Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Pardon me David, I wasn't speaking of doing an accent in the acting sense. The question arose as to pronounciation of the English of older days, something that even and an academically-inclined audience can guess. And there was a comment on the stage use of accents (I don't remember the context). My comment came from experience. ...It is easier to do an accent when imitating a sound than to do it when trying to convey meaning in conversation. In my brief folk singing career (over forty years ago) I sang in many languages. I remember a performance where I did a Russian song and a Russian couple from the audience came up afterward and started speaking to me in Russian - I had to explain that I don't speak the language. I speak German and French, with a reasonable accent when conversing. But I can read out loud a poem, or sing a song, with a perfect accent. (Being of an age I have an advantage, in nursery school we were taught to sing songs in those languages, later when in high school learning the languages I figured out why they did that. It gave us the facility for the sounds). But of course when I sing in German or French I understand the words as well, so can portray the meaning rather than repeating sounds. But what about singing in Finnish (one of the non Indo-European languages, along with Basque)? Done that too, not a Finnish accent in English, but making understandable words. A trained singer can do that, because of his ear - not perfectly of course, but creditably. Certainly, there are venues such as renaissance fairs where it's all in fun anyway and nobody cares what you sound like as long as you play the game, but if you want to relate to an academically-inclined audience who are familiar with the subtleties of the historical language you're trying to simulate, then it would probably be as well to know something of what they know before dishing up to them their own specialty. Either that, or just use your own natural voice. That's my take on it anyway. Here I totally agree! Although I yet quarrel with the academic knowledge of the sound of the historical language. I don't think that is possible. But there is usually a general academic agreement as to how it should have sounded. I enjoy trying to read Chaucer out loud, using my knowledge of the mix of French and Anglo-Saxon, using the spellings, and using the fact that he parses in relatively strict verse. One looks for the syllables to accent in order to make the rhythm as it is apparent in his form that he meant to carry a strict rhythm (unlike Shakespeare). I have a natural ease in doing contemporary Irish songs in English with the accent (in that previous incarnation I spent a lot of time singing with the Clancy's and Tommy Makem - we were all unknowns in San Francisco - I stayed unknown). So I use that in those songs, but I agree with you. Better to use your natural voice if you don't know to do the sound, but all songs of the time should parse. The vowels have changed considerably, and some of the consonants. But you can guess that the songs weren't free verse, so making the rhyme (as often done in modern poetry readings, wind rhymes with find), or sounding the silent e at the end of a word, those are likely sounds. But if you are singing English words of a French song, sing in English! David, I hope I said this properly as to my meaning. One shouldn't fake an accent - I've been singing the rather ancient Three Ravens since 1955, and I do it in modern English with the exception of a couple of words that need the expression of the silent ending vowel to make the lines parse. Best, Jon Jonathan W. Murphy Englishtown, NJ
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
David, What a pleasant message. With my apologies to the list for not editing out our dialogue below (as I don't have time tonight to trim the message) I'll add a few notes that may be of interest. I started with folk in 1949 for some reason . I think it was probably part interest in my heritage and partly because I was a fourteen year old breaking the rules by listening to WWVA with the radio under my covers after my bedtime. Whatever, they played Burl Ives and Leadbelly, John Jacob Niles and Woody Guthrie - and all sorts of others. I made a mountain dulcimer recently because of old memories of Jean Ritchie. I mentioned singing with the Clancy's and Tommy Makem in 1961 (off stage, at the local churches). I didn't mention my last gig before taking straight employment. I got back from SF of a Sunday afternoon and went to Gerde's Folk City (the old location) in NYC. Ed McCurdy was at the bar. The amateurs held the audience for about five to ten minutes until one Bob Zimmerman took the stage in his RR engineers cap and with his neck braced harmonica and guitar. He held them for a half hour, and McCurdy left the bar to listen. I borrowed a guitar and took the stage, also held them for a half hour and got the attendance of McCurdy. My last night, and Bob Dylan's first. McCurdy took us both out for drinks (although