One of my classes is Voice Repertoire, where we learn about art song in various languages. This week, we're diving into Gabriel Faure's works, accompanied by readings from a very insightful book by Pierre Bernac.
A particularly cool thing I'm learning is that French is the inverse of English. In English (and other Germanic languages), we tend to clip the vowels to get to the consonants. In French (and other Romance languages), the vowels are key. I knew this was true for Italian (So many people talk about the importance of a legato line and singing on the vowels in Italian), but I wasn't aware how true it was for French, too.
It's like singing Happy Birthday by just focusing on the vowels, as if the vowels are one long connected stream. The consonants for French must be crisp and clear, but they must also be very brief, little stones dropped into the ever-flowing river.
This creates a whole different color in French art song as opposed to English art song. It's also one of the reasons why I love singing in an original language as opposed to English -- but that's another topic.
Time to go back to my theory dictation (listening and writing the notes I hear.)
~Hope
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