This week while teaching my regular two days at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, I also taught a class in French pronunciation. My vocal students and two faculty members attended. We went through all the pronunciation exercises in Vocalizing from the Ground Up!, a book I published in 2001, that were designed by my friend, Jeanne Bovet. She has put together some delightful phrases in which the same vowel sound is repeated many times. Some of them are a bit of a tongue-twister, but we all had fun saying them and, I hope, learned something about French pronunciation.
French is probably the hardest of the Western European languages to speak correctly because there are so many sounds made in it that we do not use in English. Some of these include the vowel used in words like du, tu, pure etc. This sound has nothing to do with U. One must think and pronounce Eee while pouting slightly to achieve an authentic sound. Too often Americans try to turn this vowel into a diphthong, which it isn't. We all worked on this in the class and finally it became easier. Other difficult sounds are the various nasals that are used in the language. Portuguese has some nasal vowel sounds as well, but Americans only sound that way when they have a heavy cold. To make a nasal sound, one must allow the soft palate to drop so that part of the sound emerges through the nose and part through the mouth. To test if this is happening, play guitar on your nose while making the nasal sound. It should interupt the sound each time you tweak your nose.
One common problem is with the French word un. Many people simply grunt and think that they have pronounced this correctly. One needs to start with the vowel sound used in the name Goethe, and then allow it to become nasal. This is very different from the grunt technique. All of the nasal vowel sounds must start with the non-nasal vowel. This is explained in detail in Vocalizing from the Ground Up!.
Small French words like me, te, se, que are the Schvah but unlike the American Schvah (found in the second syllable of the word 'sofa') the French Schvah requires a pout. In every case this is an unaccented sound. Many Americans make this sound much too prominent both in French and in English.
Americans seem to have an especially hard time putting these sounds into fast moving phrases in a song or aria. One really needs to be able to say a phrase with these sounds very quickly before trying to sing it.
Since all of my students are responsible for learning at least one French chanson this term, they have all had to cope with and master these challenges. Two of my students are preparing French song cycles. One is working on Aires Chantez by Poulenc and another is learning "Chansons de Jeunesse by Debussy.
In the CDs that accompany Vocalizing from the Ground Up!, Jeanne Bovet says all of these phrases clearly and beautifully. Always try to hear a native speaker when learning a language.
Ideally, every singer should be fluent in all of the languages he or she sings. This does not always happen. But a singer must be able to produce the language in such a way that a native speaker assumes he is fluent. In addition to the correct sounds, one must also really know the meaning of each word one sings. That is why I suggest that the singer go beyond the translation that is usually given in the text, often in poetic form, where the English word does not always come in the same place the French (or whatever) word does, and write a literal translation, word over word, to every song one sings in a foreign language. A native speaker automatically has layers of meaning for every word. Those of us who are learning to sing in the language must do the next best thing and find as many different interpretations and colorations of each word as is possible. In this way we can do justice to the poet as well as to the composer. Since the composer obviously was hearing the original language as he or she wrote music, singing anything in a translation is never as good as staying with the language the composer heard when he was writing the song.
We singers must convince our audience that we know every minute gradation of meaning in whatever text we sing.
This is what makes the difference between a great singer and an adequate one!
Vocalizing from the Ground Up!, published by Alberti Productions, is available through my website http://www.hburtis.com/. It is priced at $35.00 plus $5.00 shipping and handling.
