Mot juste

From François Birgand:

First of all, it is a privilege for me to be able to join the chorus, since the majority of the singers sing a lot better than I can do.

Several extremely important things have appeared to me about what singing really means, seeing non French speakers sing in French. I have more often than not viewed my voice as an instrument not so different than any other one, other that it is quite easy to carry! Words have appeared to be just frames onto which notes hold, or even sometimes just a pretext for music. In other words, to me the meaning of the words has always been of secondary importance to the music. Listening to the language that actually makes sense to me, for which I fully (or at least most of the time) understand the meaning and the subtleties, has been an eye opening experience to me. I have sung in French and in English before, but for some reason it never struck me as much as it does with Carmen. I have finally realized that singing is not just about the notes and the good pronunciation, it is about meaning, and I want to say it is foremost about the meaning of what you are saying. But the meaning does not go without good notes and good pronunciation...! All of a sudden, another entire and richer world appears: composers such as Bizet understand the text so well that they are, in most cases, able to accompany the meanings of the words with a music that expresses the same sentiments and feelings, only does it magnify them. In reality I realize that the discovery of the expression of feelings and sentiment in the music, the text, and the two together, is virtually endless in Carmen. I suppose that it is the case with most if not all operas or choir pieces. People write entire books on that and I believe I start to see why now. Carmen has thus given me the opportunity to understand that there is an entire, fascinating and subtle world in sung music, that I had for the most part totally over- or rather under-looked so far. This also tells me that the next time I sing in German, Italian, English, or any other language, I should at least understand what I am singing, and if possible go beyond that to discover the actual subtlety of the language itself and the intermingling of the music and the words.

One thing that I observe for myself trying to speak English is that we tend to do the same mistakes over and over when we pronounce foreign words, not necessarily because it is difficult to pronounce them (although that can be the case at the beginning), but because we primarily listen to ourselves rather than listening to the native speakers and how they pronounce words. For chorus singers, it is a rare event to have native speakers at hand when singing in a foreign language. But for people living abroad, we have native speakers talking to us all day, and yet we make the same pronunciation mistakes and are stuck with our accent...! I am convinced that it fades when we actually tart listening. Musicians normally have a great advantage because they can hear the difference and incorporate make changes. Fast improvements lie in our ability to fully and truly listen to the native speakers.