This is how the world sounds: Start-up makes it easier to sing in other languages

Created: 06/22/2022, 1:00 p.m

By: Marc Write

Phonetic transcription: Korbinian Slavik and Theresa Henkel from "ipipapa" present their start-up (recorded near the LMU).

© Christoph Draxler

If someone from China or Japan, for example, orders the St. Matthew Passion from the Grünwald-based start-up "ipipapa" and sends an ideal musical text with data for processing, then it could be ready in two weeks.

Without any further knowledge of the language, he would have the opportunity to sing the lyrics of the song thanks to the phonetic transcription.

Grünwald

- Korbinian Slavik and his colleague Theresa Henkel want to enable people to sing in all languages.

To do this, they prepare sheet music in such a way that it can be sung relatively easily.

How it all began

But how do you come up with such an idea?

Korbinian Slavik (30) lives with relatives in Grünwald, grew up here, was with the Regensburger Domspatzen and came back to the Isar valley ten years ago to study.

He has sung in many professional choirs.

Also with the Bavarian State Youth Choir and the Bavarian Singing Academy.

In doing so, he realized that you would like to sing in other languages ​​as a choir and also as a soloist, but that it takes a lot of time to get used to it.

It takes a while until you are actually ready to start singing.

He wanted to shorten this time.

In his studies of phonetics, speech processing and musicology at the LMU he acquired the necessary tools.

The aspiration of a singer of classical works is to master the part perfectly.

In opera music you can act a little more freely.

But when it comes to professional choral and lieder singing, according to Korbinian Slavik, one is very precise.

It is important to be close to the original.

"For example, if you interpret a Latin choral song from France, you try to sing the text in a French way."

Dialects and pronunciation

Performance practice also plays a role.

How were the songs performed 50 or 100 years ago, like today?

50 years ago the Domspatzen still sang Hàlleluja with the accent on the A and a short U. The dialect was still important in the accent.

That would sound strange to the ears of listeners today.

"But with our phonetic transcription we can also represent dialects, indeed all the sounds of the world."

During his studies, the musicologist conducted a survey and asked 450 singers what they thought of one of his ideas of putting the transcription below the sheet music.

Well over half, 60 to 70 percent, were impressed by the idea.

You would like to use such an additional offer.

On this basis, Korbinian Slavik slowly implemented the idea and, together with his colleague Theresa Henkel, received a start-up grant from the Federal Ministry of Economics.

It is paid for by the European Social Fund.

The method sounds efficient: A phonetic transcription is initially transmitted via a program and is 80 to 90 percent automatically correct.

Not all languages ​​are equally difficult to transcribe.

For German, for example, you need a fairly large pronunciation dictionary, which is then used to feed and train the computer program.

The core program was developed by the "ipipapa" team itself, but they also work together with the Bavarian archive for speech signals at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University.

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Focus on choral music

The start-up is currently geared towards classical music.

Mainly for choirs.

In the USA and also in Asia it has long been common practice to use a phonetic transcription.

So far, however, the writing has been written by hand under the notes.

That had to be simplified.

Korbinian Slavik: “We use experts in the respective languages ​​to help.

For Ukrainian songs we work together with a native speaker from Kyiv.

She controls the automatic transcription I set up.

She still adds emphasis in the right places and overall will ensure that we can offer our singers a quality product.”

Sheet music in the online shop

The "ipipapa" team is currently ready to sell the first transcriptions on the Internet.

Sheet music is already available in the online shop that has just opened: Der Liederkreis by Robert Schumann.

Schubert's "Winterreise" and Rachmaninoff's "All Night Vigil" will soon be added.