Launching February 2012

Click here to continue to BCF IPA Project

What is SingersBabel?

Great singers throughout the centuries have shared a common goal: to gain an awareness of the synergy of words and music in order to communicate a deeper understanding of the work with the audience, to be expressive, and to sing beautifully. SingersBabel is dedicated to helping musicians achieve this fundamental goal by integrating traditional teaching tools with established technology.

For singers, there is a lot of preparation needed before performing; preparing the text of music set in a foreign language or even one’s mother tongue can be a daunting part of the process. SingersBabel’s tools are designed to teach and refine pronunciation, enhance comprehension, and help one reach the next stage in development. The various learning materials enable singers at different levels to work at their own pace to become genuinely comfortable with texts in a number of languages. This process allows for additional joy and freedom of singing.

Voice teachers, coaches, and music educators use SingersBabel’s tools in conjunction with their own trusted methods to enrich and elevate the teaching and creative process. When students understand the meaning of a foreign text and are able to comfortably pronounce each word, they come to lessons and rehearsals with a greater level of preparation and ability to receive your detailed instructions, experience and insights into the work.

Time is always an issue for choral preparers and conductors. Attaining consistent diction throughout your ensemble can take up valuable rehearsal time, but contributes greatly to accurate tuning, good vocal health, and a unified sound. When your singers use SingersBabel’s materials at home before and during the rehearsal period they will have a cohesive understanding of the sound and flow of the language. Your time can be spent addressing musical matters and singers will have a greater ability to execute your subtle instructions with the text.

Language is alive and evolving. What was, before, is interesting, but might not still be. What was it? What is it now? What is next? SingersBabel provides avenues to explore, understand, and evaluate diverse viewpoints within a respectful, informed and collaborative community. Through listening and discussion we are able to formulate our own informed views and integrate them into our work.

At SingersBabel we enjoy the exploration of language, music and teaching. Working with diction specialists with a wide range of teaching and performing experience, we create tools that enable singers to be more self-reliant and inspire them to push themselves to the next level. Our team is constantly creating new materials, exploring different learning tools, and using technology in order to provide more resources, especially for singers whose desire for knowledge and curiosity of repertoire is growing.

What You’ll Find at SingersBabel

SingersBabel offers a wealth of resources, learning tools, articles and more.  You'll find the most useful content in Learning and Community sections of the site.

Learning

Sound Sets

Each language has a unique set of sounds.  Many of the individual sounds are common among different languages but developing an ability to both recognize and accurately produce these sounds is an important step when singing in any language.  In this section the sound sets of American English, German, and French are presented in both their sung and spoken forms.  The sounds listed are represented using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) and each sound is accompanied by two word examples.  Both the sound and the word examples are demonstrated by native speakers.

Works  

In this section you’ll find learning tools and information for hundreds of oratorios, sacred and secular choral music, and art songs in German, French, and American English. 

The main learning tools in this section are videos which combine the time tested Word-for-Word and IPA transcription with spoken demonstrations by a native speaker who is an accomplished singer or diction coach. For each work or movement there are two videos.  The first video displays and demonstrates the text read at a natural pace which matches the IPA transcription but also demonstrates what can’t be captured by IPA: the melody of the language.  The second video displays the same information but the text spoken is slowly, with each word clearly pronounced.  Users may play each video through completely or may work on specific lines or passages by utilizing the interactive transcript provided below each video.  The interactive transcript allows the user to click on the line of text and be brought to the exact place in the video.    

All videos will be hosted on SingersBabel but you can view examples hosted on YouTube (videos are a slightly lower resolutions) by clicking the links below. The interactive transcript is available by clicking the appropriate button under the video player.

Franz Schubert- Erlkönig

Natural Pace Spoken Slowly

Claude Debussy- Il pleure dans mon coeur

Natural Pace Spoken Slowly

The videos are the main learning tool in this section but users will also find other useful information and features  

• View and Print the complete Word-for-Word Transcription and IPA transcription of a movement or song
• Information on scores of the work, both in the public domain and those commercially available in physical or digital formats.
• Listing of free or commercially available recordings of each work
• Books or articles related to the work

Community

News

SingersBabel is continuously adding content to the site. The vast repertoire, richness of language, and desire for learning demands it. As we build our library of repertoire, expand to other languages, and develop an online community to discuss and explore diction, our news stream will flow to users.

Articles

Because the elements of our craft are diverse – the intersection of literature, poetry, music, culture, theatre, history, and art – singers cannot insulate themselves to music and words alone, but must be knowledgeable in these many different areas. SingersBabel engages singers, teaches, coaches, conductors, and others to write articles sharing their unique experiences and professional insights.

Discussion

Language is alive and evolving. What was, before, is interesting, but might not still be. What was it? What is it now? What is next? SingersBabel’s Discussion Boards provide opportunities to explore, understand, and evaluate diverse viewpoints within a respectful, informed and collaborative community. Through listening and discussion we are able to formulate our own informed views and integrate them into our work.