I'm drinking my morning cup of tea out of my new mug from Starbucks. While I'm still quite cross with them because of the continuing problems surrounding my favorite striped thermos, they really did something clever with Akeelah and the Bee. I'm a word nerd, love to do crosswords, used to do the Reader's Digest 'Enrich your word power' quiz when I lived at home, and was always a whiz at spelling. So when this cute mug went on clearance (and we know that I can't resist the clearance bin) I had to indulge. What made it an interesting journey was the part where not one but two of my friends on three separate occasions picked it up and said, "Meticulosity. Extreme attention to detail. Emily, this sounds like you - I think you should buy it."
Now I know that I'm more than a little OCD about detail, but I figure that's my job in attempting to be a professional musician and educator. No, you can't just sing English art song in your own accent unless it's a regionalized folk song and you happen to come from that region. Why? Because the whole point of this is to be understood by anyone who speaks English and I'm sorry, if I have to put aside my Louisiana to sing Barber, so do you. This is why we have the International Phonetics Alphabet. And no, I didn't make the rules, I just teach them. If you don't think phonetics are important, go take someone else's class. In the meantime, we will be learning the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants and how to apply those rules to learning to sing in German. Do you want to sing that in YOUR accent too?
I'm a phonetics geek. I'm a word geek. And I really really REALLY like doing far out music that makes the eyes of the voice faculty widen halfway through, seriously considering whether or not they should have asked to hear that piece. (giggle)
Speaking of which, if you're in the area, come to my recital on Wednesday, November 15th at 8pm. I promise that there is only one far our piece that involves whistling and yodelling and playing the crotales. It won't hurt for long. And the dress alone is worth showing up for, if I do say so myself.
1 comment:
I so concur...I hate it when people are not into phonetics. yes I have a crappy accent when I speak French, yes I am all for free expression, but still, like you said, I am not into people singing German in "their own accent". Yeah no.
That said, I hate Madonna's fake British accent, because it is, in a word, fake.
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