Vocalist.org archive


From:  "Susan Schneider" <smschneider@e...>
"Susan Schneider" <smschneider@e...>
Date:  Wed Nov 1, 2000  8:40 pm
Subject:  Re: [vocalist-temporary] fake accents help


LMorgan wrote:
All I was doing was an imitation of Natasha from
> Rocky and Bullwinkle.

I love that!

A few years ago, my husband conducted a production of West Side Story - in
Hungarian - in Hungary. He doesn't speak a word except for "A beer,
please." He absorbed the sound of the language so well that he now does an
amazing, hysterically funny Hungarian-sounding gibberish rendition of
"Officer Krupke".

Since reading this thread, I began to realize how my use of fake accent grew
into real language pronunciation. By the time I got to college, my French
pronunciation was pretty good, but I really didn't know what I was doing.
When I took the French Diction class, my French teacher said it was the
best he'd heard from a student before taking his class. I was just
overlaying what I thought French should generally sound like. Then the
diction class taught me the rules and made me conscious of what I was doing
instinctively, and corrected what I was doing wrong. I realized I just
needed an overall sound of a language to imitate. Now, I realize that's the
first thing I listen for when learning a new language, or singing a piece in
a new language.

When I read the Harry Potter books to my son and "do" the characters, I just
allow my speech apparatus to make sounds like various movie/cartoon
characters I've heard or like what I think a language sounds like. I use
Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke's Chimney Sweep Cockney accent from Mary
Poppins, Andy Kauffman's Latka Gravis, British and German friends' voices,
and anything else that comes to mind.

It would be interesting to consider how this ability is related to
musical/singing ability. It is, after all, the capacity to reproduce
sounds.

Susan Schneider




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