Zimmerman was under age). And one more, several years later as an IBM salesman I hung out in a place called Two Guitars (a Russian place, the name from the song Dve Guitare). Theo Bikel was a regular customer as well, we both loved Sashka Polinoff's balalaika. One night Sashka was a bit under the weather and Bikel and I swapped sets to cover him. It was from Theo I learned to sing in Russian and Rumanian. And (my lady says ask Murphy the time and he'll tell you how to build a watch) may I add a comment on what is traditional. There is a song called Scarborough Fair, sung by Simon and Garfunkel in a Dorian mode, and it is in many songbooks with their melody and word and attributed as Traditional English. Not so, the traditional song was in a major tonic (Ionian), and was a male/female response song (like Reuben, Rueben or Paper of Pins). Their melody is quite pretty, but not old - my point being that we can never be sure what is really old unless we see the original music. The lute list is obviously working with old texts in French Tabulature, as I'm doing in trying to learn on the retuned guitar. But I will say that when SG's Scarborough Fair came out I made my own song by alternating the old words of the male and female, and using their Dorian for the female and the old Ionian for the male. It works well. Should anyone want the full text of the song, which gives it meaning, I'd be happy to type it out. Said more than I intended, a curse that we who had to learn to touch type in high school have. Our college papers were written on manual typewriters (which is an advantage for string players, it builds finger strength). Best, Jon Hi Jon, In my brief folk singing career (over forty years ago)... Lets see, I too was singing folk music forty years ago. 1963 was my first year out of high school. I was in Southern California in those days, and very big into the bluegrass scene: hanging out with the likes of Douglas Dillard, John McLean and David Lindley. Unlike them, I remained unknown... The folk revival at that time opened the door to a lot of very fine folksingers who, like yourself, were skilled in the folk repertoire of many countries. I myself was strictly an imitator: I was trying to sound as Appalachian as I possibly could (mostly trying to copy sounds I heard on some of the Folkways recordings that were going around at that time), so perhaps I was inadvertantly singing Elizabethan English!? ...I yet quarrel with the academic knowledge of the sound of the historical language. I don't think that is possible. But there is usually a general academic agreement as to how it should have sounded. Ho! There's a rascally streak in my nature that makes me think that if ONLY the Elizabethans had had the proper academic preparation, they would have been able to speak perfect period English the way it really should sound. Unfortunately, they didn't have the benefit of all our research on the subject, so GOODness knows WHAT they sounded like! :-) I enjoy trying to read Chaucer out loud, using my knowledge of the mix of French and Anglo-Saxon, using the spellings, and using the fact that he parses in relatively strict verse. One looks for the syllables to accent in order to make the rhythm as it is apparent in his form that he meant to carry a strict rhythm (unlike Shakespeare). I think poetry is at its best when it's read out loud. Drama too. To me, nothing's more boring than reading a play, but to watch it unfold on the stage is a whole different experience. An acquaintance of mine who lives in Leeds (UK) was involved a few years ago
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Well said all, accents are learned in youth. But actors can sometimes do them well. Yet there is one group who can do them perfectly. I'm sure I mentioned that I came to instruments in recent years when my main instrument got too old (at 68 my voice ain't what it used to be). Singers can make any sound (I mean real singers, not people shouting into a mike). I've sung in Russian and Finnish, Irish and Midlands, Texas and French (but I can't sing in Brooklyn, but can do a pretty good job speaking it as a New Yorker). I've had people address me in their own language after a perfomance that included that language, didn't understand a word. It is easier to do an accent when imitating a sound than to do it when trying to convey meaning in conversation. And speaking of the change in sound, it is likely that Queen Elizabeth would have had difficulty understanding the speech of Queen Elizabeth II, even though they use the same words. And my lady friend who is French has laughed (as the French do) at the Quebecois visiting Paris for their claim to speak French - but the French of the Quebecois is probably a lot closer to Louis' language than hers. But this list has to do with the lute, and the music of the lute (and it seems to a particular era of that ancient instrument). And the original question was on the Elizabethan pronounciation (and I assume to sing the songs of the era with the lute). So, coming back to base, the early notations (and pitches) weren't as clear as our own as to timing, rhythm, pitch and whatever. The poems of Homer date back to @800 BC, but weren't written down for about 400 years. They were sung, as were many of the tunes on the lute sung (one learns from another by ear, then it changes as the singer moves on). We have it on the harp - O'Carolan, the great blind harpist of the 1700's, his works were transcriptions by others from memory later. The best we can do with the music of the troubadours (and trouveres) is to get the sense of it and try to replicate it, we can never duplicate it without a time machine. Best, Jon
