Ru
EnM. Amurskaya
Pronunciation features of English and Russian sounds in vocal art training
The author compares the sound systems of the Russian and English languages insofar as they bear directly on the work of the singer and the vocal teacher. This poses a serious challenge for many vocal pedagogues. The pronunciation features of English sounds that are absent from Russian have not been addressed in the pedagogical literature. Russian-speaking vocalists are not native English speakers, and training them requires careful preparation. The comparison is based on singing material: the elongation of vowels in a cantilena, the restructuring of voice’s formant structure in the upper register, and the rhythm set by the composer all alter the hierarchy of pronunciation difficulties known in language-teaching methodology. It is shown that some of the oppositions found in English phonetics (vowel length, the quality of the neutral vowel) are acoustically neutralized in singing, whereas consonants pronunciation errors – palatalization, devoicing of final consonants, substitution of interdental consonants – retain diagnostic significance throughout the singer’s entire vocal range. The codifications of stage diction proposed by M. Marshall and K. LaBouff are correlated in this article with the Russian tradition of vocal orthoepy which the roots lie in the classical vocal school. An algorithm for mastering an English-language vocal work is proposed, comprising a two-layer transcription with technical annotations for singers, a timbral approach to vowel reduction, the distribution of diphthong elements according to note duration, and instrumental selfmonitoring in the vocalization of melismas and scat singing. Gaps in the methodological and musicological literature are identified: the absence of a Russian-language manual on English vocal diction, and a shortage of acoustic measurements of Russian-speaking vocalists performing in English – measurements that can only be carried out only by specialized phoniatric and otolaryngological medical centers.
Key words
vocal pedagogy, singing orthoepy, phonetic interference, diphthong, reduction, singer’s formant.
For citation
Amurskaya M. Pronunciation features of English and Russian sounds in vocal art training. In: South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2026. No. 3. Pp. 46–52.
