diction (was velarized /l/ and Billy Holiday)

[Herb Stahlke]

I fear I was writing as much as a choral conductor and singer as I was
as a linguist.  In choral and voice training the term diction refers
to the entire subdiscipline of pronunciation for singing.  See for
example Ray Robinson's English Diction for the Choral Singer or
Richard Barefield's Diction and the Choral Repertoire, both out of
print classics in the field.

Herb



On Fri, Mar 6, 2009 at 8:58 PM,  <RonButters at aol.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
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> Subject:      diction (was velarized /l/ and Billy Holiday)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A small quibble, but it seems odd for a linguist to use the term "diction" t=
> o=20
> mean "enunciation." I've always thought that "diction" properly referred to=20
> word choice (cf. "dictionary"), but perhaps I have spent too many years in=20
> English Departments. I see that NOAD lists both meanings, and associates the=
> =20
> "enunciation" meaning with singing, but I've always thought of it as somethi=
> ng of a=20
> solecism (not to get prescriptive on y'all: I'm just DESCRIBING what I=20
> thought was the social distribution of the usage).
>
> dic=E2=80=A2tion ...  n. 1 the choice and use of words
> and phrases in speech or writing: Wordsworth campaigned
> against exaggerated poetic diction.
> 2 the style of enunciation in speaking or singing: she
> began imitating his careful diction.
> =E2=80=93ORIGIN mid 16th cent. (denoting a word or phrase):
> from Latin dictio(n-), from dicere =E2=80=98to say.=E2=80=99
> dic=E2=80=A2tion=E2=80=A2ar=E2=80=A2y )
>
> In a message dated 3/5/09 10:06:15 PM, hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
>> This afternoon I was listening to a recording of Billy Holiday singing
>> "Crazy he calls me."=C2=A0 In the line "The impossible will take a little
>> while" she has a schwa before the final /l/ of "impossible" and I
>> don't hear any distinctive velarization of the /l/.=C2=A0 There are severa=
> l
>> other post-vocalic /l/s in the song, and they don't show much
>> velarization either.=C2=A0 Post-vocalic /l/ is a consistent problem for
>> American English singers, since the raising of the back of the tongue
>> towards the velum constricts the oral cavity and reduces the overall
>> resonance of the syllable coda.=C2=A0 Some voice teachers and choral
>> conductors will spend time training their singers to use only a
>> non-velarized /l/, as a number European languages widely represented
>> in the vocal and choral literature do.=C2=A0 My CD of Billy is, of course,
>> a copy, and I don't know how good the master was.=C2=A0 It's entirely
>> possible that the fidelity is not good enough to support much in the
>> way of diction comments, but my impression is otherwise.=C2=A0 Billy's
>> diction is superb.=C2=A0 Every word she sings is clear, even on a copy of=20=
> a
>> copy of a 1949 recording.=C2=A0 Billy had little or no formal vocal
>> training, so the fact that she doesn't velarize /l/ much, if at all,
>> wouldn't be the result of vocal training.=C2=A0 Is it a feature of her
>> variety of AAE?=C2=A0 Is it idiosyncratic to her distinctive vocal style?
>>=20
>> Herb
>>=20
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