A landmark week of teaching
R.S. has been trying for over a year to learn how to roll her r's. She in 8th grade. I gave her some exercises to try and every few weeks she'd come in excited, "I did it this week!" - but she could never reproduce it or sustain it. This week, she came in and was able to do it repeatedly on command and sustain it for long periods of time. In other words, she finally mastered it. I was so proud of her perseverence!
B.B. is 27 years old and losing her hearing - a devastating disability for a musician. Although she is a fine musician with good intonation overall, she tended to go sharp or flat frequently without realizing it, even when singing with a piano. It was so frustrating for her. She finally got hearing aids this week and tried them out at her lesson yesterday. (Actually, she prefers to sing with only one hearing aid because they amplify her own voice, as well, often to the extent of overpowering the piano.) Her intonation improved 99%, and she knew it. It was an emotional experience for her. She sings with the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League (PHAMALy). They put on some of the most outstanding productions in the Denver area. This year she hopes to take advantage of a technology they have for deaf singers which is a hearing aid type insert for the ear that transmits the instrumental accompaniment right into the ear. It's going to be an exciting season for her.
B.B. is 27 years old and losing her hearing - a devastating disability for a musician. Although she is a fine musician with good intonation overall, she tended to go sharp or flat frequently without realizing it, even when singing with a piano. It was so frustrating for her. She finally got hearing aids this week and tried them out at her lesson yesterday. (Actually, she prefers to sing with only one hearing aid because they amplify her own voice, as well, often to the extent of overpowering the piano.) Her intonation improved 99%, and she knew it. It was an emotional experience for her. She sings with the Physically Handicapped Amateur Musical Actors League (PHAMALy). They put on some of the most outstanding productions in the Denver area. This year she hopes to take advantage of a technology they have for deaf singers which is a hearing aid type insert for the ear that transmits the instrumental accompaniment right into the ear. It's going to be an exciting season for her.
posted by DenverSop @ 11:36 AM
2 Comments:
At 3/24/2007 8:26 AM,
Sandy P said…
That is amazing! I've never heard of someone learning to roll their r's after early childhood. Humans are born with the capability to make so many sounds, but those that they don't hear in the first year or so are lost. Neither of my parents can roll their r's, so I was never exposed to it and therefore don't have that ability. Always made Spanish class just a little harder as my r and rr sounded identical.
Anyway, props to your student! I can't imagine how she managed that one.
At 3/24/2007 10:42 PM,
DenverSop said…
Rolling r's is a peculiar sort of skill, and it's not always quite as simple as exposure... Consider these two examples:
a) My college roommate was raised bilingual, as Spanish was her mother's native tongue, but English was her father's. She literally learned them simultaneously from birth, but she still cannot roll her r's, to the best of my knowledge.
b) A fellow opera singer was unable to roll her r's - this is a career breaker in our field. It was discovered that the tissue connecting the underside of the tongue to the so-called floor of the mouth extended too far toward the tip of her tongue. She had it surgically cut back and was able to roll r's not long thereafter.
However, you are still quite correct. I have heard that there are sounds in some Asian languages which non-native speakers can neither make nor sometimes even hear. And we all know from experience that adult speakers never completely lose their accents, whether they move to a foreign country, or even just another region of the same country. Fascinating field, isn't it?
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