The Diction Police

In this episode, Jason Nedecky is back to talk about unstressed vowels, the consonant cluster 'str', and triphthongs, using Purcell’s "Strike the viol". The Diction Police website offers phonetic transcripts of texts, with word-for-word and poetic translations, text readings by native speaking opera professionals, along with a variety of video tutorials that are useful for both professional singers and for teachers to supplement their diction classes. The Diction Police was founded on the principal of native speakers pronouncing and discussing the diction of their own languages, and we continuously strive to offer the highest quality lyric diction resource possible. Over the past 9 years of the podcast, we’ve now comprehensively covered the four main singing languages as well as many others, so from now on we’ll be releasing new episodes less regularly and only cover special topics, such as rare languages and dialects. All the previous episodes of the podcast will be available on iTunes and at the website, and all of our other resources and materials will still be available on the website through individual and studio subscriptions and now also through university library subscriptions! Talk to your teacher about getting a subscription for your school or inquire for more information at info@dictionpolice.com

In this episode, Jason Nedecky is back to talk about unstressed vowels, the consonant cluster 'str', and triphthongs, using Purcell’s "Strike the viol". The Diction Police website offers phonetic transcripts of texts, with word-for-word and poetic translations, text readings by native speaking opera professionals, along with a variety of video tutorials that are useful for both professional singers and for teachers to supplement their diction classes. The Diction Police was founded on the principal of native speakers pronouncing and discussing the diction of their own languages, and we continuously strive to offer the highest quality lyric diction resource possible. Over the past 9 years of the podcast, we’ve now comprehensively covered the four main singing languages as well as many others, so from now on we’ll be releasing new episodes less regularly and only cover special topics, such as rare languages and dialects. All the previous episodes of the podcast will be available on iTunes and at the website, and all of our other resources and materials will still be available on the website through individual and studio subscriptions and now also through university library subscriptions! Talk to your teacher about getting a subscription for your school or inquire for more information at info@dictionpolice.com

Since the podcast comes out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we post Diction Tips--very short tutorials focusing on a specific topic in Lyric Diction. In Diction Tip #33, Jason Nedecky talks about the long vowels that occur in British Received Pronunciation and explains why we don't need to mark them in phonetic transcripts. For more Diction Tips visit the videos section of our Facebook page or you can find all of our Diction Lessons, Diction Tips and Tongue Twisters for Singers at www.dictionpolice.com!

In Episode 114, Jason Nedecky leads us through the text to Purcell's "What can we poor females do?", talking about long vowels, the Daniel Sitteth rule, and the difference between the [ʌ] vowel and [ə]. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

In Episode 114, Jason Nedecky leads us through the text to Purcell's "What can we poor females do?", talking about long vowels, the Daniel Sitteth rule, and the difference between the [ʌ] vowel and [ə]. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

Since the podcast comes out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we post Diction Tips--very short tutorials focusing on a specific topic in Lyric Diction. In Diction Tip #32, Dr. François Germain explains the spellings 'u' [y] and 'ou' [u] in French. For more Diction Tips visit the videos section of our Facebook page or you can find all of our Diction Lessons, Diction Tips and Tongue Twisters for Singers at www.dictionpolice.com!

It’s the start of the opera season and the school year in most places, and we’re kicking off our 9th Season with Dr. François Germain! Using Duparc’s "Phydilé", we focus on the final schwas in French, the '–ill' and '–il' spellings, plus the pronunciation of the third person plural as opposed to the gerund form in verb conjugations. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

It’s the start of the opera season and the school year in most places, and we’re kicking off our 9th Season with Dr. François Germain! Using Duparc’s "Phydilé", we focus on the final schwas in French, the '–ill' and '–il' spellings, plus the pronunciation of the third person plural as opposed to the gerund form in verb conjugations. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

Conductor and coach Yury Ilinov explains the tricky concept of "palatalization", the "softening" of consonants in Russian, as part of our mini-series on Russian Lyric Diction!

