The Difference Between Speech and Song

One of the benefits that private vocal lessons allow, is to allow us to go deeper into how the vocal chords actually work and to look at the difference between speaking and singing.

Human voices are amazingly varied both in texture and depth. One interesting approach is to explore the difference between speech and song. With our voices, sometimes we can speak and sometimes we can sing – is there really that much difference? The human voice is rich in harmonic sound as can be seen on a spectrogram, and seen with a laryngoscope. In fact the distinction between speech and singing is not scientifically distinguishable.

Singing and speech has evolved over time. Looking through history is instructive. One of the earliest Greek orators was Demosthenes who through the power of his speeches became a great statesman (384BC to 322BC). Following on was the Age of Enlightenment wher it has been said that humans “learned to sing and speak from birds”

Born in 1714 James Burnett Lord Monboddo was known as the founder of modern comparative historical linguistics. Elocution was seen as a specialist topic by Thomas Sheridan in 1790 with his Complete Dictionary of the English Language, Both with Regard to Sound and Meaning: One Main Object of Which Is, to Establish a Plain and Permanent Standard of Pronunciation.

Moving into the 20th Century Elocution continued to develop with Cardinal Vowels by Daniel Jones (phonetician) 1881-1967 and Henry Sweet writing a classic introduction to phonetics with “The Sounds of English” published in 1908. In more recent times the distinction between speech and singing continued to blur – a classic example being Rex Harrison in the film version of the musical “My Fair Lady”, based on George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion”.

As far as singing, some highlights of singers include Guilio Caccini (1546-1618) with his Le Nuove musiche 1602, and the Vocal Sounds Manual by Garcia 1805-1906.

Where are we today? Where does speaking stop and singing start? Is the difference such a major one? Do we have one voice or two? Only you have the answer.

The wonder of the human voice, brings a question whether to speak or to sing ?
Look at this poem which can be spoken or sung during vocal lessons equally to great effect.
Yesterday upon the stair I met a problem that wasn’t there.
It wasn’t there again today,
Oh how I wish it would go away!
Oh for the Joy of Song.