Thank you so much for this very thoughtful, clear, and helpful interview! I am a lover of all things diction and have been teaching lyric diction at the collegiate level for 16 years. (French, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish). I wanted to ask why Dr. Germain believes it is necessary to look up "eu" for closed or open pronunciation? I ask, because all of the textbooks I have read (Joan Wall, Moriarty, David Adams, and Cheri Montgomery) teach the rules the same way and they follow an easy pattern. (eu is open generally. It is closed when it is the final sound (feu, oafs,pleut) and when it is followed by the [z] sound, as in the -euse endings. Also, my second question is in regard to '-ay' as in paysage. Again, all of these textbooks describe the sound as a glide, open E plus j glide, where as in your pronunciation and IPA, you are using it as diphthong. (open E followed by i) I wondered if you had more reflections on this? Perhaps you are more correct and these textbooks should get with the program! lol Lastly, there is really limited literature on vocal harmonization. In fact, that is how I found your video, as I was searching for more in-depth or nuanced examples of this concept. I would love it if you could provide a whole episode dedicated to vocal harmonization. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for this very thoughtful, clear, and helpful interview! I am a lover of all things diction and have been teaching lyric diction at the collegiate level for 16 years. (French, German, Italian, Latin, Spanish). I wanted to ask why Dr. Germain believes it is necessary to look up "eu" for closed or open pronunciation? I ask, because all of the textbooks I have read (Joan Wall, Moriarty, David Adams, and Cheri Montgomery) teach the rules the same way and they follow an easy pattern. (eu is open generally. It is closed when it is the final sound (feu, oafs,pleut) and when it is followed by the [z] sound, as in the -euse endings.
Also, my second question is in regard to '-ay' as in paysage. Again, all of these textbooks describe the sound as a glide, open E plus j glide, where as in your pronunciation and IPA, you are using it as diphthong. (open E followed by i) I wondered if you had more reflections on this? Perhaps you are more correct and these textbooks should get with the program! lol
Lastly, there is really limited literature on vocal harmonization. In fact, that is how I found your video, as I was searching for more in-depth or nuanced examples of this concept. I would love it if you could provide a whole episode dedicated to vocal harmonization. Thank you so much!
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