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Jon wrote: It is easier to do an accent when imitating a sound than to do it when trying to convey meaning in conversation. I disagree, and I do so from my experience as an actor who studied dialects. At one point I got rather good at picking out where people were from in the world just by listening to them talk (though I've never been as good as Henry Higgins), and I was more often than not cast in roles requiring some sort of dialect. All speech is merely sound that conveys meaning, and the sense of meaning changes to the listener when the dialect confers a different inflection on the words than one is normally used to hearing. I have recently had to explain to some American friends that an English lady of my acquaintance is not really the harridan they think she is because of what she says, but that it's her upper class English dialect that is causing them some confusion. They (the Americans) are not used to hearing it and so think she means something other than what she actually does. I on the other hand have gotten on very well with her because I know the dialect and understand its nuances. But to continue, all speech can be broken down into phonetic sounds (see Higgins again), and how you produce this sound is what conveys meaning in a conversation. Regional dialects determine the shape of those sounds. I recall a lady once telling me a story of when a southern American fellow once asked her for a pin, so she reached into her sewing kit and pulled out a safety pin. The fellow looked at her rather puzzled and said, No, a pin. To rat with. Regards, Craig
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 02:25 AM, Jon Murphy wrote: ...It is easier to do an accent when imitating a sound than to do it when trying to convey meaning in conversation. I imagine just about anyone can do the accent, so that they sound vaguely like someone else. For the benefit of choral directors, for example, who have some sense that they should be hearing something that sounds German or sounds French or whatever, then certainly all you have to do is imitate the sound of the language, like making bird calls. But try singing Schubert lieder to a German audience of Schubert lovers: in front of an audience of native speakers of German, you'd have to do a heck of a lot more than just do the accent! Choral experience from the Brahms Requiem isn't going to cut it! Unless you're genuinely fluent in German (which requires a little more application than simply doing the accent) it will be amateur hour. Certainly, there are venues such as renaissance fairs where it's all in fun anyway and nobody cares what you sound like as long as you play the game, but if you want to relate to an academically-inclined audience who are familiar with the subtleties of the historical language you're trying to simulate, then it would probably be as well to know something of what they know before dishing up to them their own specialty. Either that, or just use your own natural voice. That's my take on it anyway. Regards, David Rastall
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Dear John, thank you for your kind advice. What I learned about English is that its written form didn't follow the changing pronunciation over the centuries, and that around 1500 the sound of the vowels for example was quite the same as they were written. I understand that spelling in German for example kept more or less track to its spoken form, but I cannot judge for other languages. Choosing the right rhythm when reciting the poem seems to be quite helpful with regard to pronunciation, thank you for pointing me in that direction. So, would you for example speak/sing the words showres and flowres in Dowland's Go crystall teares more like single syllable words as the jambic rhythm would suggest? Maybe even with an open o like in shores and floors :-) Go crystall teares, like to the morning showres, And sweetly weep into thy Ladies breast. And as the dewes revive the drooping flowers, so let your drops of pity be addrest, to quicken up the thoghts of my desert, which sleeps too sound, whilst I from her depart. And while we're at it: is it desert or desart (like in stanza two, where it is rhymed on heart)? Or the other way round, kind of depert and hert :-) Sorry for going so much into detail, I simply no nothing about this, but I am curious on the musical quality of elizabethan