Cynthia Robinshaw - Offering a Unique Approach to Voice Training

This is an interesting article about singers’ diction: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Aq3N3xASq/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Despite a singer’s best effort toward flawless diction, a frequent complaint after an otherwise outstanding vocal performance continues to be a lack of clarity in the verbal message. “We can’t understand what she is saying,” is the critique that even the most supportive listener is often obliged to utter.

The problem is most acute among female singers, more prevalent in classical styles, more noticeable in large concert halls with long reverberation times, intolerable at high pitches, and highly dependent upon the type of amplification (if applicable).

First, it should be pointed out that—much to the singer’s credit—the vocal instrument is the only one in which a serious attempt is made to transmit two channels of information simultaneously: the musical and the verbal, carried on a single melodic line.

This dual nature of vocal artistry begins with composer–librettist or songwriter–lyricist teams, whose interests vary in preserving separate identities and in the relative importance of the poetic line compared to the musical line. Often, there is an unstated but well-established hierarchy.

In a ballad—particularly of the country-western type—the verbal message takes precedence over the musical message in order to preserve the narrative. A similar hierarchy exists in some forms of recitative. In art song, there is more balance between the two information channels, whereas in the operatic aria or in blues, the verbal message is often suppressed, if not deliberately distorted, to embellish the musical message.

Thus, part of unintelligibility is simply associated with the musical idiom.

from "Why is the Verbal Message Less Intelligible in Singing than in Speech?" by Dr. Ingo Titze, first published in NATS Bulletin, Jan/Feb 1982 issue.

Our neighbor’s Dan Pedro Cactus ( aka-Torch cactus) blooming today.