Phil Daley wrote:
I think the Fred Waring arrangements used to have some "symbolic" pronunciation guide below the text. I believe it has a name, but I don't remember it.
Tone Syllables. His goal was to have his singers pronounce every phoneme exactly alike at the same nanosecond. He couldn't stand mushy diction that couldn't be understood.
When I first started teaching chorus, I thought this stuff was ludicrous.
Yes, so did a lot of traditionally-trained conductors. Fred did overdo some things, but that was a matter of personal style, not of diction per se.
After 2 or 3 years of teaching exactly what they were proposing, I saw the light.
My mom learned the system from Fred, and I learned it from her. It worked then and it works now.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 Mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
