The Diction Police

In this episode, Jason Nedecky is back to talk about unstressed vowels, the consonant cluster 'str', and triphthongs, using Purcell’s "Strike the viol". The Diction Police website offers phonetic transcripts of texts, with word-for-word and poetic translations, text readings by native speaking opera professionals, along with a variety of video tutorials that are useful for both professional singers and for teachers to supplement their diction classes. The Diction Police was founded on the principal of native speakers pronouncing and discussing the diction of their own languages, and we continuously strive to offer the highest quality lyric diction resource possible. Over the past 9 years of the podcast, we’ve now comprehensively covered the four main singing languages as well as many others, so from now on we’ll be releasing new episodes less regularly and only cover special topics, such as rare languages and dialects. All the previous episodes of the podcast will be available on iTunes and at the website, and all of our other resources and materials will still be available on the website through individual and studio subscriptions and now also through university library subscriptions! Talk to your teacher about getting a subscription for your school or inquire for more information at [email protected]

In Episode 114, Jason Nedecky leads us through the text to Purcell's "What can we poor females do?", talking about long vowels, the Daniel Sitteth rule, and the difference between the [ʌ] vowel and [ə].    For more information, go to dictionpolice.com ! 

It’s the start of the opera season and the school year in most places, and we’re kicking off our 9th Season with Dr. François Germain! Using Duparc’s "Phydilé", we focus on the final schwas in French, the '–ill' and '–il' spellings, plus the pronunciation of the third person plural as opposed to the gerund form in verb conjugations.   For more information, go to dictionpolice.com ! 

This will be our last episode for this season, and we wanted to do something special—so this will be our first Russian episode with a video tutorial! Ekaterina Sapega-Klein leads us through the text to Olga’s aria from Yevgeniy Onegin, talking about devoicing consonants, palatalized consonants, and what happens when a soft sign meets a vowel that starts with a j-glide. This is the audio version of the video tutorial. In the episode I talk about the difference between a palatal consonant and a palatalized consonant--for the Wikipedia entry on this topic, click here. The Diction Police podcast will start back up again at the end of August!

In this episode, baritone Christoph Pohl works through the text to "Ich grolle nicht" with us, talking about Ach- and Ich-lauts, a little bit about glottals, and painting the text by using all of the consonants. We also mention the problematic letter 'L' in German—we recently posted a Diction Lesson on this topic, so if you haven’t seen that yet, make sure to check it out! This is the audio version of the video tutorial.   For more information, go to dictionpolice.com ! 

The Diction Police is just starting its 9th year! Thank you for being a part of it! This week my partner-in-crime, François Germain, talks about Sophie's aria from Werther, "Frère voyez... Du gai soleil", with an emphasis on consonants that should not be pronounced by often are accidentally, the spelling OY, and how to avoid stressing unstressed syllables. This is the audio version of the video tutorial. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com ! 

Vocal coach Matteo Pais works through the text to Händel's "Ombra mai fu" from Serse with us, talking about open and closed vowels, glides and diphthongs, and a little about the sound of Italian! For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

In Episode 108, Christoph Pohl works through the text to "An die Musik" with us, discussing the open, flying [ʊ], spitting consonants, and how to get the consonants to be part of the legato. This is the audio version of the video tutorial. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

This week, Dr. François Germain and I talk about the text to "Que fais-tu, blanche tourterelle" from Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, with a lot of focus on French grammar and how that can affect pronunciation! This is the audio version of the full video tutorial.   For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

In Episode 106, Simone di Felice and I work through "Come raggio di sol" by Antonio Caldara, paying special attention to phrasal diphthongs (that is, when vowels come together between words), the pronunciation of the spelling GI, and some words with intervocalic Ss that are technically considered unvoiced but become voiced in Italian lyric diction. This is the audio version of the full video tutorial.   For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !