Singers do not sing the language they speak
Most opera singers are are proficient (if not fluent) in 3-4 languages; typically Italian, German, French and English. Many European artists are fluent in more. My younger daughter sings opera and took three weeks of diction lessons last year before performing
Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen in Czech. Most pop artists that sing in a non-native language simply learn (read) the words phonetically. |
Something you probably won’t hear too much today, Paul Robeson, an African American singer, singing in Yiddish: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ3lRWyVX9A Mazel tov, Paul. Happy Chanukah. |
Said at the risk of being perceived as racist, the form of English spoken by many Rappers differs quite a bit from that of Anglos in the U.S. of A. Not quite a different language, but pretty darn close. I axed (;-) my sister why that is (her daughter has a half-white, half-black daughter, and two 3/4's black, 1/4 white granddaughters), and she said it's a cultural thing. When I was in London in 1982, I went to a large farmer's market on a Sunday morning. I was amazed by how many different British accents I heard---some of them completely unrecognizable as being of the English language, and amused to hear the British blacks speaking with some of them. |
I was listening to a Carmen McRae/Cal Tjader album on Concord. She started singing “Besame Mucho” and it was evident from the first couple of lines that she did not speak, or understand, Spanish at all. A quick perusal of the album jacket explained that she learned the song phonetically, in the studio the day of recording. It is one of my favorite versions, along with one by Joao Gilberto. Interestingly, though his native language was Portuguese, Gilberto also sang in French, Spanish and English, perhaps a few more. He did actually speak the languages however. |
