Wednesday, February 12, 2014

LaeKin Burgess Listening Assignment #3


Anna Netrebko has such a dark timbre and when you look at how she shapes her vowels it’s obvious a part of why that is. She keeps her mouth very open for all of her vowels. It is almost distracting how consistent she is with the shape of her mouth. She closes her mouth more so for the [i] and [u] vowels and especially rounds her lips on the [u] vowel but the space is the back is the same.

Simon Keenly sounds very nice. He has the same feeling of having consistent back space like Anna but the shaping of the vowels is a lot more obvious for him than it was for Anna. If we were to compare them with a playdough extruder Anna has got a whole bunch of playdough coming out and Simon has more refined shapes to put his playdough through.  He rounds his lips a whole lot on the [i]I and [u] and even [o]  but [e] and [a] are more spread.  The [i]I and [u] are almost the same with the only variations seeming to come from the tongue.

Jonas Kaufmann keeps a very relaxed jaw throughout his performance. [o] and [e]  and [a] seem to be very similar in his case but he seems to vary a little. [i] and [u] as in most cases are very similarly shaped. He seems to get all his back space from relaxing the jaw. He didn’t seem to be working as hard to make his vowels pure.

Cecilia Bartoli makes funny faces when she sings.  Her vowels are more wide spread rather than rounded.  Instead of rounding her lips on [i] she spreads them.  She does round her lips on [u]. The [a] and [e] are very spread too. I think as a result of this the vowel sounds aren’t always as clear.

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