrics from Leamas on my own in the rain the pavement shines like silver all the lights are misty in the river the text you will see in blue the vowel open sounds so let's go through here in becomes n the rain ah the pay a mint shines like cell ver so we've opened up each of these letters in the lyrics to these open vowel sounds we talked about right here here we have all the lights are misty n the red bar and I sound silly when I'm speaking it but when I sing this it sounds very clear and all rain the pavement shines like silver you can hear me saying each of these vowels but it doesn't sound as funny as when we said shines like silver does it once you figure out how to do these bells in the separate ways you'll then create a whole new language of text so here's the full verse that we were singing we'll compare here the blue line which is our new vowel text with the original lyrics in white so we have and the rain the pavement shines like silver so we've just connected all of the rest of the letters that we left behind in this slide to make silver silver silver all the lights are misty and the river and so on take a few seconds to look at this yourself and say it out loud in your head be sure to look at the blue line so we'll go ahead and move to the next slide what do we do with the or thee there are rules for thee or the if you're going to use thee you're going to say it before a vowel so you'll say it the Apple the airplane the elephant la comes before constant the river the Starlight here we've highlighted all of the these in this line from Lima is with just tang and we've changed them all to the to open it up so we don't want to say in the rain be pavement it takes too long for a singer how about the endings a very common ending to a word is I and G we always want to open up the ing here's three different lyrics from three different musicals for your different examples I'm saying an embrace I want to see them dancing and from Mimas again when everybody else is sleeping you see how we've opened up ing where we would have singing dancing and sleeping other words are ringing running feeling they all have this ing sound but it can sound very closed how about the letter R that's another very common ending or middle consonant Shana has some thoughts on music ministry coach calm for the letter R she says never sing the letter R before a consonant so think about the word charm in two ways first like they you normally say it charm arm to our arm then with no arm charm now if you sing the word without the R with an open throat it becomes clear charm it still sounds like I'm saying the arm another is do not use the letter R before pause so a pause could be considered a spot where you would breathe or you come to a stopping or resting point in the music take out the R before the pause results in a good tone and naturalness so let's say the phrase when life is over but now let's say it without the R when life is over you've become o far let's try singing the phrase when life is over it doesn't sound funny when we sing it another example is fire vs. fire just soften those R's I do sing them another rule is to always sing the R before the vowel it's pretty much self-explanatory but some examples are spirit which without the R becomes spit that doesn't make any sense and for us without the R becomes fo us you see why the rule speaks for itself another important sound to carry in your song is completing your endings DS and T's are great examples of letters that have to have a clear ending we'll also talk about in the next slide how to listen for the different sounds of our letter s we can either have a snake es or the Z F let's look at on my own again there are many T and D s and Z sounds in this little snip you'll even see RR and Val examples here let's just read it in the rain the pavement shines like silver all the lights are misty in the river in the darkness the trees are full of starlight and all I see is him and me forever and forever now take a few seconds to read through this in your mind and try to figure out what the lyrics are now re-written it looks like a completely new language doesn't it as you continue to read notice how we've taken the important and Dean's and bolded and underlined them these are the words that have to be closed and complete to keep them from sounding unfinished so if I was going to sloppily read the third line it would sound like all the lies are messy in the river now with you adding your TZ and your misty sound you're opening the beginning of the word and closing it very clearly all the lights are misty in the river right ooh save this part of the song in your head knowing our new enunciation language over-exaggerating every syllable now speak it over exaggerated in your mind I have rewritten it for you here and I know it's only on my mind that I'm talking to myself and not to him and although I know that he is blind still I say there's a way for us did you notice in this text how we've combined a few words to accent a certain sound look at and I know here at the beginning and I know we've combined the end and the word I to be creating and dye it clarifies the two words sometimes you can take the end of and and move it to a vowel behind it on the next word and make it sound like this again in the second line that time talking to myself and not to him we've broken nah to him as not to him instead of having two T's here we can say nah to him not to him even though this might sound really silly I do want you to try this at home begin by looking at yourself in a mirror and lip-syncing the words to a song no sound but moving your lips face and tongue it will help you get in touch with all of the muscles involved in good diction then still with no sound be even more expressive as you sing the song and memorize the feeling of good diction and expression try to duplicate it once you've done these exercises and really actually sing it along with the music the more you practice this on your own the more you'll feel comfortable doing it in front of a group when saying pretend the Queen has come for tea and use a British accent when practicing memorizing or lyrics by reading them aloud even going overboard and making yourself sound silly helps by going too far then you're able to bring yourself back to a balance you just have to realize that opening your mouth is the starting point to proper diction and being understood in performance

Channel: Jennifer Ayers

Views: 109,163

Keywords: Screencast-O-Matic.com

Id: g2pkrbQoqX4

Length: 14min 52sec (892 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 14 2014