How to pronounce a couple names?

I hate not knowing how to pronounce a composer's name. In particular, I'm absolutely terrible with pronouncing anything that's French. Does anyone happen to know how to pronounce Gerard Grisey and/or Tristan Murail? I've tried the dictionary.com method but apparently they're not historical/important enough to warrant entries.

On a side note, it might be fun, or even useful, to list some difficult-to-pronounce names in this thread. For instance, I pronounced Ligeti incorrectly for the longest time because I didn't realize that Hungarian words always stress the first syllable.

I'm not french, nor an expert on the phonetic alphabet, but I'd say:

G

Xenakis is actually pronounced /kse'nakis/ (yay, no weird symbols!), as opposed to /ze'nakis/ (or even /zi'nakis/) which is how it's more than usually pronounced in English.

And Normal dello Gioio had to change his name to Norman dello Joio when he went to the US because people would mispronounce his name as /'goio/ instead of /'dʒoio/.

And Sch

I believe Xenakis should be written and pronounced like that: /Kse'nacis/

Does the letter "c" even exist in the phonetic alphabet? If so, I'd have no clue how to pronounce it. I'd have written it like Jujimufu.

By the way, can anybody tell me for sure where the stress on "Purcell" is? Wikipedia tells me it's on the "Pur", which is also how I'm most used to it, but I've heard conflicting versions.

Just started this, feel free to contribute. :)

Pronunciation Guide - YC Wiki

Does the letter "c" even exist in the phonetic alphabet? If so, I'd have no clue how to pronounce it. I'd have written it like Jujimufu.

Yes, it does. "K" would be used if the syllable -cis was pronounced with the back of the tongue. However this is not the case as in greek phonology those syllables which are a combination of a consonant and the vowel /ι/ or a similarly pronounced vowel or diphtong like /υ/, /η/, /ει/, /οι/, /υι/ (as well as /ε/ and /αι/) are palatalised and therefore "c" is used instead of "k".

Take a look at this chart.

Alexandros

PS. By the way, this is how the name Xenakis is written in Greek: Ξενάκης (Ξε - νά - κης)

Interesting! (Even if I still don't quite understand it. It might have something to do with the alcohol in my blood.)

Perhaps, those two pages might help you understand.

/k/(examples)

/c/(examples)

Awesome, I didn't know that either :) I really want to get into the IPA more. I'll read a book or something once I finish with this essay I have to write until tomorrow (and which I still haven't started).

How about instead of just trying to make a list with pronunciations of composers' names we actually add the IPA pronunciation of a composer's name on their page on wikipedia too? That would also benefit other people, and it would be accessible to people ignoring the existence of YC, and thus helpful to them too.

Awesome, I didn't know that either I really want to get into the IPA more. I'll read a book or something once I finish with this essay I have to write until tomorrow (and which I still haven't started).

It's interesting, yes. I personally find learning new languages and linguistics fascinating.

Good luck with your easy! You are just like me by the way: leaving everything till the final moment.

Alexandros

How about instead of just trying to make a list with pronunciations of composers' names we actually add the IPA pronunciation of a composer's name on their page on wikipedia too? That would also benefit other people, and it would be accessible to people ignoring the existence of YC, and thus helpful to them too.

Nice idea!

Who's going to do it...? :)

All of us :P Slowly, one by one, all the composers' names we encounter every day (because we wanted to find out a date, a name of a work, or whatever), if there is no IPA pronunciation, we add it :)

And yeah, I'll need the luck with the essay - I have to comment on and discuss the way Wagner treats the theme of love in Tristan and Die Meistersinger - and I haven't listened to either whole operas (I've listened to parts from both), and I just finished reading the synopses.. :x

I have no idea how wiki pages work so I'll have to do some study and search on that first.

And yeah, I'll need the luck with the essay - I have to comment on and discuss the way Wagner treats the theme of love in Tristan and Die Meistersinger - and I haven't listened to either whole operas (I've listened to parts from both), and I just finished reading the synopses.. :x

Why do I find that kind of analyses/essays so hard? Am I dumb or just not familiar with that kind of assignments? (truth is, I've never done anything like that)

Alexandros

Well, it's not so hard - but thing is, they're both huge operas, one of them so complicated that an analysis of it I took out of the library is about 50 pages bigger than the score itself (which is 660 pages already), and the two being incredibly sensitive to Wagner's life at the point, for different reasons. And they're both so diametrically different operas and were written one after the other. Which is why it makes it so damn complicated!

