Dear Dre and all,
I'm an experienced diction teacher and I sing German extremely well. German speakers are puzzled that I speak the language so poorly because I sing it so well. So you're right -- I know how to say the r's. I know how to teach them *IF* all I teach is the flipped or rolled r. However, change is in the wind.
Newer diction texts now indicate that as a rule, not an exception, the final r in certain words should NOT be flipped but said as a schwa or as that symbol that looks like /a/ but upsidedown. This means singing "der eine" as /de@ aen@/ rather than /der aen@/.
Most voice teachers in college and university voice programs still follow the rule of flipping or rolling/trilling all r's. I want my diction students to be current as many of them go on to big graduate programs. Thus my question regarding how other teachers teach the r's in German diction.
I want to know if you bother with the newer way or simply stick with the flipped/single tap r and the rolled/trilled r as the standard.
One of the problems I find with the use of the /@/ in place of the final r as in the 'der eine' example) is that singers tend to start the following vowel with a glottal onset. In fact at least one of the diction texts insists that initial vowels in these cases *must* be started with a light glottal.
My diction course is a freshman class. I'm not sure it's worth it to get into the level of detail required to examine the ins and outs of when we flip the r and when we use the schwa in place of an r. But I do want the students exposed to the changing nature of the performance practice.
There is a standard of German stage diction, It's the bible as far as I'm concerned. The Siebs _Hochbuehnen_Aussprache_ is as good as it gets. Because of Siebs, regional pronuncuations are not an issue. But to my knowledge it hasn't been revised to cover the current change which many are embracing. Cindy Donnell
>becasue I had the feeling Cindy knew exactly how a German 'r' should be pronunciated, how it is pronunciated in Germany and how it used to be pronunciated, yet was confronted with the problem that some teachers and singers in the U.S. for no apparant reason started to use the Englsh 'r' instead, and wanted to know how teachers and singers in the U.S. were treating c.q. teaching their 'r''s. SNIP The softly rolling 'r' does not interfere in any way with other consonants or vowels. (I disagree with Cindy though, that consonants (not even the 'h') are a good way to solve onset or attack problems.) SNIP
Best greetings, Dre>
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