Phonetic singing is

singing Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

by learning and performing the lyrics of a song by the words'

phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

sounds, without necessarily understanding the content of the

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...

. For example, an artist performs in Spanish even though they may not be proficient in the language or understand the meaning. For the DreamWorks animated film ''

The Prince of Egypt ''The Prince of Egypt'' is a 1998 American animated musical drama film directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells, and written by Philip LaZebnik, from a story by Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook. Produced by DreamWorks Pictur ...

'', Israeli singer Ofra Haza sang most of the 17 versions of the song "Deliver Us" phonetically.

Phonetics as a tool

Phonetics can be useful to singers in several ways:

Learning new languages

Professional singers can use phonetics to learn new languages and identify the differences in the pronunciations without necessarily learning the meaning of words. This way, they can also identify the differences between different languages, and adjust the use of phonetics accordingly.

Understanding mouth shapes

There are different modes of using the open mouth with phonetics. Singers can adjust the shape of their mouth to affect the tone and quality of their voice, advantageously, or, if they do not understand the phonetics aspect, disadvantageously. Subtle differences can make, at times, drastic changes to the sound.

Understanding the International Phonetic Alphabet

Understanding the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

(IPA) can help a singer with the pronunciation of words. They can link syllables to different

symbols to help as well.

Learning phonetics as a singer

Phonetics helps distinguish differences in pronunciation, but also helps a singer to perform as authentically to the language as possible. Understanding phonetics and its symbols can bypass the necessity to learn the dialect through a Native or Heritage Speaker of the language the singer is learning or attempting to recreate in performance. Phonetics can also allow singers to dispel their natural tendencies to pronounce words in another language by using the phonetics of their own native language. For example, the pronunciation for the letter "r" in the word "quinceañera" as a native English speaker would be pronounced like: /kɪnseɪənj'ɛɹə/ or (keen-seh-ahn-YEHR-ah), with an emphasis on the "era" pronunciation in English. In Spanish, the pronunciation for "quinceañera" is similar, but the �is replaced by a tap-n-flap or the � phonetic symbol. In this scenario, the word is pronounced like: /kɪ:nsɛɑnj'ɛɾɑ/. Even though the difference in pronunciation of the letter "r" is what is highlighted in this example, many parts of the word are different when pronouncing the Spanish word in "English" versus pronouncing it in "Spanish." These subtle differences change everything about the way the singer can mimic sounds as identical as they can to the word's origin.

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