Can anyone help me in making my diction clearer?

timliu92

Dear KTVA,

Recently I tried singing Here, There And Everywhere again as shown:

Everything is recorded live here. I have tried brightening my sound a lot, but can anyone explain me how to make the diction clearer without sacrificing the roundness of the tone?

Regards,
Tim

highmtn

I don't know what you mean about needing to make your diction clearer. You are singing, not speaking. "Clear Diction" is not necessarily what you want for singing songs. It sounds fine to me. I'm not having any difficulties understanding what the lyrics are. A lot of songs are almost unintelligible until you read the lyrics in print. Again, this is because singing is different from speaking. The closer to speaking we get with songs, the further we may get from singing. Singing is sustaining vowels on notes. The vowels are from words, but the consonants that help the vowels become words can be detrimental to how sonorous the note ends up being.

There are some vocal instructors that try to force pronunciations on their students in the name of diction, but if that diction subtracts from the musicality of the vocal part, it may be more detrimental to the vocal part than beneficial.

Musical theater may make that sacrifice in the name of telling a story, but most people who go to the show know the story they are telling anyway. Listening to someone trying to speak-sing is awkward to my ears, but I've never been that big of a fan of musicals or musical theater. They always seemed a little too fake to me (and heavily over-pronounced). Sorry if that offends anyone who likes it.