Howdy!
Singing has never been my forte, ever, and sometimes I wish I could sing half as good as the worst singer ever featured on the latest season of Indonesian Idol. My singing voice just grates like badly manicured nails on a blackboard while a 1,000-pound manatee is giving birth, but at least I like to think that I /ɪˈnʌnsiˌeɪt/ my words properly. But no, really... I wish I wasn't so inept at singing because I absolutely adore listening to art songs and operas (I could spend all day listing my favorite ones but that will be for another future post).
But hey, since I came back to Indonesia about a year ago, I got to accompany some singers! Just a personal side-note: I always find it easier to accompany singers than instrumentalists because of how I can easily hear the phrases begin and end through inflection of the words, of how the singer gasps for quick air in between phrases, and of their body gestures that move in a predictable manner. It's fun, fun stuff.
Then there comes a debilitating issue that constantly poses a problem to singers in Indonesia: diction. Bahasa Indonesia is not a particularly interesting language phonetically speaking; we have limited collections of vowels and consonants, no underlying lexical stress unlike English and Russian (so if you stress whichever syllable in a word, the natives will understand you just fine but may look at you funny), and simple diphthongs like /ai̯/, /au̯/, and /oi̯/. On the up side, it is an easier language for non-natives to learn thanks to its simple phonology, the fact that we use the Latin alphabet, and highly phonemic orthography (God, I'm sounding like a linguistics nerd; it just means the written symbols regularly correspond to the spoken sounds). This is very different from English where you have silly words like "colonel" and somehow the "l" undergoes an alphabet reassignment surgery and becomes a fully-fledged "r".
Now, with our Indonesian tongue that is trained and confined to limited set of sounds, it is extremely hard for us to sing in different languages that tend to have richer phonemes. It is not a coincidence that many Indonesian singers choose to sing in Italian. Both Italian and Bahasa share very similar phonology and hey, the local audience loves a good dose of Puccini and Verdi.
German is slightly more difficult due to its richer and darker consonants, additional vowels that are foreign to the Indonesian tongue, and the awkward front rounded vowels which call for lips gymnastics (that means, when we see ümläüts, we question the very existence of these mysterious dots and proceed to freäk öüt). Now, French. Oh man, French is by far the hardest language for these singers. The vowels are a lot more complicated with the addition of nasal vowels, and the way the words are spelled hardly corresponds to the spoken form. Who knew with sentences like "Les musiciens jouent", you drop all the final consonants like they never existed in the first place.
So what is the best way to learn how to sing in these different languages? My go-to answer is: to take language classes. The job of a singer is to create meaningful sounds to themselves and to the audience. There have been concerts where I could not understand at least half of what the singer was singing, which prevented me from completely immersing myself in the music. When they sing words like "Mein Herz" or "mon cœur", I want them to really understand that they are singing about their heart and not treat it like a random foreign sound. Write down the translation word for word if that helps; there are plenty of online resources that provide texts and translations that you can use for your benefit.
Even if taking a language class is not an option, at least learn a bit of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). I am surprised that many singers are not familiar with it, because hands down it is the work of the gods. It is a very, very useful tool for learning how to pronounce words correctly, and even if you do not understand what the words mean, at least you can convince the audience that you understand through excellent diction. It is like how I am able to competently recite the Koran in Arabic, even though I do not understand what all the words mean.
Learning a language and the sounds of the language can be awfully hard for the uninitiated and I completely understand, but I also feel like it is an absolute requirement for people who want to pursue a career in vocal performance. Maybe practice by recording yourself first, and ask someone who is fluent in the language to help you out. I did this many times myself when I was learning German many months ago where I sent audio recordings to random internet strangers from Germany and asked them to rate my pronunciation. It helped, a lot. If I can do it, so can everyone else :)
/həv ə ˈwʌndɜrfəl ˈmɔrnɪŋ ənd teɪk kɛr/
Hazim Suhadi
Singing has never been my forte, ever, and sometimes I wish I could sing half as good as the worst singer ever featured on the latest season of Indonesian Idol. My singing voice just grates like badly manicured nails on a blackboard while a 1,000-pound manatee is giving birth, but at least I like to think that I /ɪˈnʌnsiˌeɪt/ my words properly. But no, really... I wish I wasn't so inept at singing because I absolutely adore listening to art songs and operas (I could spend all day listing my favorite ones but that will be for another future post).
