How to Sing American

This book teaches non-classical or pop-style singers how to pronounce lyrics in American English. Its primary audience is singers with English as a second language, but all singers of pop music, and indeed anyone wishing to improve their vocal technique, can benefit from this book. Through the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, which assigns a specific symbol to each consonant and vowel sound, singers can immediately produce American sounds devoid of any local accents. Each sound is taught through a list of several practice words, photographs of mouth positions, and examples on the accompanying CD.

CONTENTS

• How to Sing American
• How to use this book
• Symbols used in this book
• The IPA Vowel Triangle
• Vowel Triangle mouth positions
• The "R" Pages
• Removing the Silent "E"
• Syllabification
• More syllabification
• How to write lyrics for IPA analysis
• Part I - Vowels
• Diction Quiz - vowels
• Comparison
• Comparison of all vowels
• Differences from dictionary for singers
• Diphthongs
• Diphthong Review
• Comparison of All Diphthongs
• American Diction Checkup
• Part II - Consonants
• Differences from Classical singing
• How to Work on the Consonants
• Consonant Schedule
• Consonants I
• Consonants II
• Consonants III
• Consonant Combinations with "r"
• Classwork on consonants
• Voiced and Unvoiced Consonants
• Appendix
• How to Sing American CD
• Song Lyrics in IPA
• IPA fonts
• Answers to diction quiz p. 32
• Answers to American diction checkup p. 44