The Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Systematic Method for English Diction in Choral Performance

Abstract

This study is concerned with the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of a standardized method for teaching English diction for choral music performance. Review and analysis of various approaches to choral diction reveal that such methods generally are inconsistent and based primarily on tradition and personal preference. A review of research in the language, speech, hearing, and acoustical sciences facilitates a more systematic foundation for product planning and design. The product, the Articulatory Diction Development Method (ADDM), focuses on developing kinesthetic awareness and on controlling the speech articulators through various sung exercises. This type of approach is essential since the practices that transfer from speech into song generally are habitual and unconscious. After 12 weeks of preliminary and prototype testing and refining, the ADDM was implemented for 6 weeks in three high school choirs. Pretraining and posttraining recordings provided data for evaluating the method's effectiveness. Evaluation was based on choral tone preference responses and text intelligibility scores from a group of 47 judges. The method was significantly effective in improving choral tone and textual intelligibility in all three choral ensembles.