pronunciation. I don't really care if an audience could understand it just from hearing, because in Germany very few people understand the song texts even in today's pronunciation the first time they hear them. Regards, Stephan Am 29 Sep 2003 um 23:07 hat Jon Murphy geschrieben: Stephan, I'm already in this thread with comments on the topic, but I couldn't resist coming in again now that I see the original message. For any singer (and as you are asking for rhyming I assume you are singing with the lute) it is less the rhyme than the phrasing. You can get away with a lot by timing the beat on the right sylaable. Also, poetry has always taken liberties with pronounciation (wynd for wind). Even the French (despite their strict academic interepretation of their language take liberties in song - Frere Jaques in the song is pronounced just as we do, with the a at the end to make it melliflous, although it would be Frear Jaques in conversation. I'll not add to my other comment on Shaksper's sounds, read the text and fit it to the music - and you probably have a good approximation of the way it was sung. The language was in flux at the time. Best, Jon
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
I should certainly refrain from recommending technical literature. As for me, any pronunciation dictionary is as good as the other, depending on the price. I appreciate the basics but do not want to go into details too much. E.g. I got my basic information about this subject from a general survey upon Chaucer's English in a text edition. Most important for me is that nowaday's Queen's English (or, rather, London upper class dialect) is the less standard the more more you trace English back through the centuries. Once, I made a pronunciation guide through Handel's Judas Maccabeus for my congragation's choir but it was rejected as being too far from standard school English. HIP (historically informed pronunciation) English seems to be an issue foer professionals, rather. Stephan Olbertz [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: And which one do you recommend? eleven other related items: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books-de-intl -usfield-keywords=pronunciation%20shakespearebq=1/ref=sr_aps_all/302 -7703699-6056854 -- Best wishes, Mathias Mathias Roesel, Grosze Annenstrasze 5, 28199 Bremen, Deutschland/ Germany, Tel +49 - 421 - 165 49 97, Fax +49 1805 060 334 480 67, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 09:54 PM, Jon Murphy wrote: Forget pronounciation... I agree. Putting on an accent is one thing, but reproducing someone else's speech perfectly is very difficult. It can only be accomplished successfully by skilled, highly trained professional performers. The rest of us mere mortals just sound fake when we do it. And the very last thing you want to do in a HIP performance is sound fake, right? For the purposes of performing, I believe it's far better to use our own speaking/singing voices as effectively as we know how. That way, we don't lose any of the subtlety of our own use of our native language. The pronounciation of standard English words two hundred years ago (among the people) probably better resembled the Cockney of London today that what you hear on stage or screen (either BBC TV or the silver one). There is a declamatory kind of stagey English that seems to be the province of some stage acting, and I'm sure that that was the same in Shakespeare's day too. I'm sure Elizabethan actors spoke with many voices, depending on whom they were portraying: kings, gravediggers, soldiers etc. But as far as a standard pronunciation from any period of English history, bearing in mind regional accents and dialects and the fact that English people of various backgrounds speak very differently from one another, I should think it would be impossible to come up with a single speech pattern as standard English. Where that leaves us with regard to singing Elizabethan lute songs I have no idea!! The pronounciation of Elizabethan English might best be found (in the absence of a time machine) by hearing the sounds of isolated enclaves in the colonies (i.e, the Appalachians, some of the distinctive sounds of the East coast of the U.S. and Canada). I don't know: that's the theory, but I've never heard it put into practice. Regards, David Rastall
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Am 30 Sep 2003 um 14:08 hat David Rastall geschrieben: On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 09:54 PM, Jon Murphy wrote: Forget pronounciation... I agree. Putting on an accent is one thing, but reproducing someone else's speech perfectly is very difficult. Maybe as difficult as playing the lute. It's only fair to get the singers into some work, isn't it? :-) Stephan