My God, Juji, what are you doing here then? Go do your homework [between you and me, I, too, have to complete the last composition of my portfolio for the university application till tomorrow. Fortunately, I am almost done... but then I also have to write an analysis. I am taking a break now, 'cause I got a bit confused with all the series I created (the section I am working now is written using total serialism)].

Anyway, won't hold you any longer with my rattling and long parentheses... :)

Alexandros

Eh.. I am just procrastinating constantly...

Earlier I was reading simple wikipedia's entry on "theory", which was quite enjoyable :P I've written about 500 words, though, and I haven't even started writing the essay - that's just notes of thoughts I have so I won't forget them. So I guess I already have enough material.

The other problem is that, I don't have any books on the matter. I only have some notes from a history class and that's it - I also read some stuff on wikipedia, but that's about it. But I will still have to cite everything I say. Which I find a bit stupid, at least to the degree they ask us to cite things for. Like, would I have to cite it if I said the earth is round? What if I just *know* that Tristan is a very controversial work, because I've listened to it and compared it to other of Wagner's works or other works written at the time, would I have to force-cite it?

Anyway, back to work... :P I'll stop commenting now...

Oh, and coincidentally, I bet that my most prolific days here on YC are the days when I have to hand in large amounts of work in a very short period of time. Because I constantly procrastinate and keep finding myself here. And coincidentally, the times where I am least commenting on threads and am least active are the periods when I have nothing to do and am either traveling or just taking my time to do things..

Anyway, γιατι γράφω στα αγγλικά, αφού κανείς άλλος δεν θα τα διαβάσει... τέλος πάντων, καλή επιτυχία με τις αιτήσεις σου, και θα τα πούμε σύντομα.. :P

I am resisting from replying to your post in length in order to not distract you any further and prolong your procrastination!

Συμπάσχουμε 100%. Έχω κι εγώ απίστευτο πρόβλημα με την αναβλητικότητα. Τέλος πάντων, σ' ευχαριστώ! Μην μου απαντήσεις. Άντε, δουλειά τώρα! Εγώ θα ξελογκάρω πάντως! :)

Just bringing this back to attention again. People might have missed it since I used the Wiki-to-Forum integration to link to it earlier, which appears to be collapsing at random intervals and becoming text instead of link. So instead, here's the URL... which won't ever "collapse."

Pronunciation Guide - YC Wiki

Pronunciation issues can be resolved in this thread here and the decided proper pronunciations can be input into our new Wiki article, which serves to be an easy to access reference for those in need of pronunciation tips. All members of the forum are of course encouraged to edit and improve the Wiki. If you find the markup for entries to be difficult for you to figure out and you still desire to add an entry, feel free to type it in in plain text and an Editor will take care of the formatting. ;)

Who's going to moderate the entries? Is there someone with a significant amount of knowledge about the IPA and similar systems to moderate these results and who is also willing to spend some time doing that? :X

I looked up the IPA in Wikipedia and decided it would be quicker to learn French, German, Russian, and Italian than to learn how that system works.

Ok, I'm exaggerating, but it does seem to be nearly as complicated as learning a new language. I think I'm going to stick to English phonetic spellings and audio.

Well, fair point. But trying to describe the spelling of "Bach" or "Tristan Murail" with English syllables just doesn't work, since those sounds don't exist in English, and making an audio file and uploading takes time and certain equipment, if you want to do it well. The Phonetic alphabet is really the most efficient way there. And you don't even have to know it well. You can look up the letters you don't know on Wikipedia. A very rough idea of how it works is sufficient in most cases.

But that kind of reminds me of my first English teacher. She thought that in order to be able to learn vocabulary from books it was important that all of us first had to know the phonetic alphabet. She spent months trying to teach it to us, before she gave up. We neither really learned the phonetic alphabet or English with her though - she wasn't a very efficient teacher.