Hi David!

 

See if you can locate a book on diction by Ivan Trusler.  He wrote some splendid books and I've heard that the one on diction if excellent.

 

Wali

David,

 

Try Richard Sheil's book A Singer's Manual of Foreign Language Dictions, which can be had at Amazon for under $30. It covers French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Latin, in a concise and useful way. My students and I have found some inconsistencies here and there, which we have attributed mostly to poor editing, but for the price and coverage, it's hard to beat. You will want to develop your own assignments to supplement the book, but you probably do that anyway. Your students sound exactly like mine, and this has worked well in my situation. Good luck!

 

Joe Bentley

Rochester College

jbentley(a)rc.edu

I highly recommend The Singer's Guide to Languages by Marcie Stapp. It is published by Teddy's Music Press (800) 41-TEDDY. This book scores high on practicality. It provides many helpful guides to the tiny words in other languages that trip us up in translation (pronouns, possessives, contractions, and miscellaneous words like at, to, also, before, which, etc). I also find her approach the most refreshingly honest. Sounds are NOT the same in every language. A schwa is not always just a schwa!

 

If after perusing that one, you feel it is too much info for the beginner, try Joan Wall's book. It is much more direct and user-friendly than Moriarty in that every letter in each language has its own page with rules, etc. Moriarty tends to provide abundant info--maybe too much. However, Moriarty has some great exercises, especially in the 2008 revised edition. I'd suggest using Wall for the student textbook and supplement with Moriarty exercises if you so choose.

 

Best wishes!

Katrina Koch

Indiana

 I'm sure we all know of the myriad errors in the Joan Wall (et al.) "Diction for Singers."  There is a new (2nd) edition out and I'm about to order a copy for myself.  I feel that, except for the (mostly typographical) mistakes in the old edition, it was an extraordinarily clear and easy to use text.  If the new edition has kept the same layout but fixed the errors I would highly recommend it.  Even with the mistakes, the first edition is a good reference if the teacher is knowledgeable.