Tania Valente

A Lingua Portuguesa no Canto Lirico Tania Valente

The starting point of this research was a prejudice, widespread among the community of singers, both Portuguese and foreign, that Portuguese is a difficult language to sing. We decided to try to understand the origin of this prejudice and if it would make any sense in scientific terms. Taking as a starting point Gustavo Romanoff Salvini, a composer and singing teacher of the 19th Century, who was a pioneer in approaching the issue of singing in Portuguese, both musically and scientifically, we looked at the relationship between singing and Portuguese phonetics, through four chapters. Each chapter attempts to answer a question: 1 - From where does the prejudice of singing in Portuguese come from? 2 - How does the vocal tract work? 3 - How is the Portuguese language in terms of articulation ? 4 - How does singing in Portuguese work in acoustic terms? Finally, using the technology and the modern knowledge of phonetics and vocal techniques of the 20th and 21th century, we identified some potentially difficult sounds for singing in Portuguese, and suggest strategies to overcome them. The result is a guide on how to sing in good Portuguese, and with a beautiful sound.