Episode 17

Since we talked so much last week about studying the diction of your native language, I thought it only fitting that we discuss a little English Diction today! Our guests are Mark Lawson, an American coach on the music staff of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, and Aaron Pegram, an American tenor in the ensemble at the Semperoper in Dresden. Our texts today are "Take O Take Those Lips Away" and Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair". We concentrate on the American diphthongs and how to handle the Rs when singing in English. You can find the texts through the Lied and Art Song Text Page link at the right. On this episode, we talked about the standard textbook, Madeleine Marshall's The Singer's Manual of English Diction, which has been around for several decades. I also mentioned Kathryn LaBouff's book, Singing and Communicating in English, which includes separate sections for Mid-Atlantic, American and British pronunciation. A big thank you to everyone who has shared The Diction Police on their Facebook pages, word-of-mouth is the greatest commercial! And also many thanks to the people who have rated this podcast on iTunes, I really appreciate it! As always, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me here, on the Facebook page, or to write me directly at ellen@ellenrissinger.com