MUSICAL HINTS.

Shannon News, 13 July 1928, Page 4

MUSICAL HINTS.

USE OF THE VOWELS IN SINGING. PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION

A fair number of members of the Musical Appreciation class of the W.E.A. assembled in the De Luxe Hall on Monday evening to hear the lecture by Mr Edwin Dennis, A.R.C.M. Continuing the instructions in diction and enunciation, Mr Dennis said that the "ee" sound encouraged the use of the nose and developed resonance. In singing-" oh " the bottom lips should be close to the teeth, otherwise there was a loss of resonance. In the "ee" sound the tip of the tongue should touch the roots of the bottom teeth, the rest, of the , tongue being raised and spread. If the top teeth were not shown the sound became dull and the natural timbre was lost, The "igh" sound was, in speaking, a blend between the "ah" and the "ee". In singing, however, the sound used Was "ah" until near the end of the word, and then the tongue was lifted very sharply to produce the "ee" sound. This particular diphthong was much used to express action, as in "rise," "strive," and "strike." The "ow" sound was practically a combination of " ah" and "oo," and it sounded very well in the lower registers. This type of sound was usually connected with serious or sinister moods, as in proud, crown, mount, crowd, pout, growl. The "oh" had many colours and characteristics, — possibly as many as the "ee"—and one had to be careful to shape the mouth correctly in singing it. In thiß case particularly the bottom lips should not be allowed to come away from the teeth. The "o" in "hot" was the obscured form of "oh," the open sound. A combination of "uh" and "oh" was used in singing such words as "love.'Mt was necessary to guard against producing a guttural "oh," the risk of which was one of the greatest drawbacks of. the language; and the jaw should not be dropped in singing "oh." If a pupil found that any of the words that he said were develop-, ing a guttural tendency, he could overcome it by using "igh" in front of the vowel and practising such words as "riot" and "scion." A modification of the "oh" sound, used largely in emotional forms, was "aw." The sounds "oh," "aw" and "uh" were used largely in devotional and sacred words.

The lecturer next took the class through a study of the sentiments of two songs, taking for his first example "The Erl King," by Schubert, and for his second the same composer's ballad "The Organ Grinder." He remarked that the average person who was going to leain a song went straight to' the piano and commenced to play the piece before really knowing what it was about, and probably before he had proceeded very far with it he found that he was playing it in the wrong key or in the wrong time. The speaker had noticed these faults in sightreading tests at competitions, and some of the cleverest candidates had played pieces in the wrong key for several bars before discovering the mistake. The point he wished to stress was that, after going through a song, a person might miss the story or the meaning of the song. The singer might produce too many climaxes and lose the proper effect. He might spoil the rhythm in this way. Written music had a certain character given to it in each instance by the composer, and if that character was expressed by threefour time, it should be played in threefour time. If the music encouraged the singer to make a pause and if the singer wanted to produce certain effects, he could do so, but he must immediately'return to the true rhythm — that was, the tempo in which he started. In learning a song, the student should first get to know the words and obtain the sense of the song, and before attempting to sing it, he should learn the melody and' the time. If he had the melody, the time and the words in his head, he could reasonably sit down and learn the song. There were one or two very fine songs that had been handed down, which were not very often heard, because they were too difficult for the majority of singers. Mr Dennis read a translation of the poetry of "The Erl King," and demonstrated the three voices used in it: that of the father who is riding in haste to his castle, with his little son in his arms; that of the boy himself, obsessed by visions of the ethereal world; and that of the Erl King, who. has come to claim the child and who takes its spirit, leaving the dead body in tha father's arins. The piece was further demonstrated by the playing : of a record of it as sung by Kobert Badford. The other song-analysed, "The Organ Grinder," was ;the subject of some quoted remarks by Mr Plunket Greene. The lecturer stated that Mr Greene, whom he had met, was possibly the greatest authority in the Englishspeaking world on interpretation. He was a great recitalist, and the speaker had known him to sing six lines of a folk-song with one breath. On being asked how he did this, he had replied, "Practice." He was possibly the only singer in London who could give the number of recitals that he did and have packed audiences all the time; he had spent five years in Italy and six years in Germany, studying all the lime.

Mr Dennis stated that "The Doppelganger," another of Schubert's song 3, was a wonderful number, and apart from professional, he had only heard two persons try to sing it. In order to interpret it, the singer Avould require complete control ove,r the brCath and voice, and would really need to live the piece. Records were played of selections

from '' Cavallcria Rusticana," of a Wurlitzer organ rendering of "In a Monastery Garden," and of an orchestral exposition of the "Ruy Bias" overture (Mendelssohn). The gramophone and records were lent by His Master's Voice Company, for which Mr. K. Aitkea is the localagent.