While the podcast is on vacation for the summer, we wanted to bring you something special--a short series of Diction Tips on Russian Lyric Diction! In this third installment, conductor and coach Yury Ilinov explains the concepts of "ekanye" and "ikanye", the reduction of certain vowels in unstressed syllables.

While the podcast is on vacation for the summer, we wanted to bring you something special--a short series of Diction Tips on Russian Lyric Diction! In the second installment, conductor and coach Yury Ilinov explains the concepts of "akanye" and "okanye".

While the podcast is on vacation for the summer, we wanted to bring you something special--a short series of Diction Tips on Russian Lyric Diction! In the first installment, conductor and coach Yury Ilinov compares the 'и' [i] and 'ы' [ɨ] vowels, and gives us some exercises to practice [ɨ]!

This will be our last episode for this season, and we wanted to do something special—so this will be our first Russian episode with a video tutorial! Ekaterina Sapega-Klein leads us through the text to Olga’s aria from Yevgeniy Onegin, talking about devoicing consonants, palatalized consonants, and what happens when a soft sign meets a vowel that starts with a j-glide. In the episode I talk about the difference between a palatal consonant and a palatalized consonant--for the Wikipedia entry on this topic, click here. The Diction Police podcast will start back up again at the end of August!

This will be our last episode for this season, and we wanted to do something special—so this will be our first Russian episode with a video tutorial! Ekaterina Sapega-Klein leads us through the text to Olga’s aria from Yevgeniy Onegin, talking about devoicing consonants, palatalized consonants, and what happens when a soft sign meets a vowel that starts with a j-glide. This is the audio version of the video tutorial. In the episode I talk about the difference between a palatal consonant and a palatalized consonant--for the Wikipedia entry on this topic, click here. The Diction Police podcast will start back up again at the end of August!

Since the podcast comes out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we post Diction Tips--very short tutorials focusing on a specific topic in Lyric Diction. In Diction Tip #31, François Germain interviews Ellen Rissinger about the [æ] vowel in English lyric diction. For more Diction Tips visit the videos section of our Facebook page or you can find all of our Diction Lessons, Diction Tips and Tongue Twisters for Singers at www.dictionpolice.com!

In this episode, baritone Christoph Pohl works through the text to "Ich grolle nicht" with us, talking about Ach- and Ich-lauts, a little bit about glottals, and painting the text by using all of the consonants. We also mention the problematic letter 'L' in German—we recently posted a Diction Lesson on this topic, so if you haven’t seen that yet, make sure to check it out! For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

In this episode, baritone Christoph Pohl works through the text to "Ich grolle nicht" with us, talking about Ach- and Ich-lauts, a little bit about glottals, and painting the text by using all of the consonants. We also mention the problematic letter 'L' in German—we recently posted a Diction Lesson on this topic, so if you haven’t seen that yet, make sure to check it out! This is the audio version of the video tutorial. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

Since the podcast comes out every two weeks, on the off-weeks we post Diction Tips--very short tutorials focusing on a specific topic in Lyric Diction. In Diction Tip #30, Bernhard Hansky talks about the assimilation of the consonants 't', 'd', and 'z' in German Diction. For more Diction Tips visit the videos section of our Facebook page or you can find all of our Diction Lessons, Diction Tips and Tongue Twisters for Singers at www.dictionpolice.com!

The Diction Police is just starting its 9th year! Thank you for being a part of it! This week my partner-in-crime, François Germain, talks about Sophie's aria from Werther, "Frère voyez... Du gai soleil", with an emphasis on consonants that should not be pronounced by often are accidentally, the spelling OY, and how to avoid stressing unstressed syllables. This is the audio version of the video tutorial. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !

The Diction Police is just starting its 9th year! Thank you for being a part of it! This week my partner-in-crime, François Germain, talks about Sophie's aria from Werther, "Frère voyez... Du gai soleil", with an emphasis on consonants that should not be pronounced by often are accidentally, the spelling OY, and how to avoid stressing unstressed syllables. For more information, go to dictionpolice.com !