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It looks like spring has sprung here in Tennessee. I always love this time of year, because it brings new life to everything around me. When I see God’s beautiful display of trees, flowers, and plants, the fields being planted for grain, and all the wonders of Gods great creation, I marvel and am in total awe. I thank God for everything that He does daily to make life for us humans so precious and wonderful. I am especially grateful for the talent that He gives to each of us to sing, play music and rejoice in Him by doing so. WHAT A MIGHTY
GOD WE SERVE.

This month I would like to get back to talking about diction,( the pronunciation and enunciation of words ) . A couple of months back I approached this subject in a general manner. I would like to address it with a little more specifics this month. Most all beginning singers are lax in their pronunciation of words when singing. Sometimes it is caused by just plain laziness, and other times it is the outgrowth of colloquialism . That means that we sometimes pronounce words like they are pronounced where we live. We need to pronounce words in a way that is clear and distinct, so that every one everywhere, who speaks English, can understand what we are saying.

This necessitates our clear understanding of how to say vowels and consonants in a manner that may not sound exactly like we say them in our everyday conversation. All of us know that we Southern people have different ways of accenting certain syllables and letters, than people do in the rest of the country. That holds true also for many of the North Easterners. If you have traveled very much, you will know that all up and down the East Coast of the United States you will find different sounding ways to pronounce common words all the way from Northern Maine down to the tip of the state of Florida. Then you have some other different ways of saying common words in the upper Mid West, as well as the deep South, as I have already mentioned. The key to getting people to listen to your singing is clear pronunciation and enunciation without any colloquial sounds.

How do we do this? One help in deciding how a word should be pronounced is to listen to National Newscasters. They generally pronounce words in a manner that is understandable by everyone who speaks English.

One of the things that can be done is to record what you are singing and listen back to it, plus have someone else listen back to it and see if every word that you are singing can be understood by yourself and the person that is helping you listen. Preferably when you ask someone else to listen, it will be someone who didn’t hear you record the singing to begin with, someone who will be hearing it for the first time on the recording. Then if there is any doubt in your mind or their mind, you should listen to the word or words that are not understandable and analyze in them what letters are being elided (or run on to each other), and correct that problem first.

Next, listen to the way the vowels are said. For instance if you have a word where the vowel sounds should sound different to make it clear then correct that. Repeat this exercise with all of the vowel sounds that are in the word.

Next listen to the consonant sounds ,in each word , that are not being pronounced clearly.
You will find something very interesting about consonants , and that is that all of them don’t necessarily sound good the way they are used in your local dialect. The consonant R is one which needs to be watched closely. It seems to me to be the biggest problem for most singers that I have taught over the years. Many people pronounce R, every time they sing it, like it sounds in the sound RRRR. Occasionally, R can be pronounced like that, but more often than not, it needs to have a softer sound to it, with less of the RRRR to it. Many times it can be pronounced like a small r rather than a capital letter. For instance in the phrase “ How Great Thou Art”, every time the letter R is used it needs to have a softer sound . In this phrase you need to concentrate on the vowel sounds more, that immediately precede or succeed the letter R. In the word Great the R is pronounced almost like GrATE and in the word Art, the R is pronounced like ArT in both instances there should be very little of the R sound. People will hear the R sound even though you only put a small amount of it in the word. Generally speaking, clearer pronunciation comes from concentration on the vowel sounds in a word. This also makes it easier to sing. A person who has mastered this technique is Barbara Streisand. If you will listen to her sing for a little while , you will hear how she puts just a small amount of R sound in many places in her lyrics , but you still end up hearing the R sound. One of the reasons that R sounds need to be minimized in general, is because you have to close your mouth in the process of making them. When your lower jaw moves upward, it pulls the muscles tighter in the throat area that are closest to the voice box. Those muscles are bigger than the muscles in the voice box, and they interfere with the movement of the voice box muscles, drawing them into a strain. In turn that strain shows up in your voice. It also can be harmful to your vocal chords and the muscles that control them, if it is done over an extended period of time in this strained way.

I mentioned colloquialisms earlier. We need to guard against them in our singing. For instance sometimes we say, here in the South, HowR Yall Doin? That is ok in every day conversation. However, if you are singing and expecting to appeal to a national audience, then you need to pronounce each word clearly and say “How are you doing?” The problem seems to be almost the opposite in New England area, where they leave the R sound out of many words. Such as the word park. In New England it is pronounced like “pahk” and the word car is pronounced like “cah”. This again is fine for everyday language in a local setting. If you take these things away from certain areas of our country, then you would take away that area’s uniqueness. However, if you are trying to communicate to a national audience, then you need to pronounce your words in the clearest possible way.

Because of the fact, that we are trying to communicate a special message, the message of Jesus Christ, it is imperative that we do it in the most vocally appealing way for the mass audience. Which, if done properly and done well, will have more mass appeal. This will enhance the opportunity that your WITNESS will be heard, listened to, and very possibly heeded. After all isn’t that what our calling and mission is all about; to get the message of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world? My prayers are with all of you who are doing your best to tell the world about Jesus. Whether it be by your singing, preaching, testifying or just the way you live your life, we all have the same goal. TELL EVERYBODY “JESUS SAVES”!

Until next month I will close with my favorite scripture:
Psalm 118:6 “The Lord is on my side”

He is on yours too. May God bless and keep each one of you. Thanks for reading this column.

Your Brother in Christ,

Bill Baize

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