MEMT 431: CHORAL DICTION
THE MARSHALL PLAN
An Overview
Marshall, Madeleine. A Singer’s Manual of English Diction (New York: G. Schirmer)
1. Deal with R’s. Go thru the English text, cross out all R’s that will be omitted, and underline all R’s
that will be included.
No R before a consonant.
No R before a pause for breath, punctuation or a rest (except in a diphthong or triphthong
followed by a pause on a particularly high note).
Include R before a vowel, whether in the same word or the next word.
R before silent letters is governed by whatever follows the silent letter.
Double R’s are treated as a single R.
No R before a j glide (English spelling Y) occurring at the beginning of a syllable, e.g.,
for you.
2. Decide on elisions.
Elide ending consonants of a syllable onto the beginning of the next syllable if that syllable
begins with a vowel or j glide, e.g., love you = lo-vyou; might be = migh-tbe; wider = wi-der.
Exception: Do not elide words that:
end in the same vowel sound that begins the next word, e.g. the evil, the end.
if one is a word of importance that could be mistaken for a different word, e.g. brigh
|eyes, not brigh-ties.
Exception: When preceded by a vowel, M, N, and NG are attached to that vowel.
Exception: Final L attaches to the vowel that precedes it.
Exception: V attaches to whatever vowel is on the lower pitch.
3. Final b, d and hard g should be followed by an inserted schwa, if ending the phrase, before a pause,
or if followed by a word beginning with a consonant.
Exceptions:
final d does not have an inserted schwa
in the word “and”
when the next word begins with R or S, e.g. “friend remembered”
at the end of an auxiliary verb followed by another word, e.g. “could try”
after the words good, bad, glad when they are followed by another word
final d followed by a word beginning with a d, e.g. send down
