Karen:
Thanks for forwarding this definition of the differences between phones and phonemes.
For singing needs phonemes are less useful and, in many cases, very confusing because they are not consistent, that is, the same phoneme can represent different phones and do not represent the smallest unit of sound in a language. When singing vowels the sustained nature of the sung vowel must be given primary consideration and phonemes do not necessarily define this need.
Phones, on the other hand are more defined from language to language. The /i/ is always a long "ee" sound in any language, for example. And, as your writer had said, IPA typically deals in phones, that is, in as exact a definition of the actual primary vowel sound as it possible to create in writing.
But I had forgotten that the phone is defined by /'s (slashes) and the phoneme by []'s (left and right brackets). A difficulty occurs when the receiving computer is unable to reproduce the left and right brackets, [i] for example, and what should be a clear and defined use of symbols is destroyed by technological inconsistencies.
Thankfully most computers do recognize the /'s (slashes) and these are all we need to make vowel clarity for singing.
-- Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice and Vocal Pedagogy, Emeritus Director of Opera-Theatre, 1987-1997 School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ
|
| |