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OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS teachers of French have been offered an ever-increasing number of chances to demonstrate the value of their knowledge and training in areas related to, but not always included in their field of specialization. Among the most interesting and rewarding of such opportunities is the instruction of voice majors, on both the undergraduate and graduate levels, in the rudiments of French pronunciation, and in the literary background of the French vocal repertory. At the University of Kansas, with the encouragement and aid of Professors Kenneth Smith and Miriam Stewart Green, both of the Department of Voice, I have offered during the past two years a special course entitled Relationships of French Language and Literature to Music, conceived to meet the needs of future professionals in the fields of singing and vocal instruction. This course differs in focus from those normally taught in a French Department, as it includes a wide range of goals: the development of a solid foundation in French phonetics; a study of the complexities of French prosody; and the acquisition of a general knowledge of major French literary movements, with especial attention given to nineteenthand twentieth-century poetry. Class format, consequently, derives from a combination of lectures by the instructor, exercises and drills in phonetics, listening to recordings of vocal works, student performances and critiques, and combinations of all three. In the following pages, I should like to present a brief account of the manner in which these goals may be attained, in the hope of providing some assistance to instructors of French elsewhere in the creation of such a course at their college or university. At the outset, it is necessary to explain that while the instructor of this type of course need not have sung professionally, nor even studied voice, he or she must have more than a passing acquaintance with French vocal music, in addition to training in phonetics and literary analysis. Furthermore, a good understanding of the problems inherent to the art of singing itself is required. Consultation with teachers of voice constitutes an invaluable part of course preparation, as does a review, through reading and listening to commercial recordings, of the major differences between spoken and sung French. (At the end of this article there appears a list of informative works available on the
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