Song and Speech
Language
(Part 2 of 3)
D.W. B.A. Anthropology, History
(author of BARD: Bearer of the Gemstone)
If you observe professional athletes, you’ll notice they do thorough warm-ups before practice or competing. This warms the joints up and allows greater movement while decreasing the chance of injury.
In her, The Great Courses course, How to Sing, Professor Dawn Pierce demonstrates numerous mouth exercises, such as vibrating the tongue and humming through scales. This both warms up the mouth and allows for greater range. In his book, Life, Keith Richards said he always wondered why Mick Jagger warmed up his voice so long before a concert. When Richards started lead singing for his band, he quickly grasped why Jagger spent so much time. I use to try to hold back yawns but now I understand why they’re more important than just getting more oxygen.
In the Korean language there is a consonant “ㄹ” that can sound like an L to an R sound, LR. This can cause difficulty when pronouncing words with the English L sound: World may sound more like Word and Love like Lrove. This is can be corrected by teaching the mouth to make the L sound alone. When teaching a language, it’s important that the teacher or tutor’s mouth is visible so students can see how different letters are formed. If you say the entire alphabet of any language, your mouth will get a multi-directional warm-up.
Is ㄹ Pronounced as L? R? D?? | Korean Pronunciation Explained
Scottish use rrr or whistle sounds when speaking. My Scottish aunts would often make a whistling sound when they spoke (listen to Gopher from Winnie the Pooh). The !Kung people of Kalahari Dessert have clicking sounds in their language. Singing exercises should help make it easier to speak in different accents and dialects.
The Minnie Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: Pooh and Gopher
Caedar Writing & Artwork 