Singing to Improve Pronunciation

How to Use a Street Organ to Improve Your Pronunciation

That's very easy :-) A Street Organ, a Music Box or Шармáнка / Sharmanka is a popular song by a popular singer Николáй Бáсков / Nikolai Baskov. And singing it can actually make you feel more comfortable with the Russian stress. 

I guess you already know why stress is crucial when it comes to speaking Russian. If not, please, read my post Three things you must know about Russian pronunciation before learning anything else.

One the one hand, mastering stress is unavoidable (yet I do hope, overcomable), on the other hand, as my experience has shown, it can be a bit difficult for a beginner to hear the stress in speech, in audio-context, even if he or she is listening to his / her teacher speaking very slowly. So I often recommend my students to sing the words.

Let's look at the example 'ему весело' (to know what this phrase means, please, read my post about The Russian Adverbs):

емууууууууууууу is like yeah and then pathetically stressed moooooooooooooo

вееееееееееееееееееесело is like v'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee s'elo

Or новогодняя ёлка (this piece of vocabulary is taken from the post about the New Year Tree Ornaments and the homonymous record on Say it in Russian Podcast).

новогооооооооооооооооодняя is like navagooooooooooooooooodniaia

ёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёёлка is like yoooooooooooolka. Like a rapper, you know, yo! yo! quite emphatically and then shyly add -lka.

While singing we are exaggerating, and exaggerating is one of the most efficient ways to get confident with pronunciation aspects.

Now what happens in the Шарма́нка song? Nikolai Baskov is not only a pop singer, he also sings in the opera and he loves showing off his wonderful voice as he makes his vocal cords vibrate every time there is a stressed vowel in a phrase. The rhythm and the melody of the song are designed accordingly.

You can also watch Baskov's articulation. Opera is great in this respect, too, as long as the melody is not too fast. And of course, the song is beautiful, I never pick up bad ones:-) Aha, and while singing along, please, remember, you are practicing stress, not academic vocal:-) False notes are allowed, unlike fasle stresses :-)

So, here are the Lyrics. And I am not providing the stress as I usually do. Try to do it yourself, first :-)

One more comment, sharmanka is Feminine from the view point of the grammatical gender so throughout the lyrics the image is ambiguous as beside the street organ you aslo tend to imagine a girl, you know, from a travlling circus. That's why I have left the word sharmanka unchanged in my translation and I am also referring to this images as 'she' as if it was a lady.

Вернулась шарманка, о чём-то вздыхая,

Вернулась шарманка, ночами рыдая,

Страдает шарманка, стирая улыбки,

Рыдает шарманка с душой первой скрипки.

Sharmanka has come back, sighing about something,

Sharmanka has come back, sobbing at night.

Sharmanka is suffering, making smiles disappear (lit.: erasing smiles)

Sharmanka with the soul of the first violin is sobbing.

Влекут ли мечты небывалые, 

Цветут ли цветы запоздалые, 

Всё так же рыдает шарманка,

В Париже она чужестранка.

Whether the unheard-off dreams are calling,

Or the belated flowers are blooming,

Sharmanka is crying in the same way,

She is a stranger in Paris.

Всё так же шарманка о чём-то жалеет,

Всё так же шарманка грустит и стареет,

Страдает шарманка, стирая улыбки,

Рыдает шарманка с душой первой скрипки. 

Just the same way sharmanka is feeling sorry for something

Just the same way sharmanka is aging and she is sad.

Sharmanka is suffering, making smiles disappear (lit.: erasing smiles)

Sharmanka with the soul of the first violin is sobbing.

The first couplet of the song contains verbal adverbs which is quite advanced grammar. However, you needn't be afraid of that. I will explain right now what it means, and in my next posts provide you with compherensive explanations and exercises. My approach to teaching Russian is like this: first the pattern should get carved into your memory and come out automatically, and only then theory in details. 

I will only explain the first line: Вернýлась шарма́нка, о чём-то вздыха́я... вздыха́я is a verbal adverb derived from the verb вздыха́ть – to sigh. "Вздыха́я" means that somebody is sighing while doing something else. Somebody is doing something, sighing. In our example sharmanka was sighing when she came back or returned. The synonymic patterns will be: Когда шарманка вернýлась, она вздыха́ла. Шарманка вернýлась и вздыха́ла.

You have three verbal adverbs in the first couplet: Вздыха́я, рыда́я (рыда́ть - to sob) and стира́я (стира́ть - to erase, to wash). So you can make a conclusion that some of verbal adverbs end in -ая.

That is all at this stage! Let's take a little at a time :-)

Now you have enjoyed the song, improved your pronunciation and learnt something new about the Russian Grammar. 
Thank you for reading this post! And, please, leave you comment below to support my project!