CE Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban Wed, 21st June 2017

[BasilHarwood]

Is any of the following worthy of consideration?

The way any voice - singing or speaking - navigates from vowel to consonant affects impact on listeners. Producing and placing of such navigations in the vocalising kit in the body, the offered, heard and imitated example of models around, the size of the space into which that vocalisation is taking place - all these impact hugely and largely unconsciously.

The stressed 'OOOS' sounding of the Latin '-us' is surely an attempt to push into prominence what is in essence a not very big sounding combination of letters in ordinary speech / song. There are many 'OOOS' sounds in Latin, and if they are all thrown away as almost too commonplace to bother with, the music itself limps and wilts.

If you listen to many choirs - and I do mean many - who have not thought about how to vocalise Latin vowels - irrespective of whatever style / school of Latin pronunciation you / the DOM favours, the musical impact is diminished. Each member of the choir might be left to pronounce '-us' in a nondescript or un-agreed way, and the musical line just sort of smears away into a sort of disparate anonymity.

If a DOM asks for the big 'OOOS' sound, along with big A and other vowel sounds, the choir will have more impact and drama in their delivery, and thus more projection to listeners / congregation. And even more to the point, the music underlines the power of whatever sentiment the words are designed to impress on that listening congregation. If it's just a nice, comfortable but undifferentiated mutter / murmur / wash, than the import of the meaning of the words is lost. Which seems pretty counter-productive to me.

Of course, 'holy wash / murmur' might be exactly what the composers of choral music might be aiming at, and that too takes care in both the composing, and even more in the manner of agreed articulation by the voices. Maybe yoiu then suppress the big open Latin vowels?

This is all well and good, but really it's just Latin that's not being pronounced in an overly Italianate way (easy for English choirs to do as our vowels aren't naturally bright), and with a little too much stress on the last syllable of (for example) suscepimus which then bumps and over exaggerates the vowel. But Roth does set that syllable to the longest note value, so........ Easily over egged.

Right, next.

[terratogen]

teratogen and mw963 may care to comment on 'suscepiMOOSE DeOOSE' - (just being deliberately provocative of course in relation to recent comments on St Mary's Warwick thread). I agree that vowel sound is intrusive and readily corrigible.
Should add I did enjoy this excellent broadcast.

Funny you should mention it. I've just found a new article (on which a current Cathedral DoM is first author) that addresses, among other things, the production of vowel and consonant sounds among boy and girl choristers. It's late, and I've only just skimmed through; I'll give it another look in the morning and see if there's any light shed.

[Finzi4ever]

This is all well and good, but really it's just Latin that's not being pronounced in an overly Italianate way (easy for English choirs to do as our vowels aren't naturally bright), and with a little too much stress on the last syllable of (for example) suscepimus which then bumps and over exaggerates the vowel. But Roth does set that syllable to the longest note value, so........ Easily over egged.

Right, next.

all very well, but irrespective of longest note value or any poetic ictus implied by the composer, the word stress is susCEPimus and DEus.

[BasilHarwood]

all very well, but irrespective of longest note value or any poetic ictus implied by the composer, the word stress is susCEPimus and DEus.

Totally, but it didn't quite come out like that on the radio...

[terratogen]

Funny you should mention it. I've just found a new article (on which a current Cathedral DoM is first author) that addresses, among other things, the production of vowel and consonant sounds among boy and girl choristers. It's late, and I've only just skimmed through; I'll give it another look in the morning and see if there's any light shed.

Have had the chance to read the chapter (slightly) more thoroughly this morning. A testament to the powerful social construction of the gendered voice, it seems, even in very subtle ways and among very young children. Offering it here (with the disclaimer that I'm no pedagogue!) because the question of different vowel production in particular has been expressly raised in this thread. If excerpting this is inappropriate, do let me know, and I'll remove it.

Vowels

There are some commonly misformed vowels, which—in the experience of the first author (and, for some reason, increasingly so in the last few years) are more prevalent in girls’ singing than that of boys. These are just a few examples (British English):

1. the ‘a’ of ‘father,’ which can often sound as often sounds as an ‘er’ vowel, as in ‘learn’;
2. the ‘o’ of ‘love’ (or the ‘u’ of ‘but’) which also often sounds as an ‘er’ vowel;
3. the diphthong of ‘mouth,’ which can sound more like a ‘a’ vowel (as in ‘math’);
4. the ‘i’ of ‘King’ (often sounds as an ‘a’ vowel).

[...] Various factors may be behind such types of vowel production for the director, such as an increased listening to popular music by young people... Also, there has also been a general shift reported in the use (and deference toward) received pronunciation in British English over the past decade or so (e.g., Wells, 1999). At the same time, there has been a corresponding acceptance of regional accents, such as in the media, with strong regional accents on television and film—including children’s television. The linguistic cultural soundscape has changed and it may be that girls are more attuned perceptually to contemporary linguistic practices...

Consonants

Given the impact of sociocultural experiences on promoting gendered behavior in children (e.g., Karsten, 2003; Martin & Ruble, 2004), it is likely that both girls and boys enter the role of chorister with particular gender traits. Anecdotal evidence suggest that novice female choristers appear to be particularly feminine and less physical in their behavior, whereas boys have a tendency towards favoring physicality. As singing, arguably, is a highly physical activity, the amount of time needed by the director to shape choristers’ sung products may be unequal between the sexes. (Owens & Welch, 2017, pp. 176-177)

Owens, M. & Welch, G.F. (2017). Choral pedagogy and the construction of identity: Girls. In F. Abrahams & P. Head (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of choral pedagogy (pp. 167-184). Oxford: OUP.

[ardcarp]

I note that Matthew Owens probably comes across boys and girls from (mainly) privileged backgrounds in the hallowed portals of Wells. Indeed the typical Sloane Ranger girl pronounces 'books' as 'berks'

This is a fearfully non-PC post so I expect to be pooped upon from a great height.

Surely the most important thing for a close-knit choir is to have uniform vowel sounds, though agreed the vowels of Italy and Wales seem especially good for singing.