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Good People - The conventional wisdom regarding theatrical stage is that if one cannot do a good job at an accent, one should not do it at all (this explains why in a recent Robin Hood movie, for example, the main character sounded like a Yank - that and Kevin Costner can't act). This does not entitle one not to practice at dialects, though. I feel this is as applicable to the musical stage as well. It's all just vowels when one sings, after all. Right? D --- Stephan Olbertz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 30 Sep 2003 um 14:08 hat David Rastall geschrieben: On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 09:54 PM, Jon Murphy wrote: Forget pronounciation... I agree. Putting on an accent is one thing, but reproducing someone else's speech perfectly is very difficult. Maybe as difficult as playing the lute. It's only fair to get the singers into some work, isn't it? :-) Stephan __ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Sir David Vavreck at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The conventional wisdom regarding theatrical stage is that if one cannot do a good job at an accent, one should not do it at all (this explains why in a recent Robin Hood movie, for example, the main character sounded like a Yank - that and Kevin Costner can't act). How should he have sounded? Would it have been more proper for a Saxon (or Norman, for that matter) 100 years after the Norman conquest to speak modern BBC English, or anything understandable to a modern English speaker? Your note does remind me of Cary Elwes, as Robin Hood in the Mel Brooks movie, saying he could succeed against impossible odds Because unlike other Robin Hoods, *I* have an English accent or words to that effect. I think it was the only funny line in the movie, or at least the only one in the 15 minutes that I watched before giving up on it. HP
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Stephan Olbertz [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: Dear list, yesterday I came across a page advertising a book called All the words on stage, which deals with the pronunciation of Shakespeare's English: http://makeashorterlink.com/?X23912A06 It would be nice to hear if anyone knows the book and could comment on its usefulness for our lute song purposes, for example how to rhyme sympathy on die etc. eleven other related items: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books-de-intl-usfield-keywords=pronunciation%20shakespearebq=1/ref=sr_aps_all/302-7703699-6056854 -- Viele Grüße Mathias Mathias Roesel, Grosze Annenstrasze 5, 28199 Bremen, Deutschland/ Germany, Tel +49 - 421 - 165 49 97, Fax +49 1805 060 334 480 67, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
And which one do you recommend? Stephan Am 29 Sep 2003 um 17:22 hat Mathias Rösel geschrieben: Stephan Olbertz [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: Dear list, yesterday I came across a page advertising a book called All the words on stage, which deals with the pronunciation of Shakespeare's English: http://makeashorterlink.com/?X23912A06 It would be nice to hear if anyone knows the book and could comment on its usefulness for our lute song purposes, for example how to rhyme sympathy on die etc. eleven other related items: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=books-de-intl -usfield-keywords=pronunciation%20shakespearebq=1/ref=sr_aps_all/302 -7703699-6056854 -- Viele Grüße Mathias Mathias Roesel, Grosze Annenstrasze 5, 28199 Bremen, Deutschland/ Germany, Tel +49 - 421 - 165 49 97, Fax +49 1805 060 334 480 67, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
To clarify a bit: the book I mentioned got quite good reviews and I just wondered if it is really the bible of Elizabethan English. My continental and maybe wrong impression has been that a word Shakespeare didn't write didn't exist. On the other hand I would certainly be delighted to hear which books on the topic you prefer and why. Regards, Stephan Am 29 Sep 2003 um 13:52 hat Stephan Olbertz geschrieben: Dear list, yesterday I came across a page advertising a book called All the words on stage, which deals with the pronunciation of Shakespeare's English: http://makeashorterlink.com/?X23912A06 It would be nice to hear if anyone knows the book and could comment on its usefulness for our lute song purposes, for example how to rhyme sympathy on die etc. Regards, Stephan
Re: Elizabethan pronunciation
Stephan Olbertz wrote: To clarify a bit: the book I mentioned got quite good reviews and I just wondered if it is really the bible of Elizabethan English. My continental and maybe wrong impression has been that a word Shakespeare didn't write didn't exist. Erm, Spenser's English is quite different from Shakespeare's English :) I am sure that Spenser used words you won't find in Shakespeare's plays. Other examples that come to mind are Nashe, Greene, ... and - of course - Sidney. Ooops, I forgot Lyly. It is a common misbelief that Elizabethan (including early Jacobean) literature is Shakespeare and nothing else. By far the most popular play on the Elizabethan stage was Kid's Spanish Tragedy. A book about the pronunciation of Shakespeare's English most probably refers to the English of Shakespeare's time Rainer PS Rhymes like move/love sound quite strange today :)
