Have you ever been assigned a foreign language song by your voice/choir teacher and thought,”Wow! I have no idea where to begin.” Or have you jumped into a foreign language song only to have tension on certain notes that don’t normally give you trouble?

Over my years talking to voice teachers, reading vocal technique books, and through personal experience, let me break down the steps for you!  Some of the steps make take long than others until you get a really good grasp on the process of learning a song in a foreign language.

The Steps

1. Practice the words
2. Learn the melody line without words
3. Listen to good recordings
4. Put the words and melody line together
5. Memorizing

Practicing the Words

Find a good IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription and word-for-word translation of the lyrics. Many of the newer vocal books contain a page for each song with the IPA, a word-for-word translation, and a brief background of the song. Your voice teacher might have this if your book doesn’t.  If your book or voice do not have this information, you could do a search online or purchase the IPA and word-for-word translation from a place like IPAsource.com. There are some other sites like tophonetics.com or easypronunciation.com that allow you to type in the text and it will generate the IPA for you.

After you have your IPA and word-for-word translation, see if you can find someone speaking the text so that you can practice.  Your teacher might have already have this! If not, record your teacher saying the words or see if you can find a YouTube video where the words are spoken for practice.  If you do find your words spoken on a YouTube video, make sure to have your teacher listen to the video to make sure it is “correct”.

• Speak the words (preferably in your head voice) until they feel comfortable to you.
• Then speak the words (in head voice) with the rhythm of your song
• Finally, speak your words with the accompaniment.

Learning the Music

When you first begin learning the melody line, you want to look for any rhythms that you know how to count or musical elements you aren’t sure how to sing.  Ask your teacher about these rhythms and record your teacher demonstrating the passages that give you trouble.

Listening to good recordings of your song can also be a huge asset to how well you learn your song.  Your teacher can help you find good recordings or can direct you toward vocalists they prefer. When listening to these recordings, make note of where the performers breath and what dynamics they use.

Play your melody line on a piano (or have you teacher record the melody line for you).  Buzz the melody line the first few times you sing the song without accompaniment. When you get more comfortable with the melody line, sing the melody on a neutral syllable.  Use a tuner app to check your pitches as you sing. This is a good place to begin adding dynamics! Before you even attempt to add the words in with the music, sing the melody line on a neutral syllable with the accompaniment.

Adding the Accompaniment

Make sure you are comfortable with the words and the music before adding them together.  This will give you a much better transition into the memorization process, you will have already worked out many of the tricky places in the music, and you will have a much better understanding of your song for upcoming performances and competitions.

If you come across a measure where you still have difficulty, isolate that measure.  Work the music in just that measure. Then add the measure after. When you can sing those two measures, then add the measure before.  This should help with any transitional issues than can occur when finding a “problem spot”.

Memorizing

You should know this song so well that your performance seems effortless.  Remember that every song is telling a story. With that in mind, having a much better understanding of the song and its storyline will greatly help you in the memorization process.  

You will want to have your song “memorized” at least 2 weeks before your performance.  After you have memorized your song, make sure to sing it every day with accompaniment until your performance or competition.  Singing your song daily with help with your muscle memory and will give you added confidence for your performance.

Another way to build your confidence is to sing your song to an audience several times before your performance.  This is not a large audience, but singing to friends, family, or colleagues. I find that I am always better prepared for a performance when I have sung my songs to a person close to me that makes me extremely nervous.  I will sing the song to this person several times until my nerves calm down!