Item Detail
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Germain, François
Rissinger, Ellen -
The Diction Police
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Website
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2019
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English
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Germain, François and Ellen Rissinger. “The Diction Police.” https://www.dictionpolice.com/ (accessed 20 June 2019).
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A pronunciation guide and International Phonetic Alphabet resource for various art songs and arias. Native speakers and experienced coaches provide written and visual instruction on lyric diction. Caters towards voice students and performers, but could also be useful for voice teachers. Additional resource found at https://www.ipasource.com/.
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Repertoire includes art song, opera, oratorio, and other classical vocal works in English, Italian, French, German, and Russian (under Other). Omits folk songs. Translations are available in English, French, and/or German.
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The homepage offers a description of resources on the website, a search engine, samples of content, and the most recent blog posts. Users can search the entire catalog or limit their search by genre, original language, composer, or poet. The genre option divides the works by opera aria, art song, oratorio aria, or complete work (larger works, song cycles). Opera arias are sorted by opera titles, which are listed in alphabetically by title. Art songs appear under their composer’s name, which are listed alphabetically by surname (although the given name appears first). Oratorios and complete works are listed alphabetically by title. All individual songs/arias are in alphabetical order under their respective larger work or composer. Selecting a song takes the user to a page with a drop down list of available products for purchase, including translations and IPA transcriptions, text readings, and/or tutorial videos.
The “In-depth” tab leads to podcasts, tutorials, and full diction review course videos. Podcasts appear in reverse chronological order. There are also drop-down lists to find podcasts related to a specific song or language. All podcasts are available for free. Tutorial videos of diction lessons and tips are listed in chronological order, except for a few more recent videos that are free are listed first. Drop-down lists to show only certain languages or topics are found at the top of the list. Full courses appear in reverse chronological order; there are only French language videos.
Other site features include options to log in or register, information pages about Diction Police and its founders, the Diction Rules Manifesto, and a cart for saved products. -
They provide legends for their symbols representing the products available for each piece (languages and video types). Diction information is detailed and tailored uniquely to singers. Podcasts are free.
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Limited number of works are available. Those that are can only be accessed by purchasing them. Some tutorial resources are only available for registered members.
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Joanna Armstrong
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Internet
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11081