One of my favorite by Brahms, "Rede, Mädchen, allzu Liebes" from Liebeslieder-Walzer
But hey, since I came back to Indonesia about a year ago, I got to accompany some singers! Just a personal side-note: I always find it easier to accompany singers than instrumentalists because of how I can easily hear the phrases begin and end through inflection of the words, of how the singer gasps for quick air in between phrases, and of their body gestures that move in a predictable manner. It's fun, fun stuff.
Then there comes a debilitating issue that constantly poses a problem to singers in Indonesia: diction. Bahasa Indonesia is not a particularly interesting language phonetically speaking; we have limited collections of vowels and consonants, no underlying lexical stress unlike English and Russian (so if you stress whichever syllable in a word, the natives will understand you just fine but may look at you funny), and simple diphthongs like /ai̯/, /au̯/, and /oi̯/. On the up side, it is an easier language for non-natives to learn thanks to its simple phonology, the fact that we use the Latin alphabet, and highly phonemic orthography (God, I'm sounding like a linguistics nerd; it just means the written symbols regularly correspond to the spoken sounds). This is very different from English where you have silly words like "colonel" and somehow the "l" undergoes an alphabet reassignment surgery and becomes a fully-fledged "r".
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| Map that shows the different ethnic groups in Indonesia (source: Wikipedia) |
Now, with our Indonesian tongue that is trained and confined to limited set of sounds, it is extremely hard for us to sing in different languages that tend to have richer phonemes. It is not a coincidence that many Indonesian singers choose to sing in Italian. Both Italian and Bahasa share very similar phonology and hey, the local audience loves a good dose of Puccini and Verdi.
German is slightly more difficult due to its richer and darker consonants, additional vowels that are foreign to the Indonesian tongue, and the awkward front rounded vowels which call for lips gymnastics (that means, when we see ümläüts, we question the very existence of these mysterious dots and proceed to freäk öüt). Now, French. Oh man, French is by far the hardest language for these singers. The vowels are a lot more complicated with the addition of nasal vowels, and the way the words are spelled hardly corresponds to the spoken form. Who knew with sentences like "Les musiciens jouent", you drop all the final consonants like they never existed in the first place.
German being... German
So what is the best way to learn how to sing in these different languages? My go-to answer is: to take language classes. The job of a singer is to create meaningful sounds to themselves and to the audience. There have been concerts where I could not understand at least half of what the singer was singing, which prevented me from completely immersing myself in the music. When they sing words like "Mein Herz" or "mon cœur", I want them to really understand that they are singing about their heart and not treat it like a random foreign sound. Write down the translation word for word if that helps; there are plenty of online resources that provide texts and translations that you can use for your benefit.
Fun tongue twister stuff starting at 1:00
Learning a language and the sounds of the language can be awfully hard for the uninitiated and I completely understand, but I also feel like it is an absolute requirement for people who want to pursue a career in vocal performance. Maybe practice by recording yourself first, and ask someone who is fluent in the language to help you out. I did this many times myself when I was learning German many months ago where I sent audio recordings to random internet strangers from Germany and asked them to rate my pronunciation. It helped, a lot. If I can do it, so can everyone else :)
/həv ə ˈwʌndɜrfəl ˈmɔrnɪŋ ənd teɪk kɛr/
Hazim Suhadi
jadi rajin menulis nih... hahaha
ReplyDeleteIya nih. Tapi besok gw terbang ke Jogja krn ada nikanan sepupu, jadi kynya tunda nulis dulu selama beberapa hari.
Delete