Skill Set

While rehearsing this afternoon for an upcoming choral project with Mendelssohn's oratorio Paulus, I had a chance to help out in a way I might not have expected. I joined Heilbronn's Vokalensemble in April, and next weekend's performance will be the first major work, with orchestra in Kilianskirche, that I will perform as a member of the choir. Together with a second and slightly larger group, we are about 120 voices strong.

During rehearsals, I have been puzzled at times about pronunciation, always tuning my vowel color to that of my neighbors. After all, they are native speakers, and we are singing in German. Now and then, particularly on "e" vowels, I've had the feeling that I learned a different pronunciation, back in my diction classes at Oberlin Conservatory in the 1980s.

Whether you're singing on an "eh" (as in "head") or closed "e" (not found in English, but like the second syllable in "obey" without the drop into the diphthong) makes a big difference in terms of vocal color and resonance. Apparently, as I learned in the spring, people with the local Swabian dialect throw in some closed "e" sounds where they don't belong (that is, according to the rules of Stage German (Bühnendeutsch) that I was drilled in during college). So, I went home from rehearsal in the spring and spent some time with my dictionaries to clarify vowels for myself.

During a break today, I had pointed out two vowel questions to our conductor, who seemed a little too harried to work on the finer points of diction. But he diligently made note and said he'd see what he could do. He is not from the Heilbronn area, although his Black Forest roots don't necessarily bring him closer to the Hochdeutsch of the Hannover region. To my ear, his spoken pronunciation is spot on, but (like many conductors of my acquaintance) he hasn't learned the code (International Phonetic Alphabet) and lacks the vocabulary to describe the sounds. Which is usually just as well, since most choral singers go cross-eyed when I bring it up. (Here's a quick test: did you like that link? If it looks like magic, you're with me. If your eyes are crossed…well, I've seen that look before.)

But to my point. Toward the end of rehearsal, we came across the word: Jerusalem. In English, dzeh-ru-suh-lemm. In German, ya(y)-ru-za-lemm. But in Swabia (where I live), apparently ya(y)-ru-za-la(y)m. It was one of the words that had bugged me, and I'd looked it up. So, when my German choral conductor cast his eyes toward the choir for verification on the final vowel sound, he looked at me, the American in the second sopranos. Lemm, I said. Like "Bett" (bed) or "hell" (bright). I'm sure about that. I looked it up.

Little Miss Diction hasn't lost her touch.