Welcome to Week 1 of our 3-week intensive study group on Vittoria, mio core!

This first week is all about living inside the text: pronunciation, IPA, translation, and dramatic reading. We won’t add rhythm or musical phrasing yet—just the pure sound and meaning of the words. By the end of the week, you’ll have a word-for-word translation, a working IPA transcription, and a dramatic reading of the text.

💡 Bonus tonebase Content: Watch Derrick Goff’s Italian Diction Course

Check your work with this video

📅 Daily Assignments

Day 1 – First Encounter

• Read the full text of Vittoria, mio core in Italian.

• Write down your first impressions—what mood or images does it suggest?

• Prompt: Share one word or phrase that jumped out at you and why.

📌 Tip: Copy the text into your score leaving space above for IPA and below for translation.

Day 2 – IPA Foundations

• Begin writing the IPA transcription line by line.

• Focus on the sounds, not the spelling—notice double consonants, long vowels, and rolled /r/.

• Prompt: Post one line of your IPA transcription for group comparison.

📌 Fun Activity: Choose a single sound (like /a/ or /o/) and highlight every word in the poem that uses it. How do these repetitions color the text?

Day 3 – Word-for-Word Translation

• Add a literal translation beneath the Italian text in your score.

• Prompt: Share one spot where the literal meaning surprised you.

📌 Tip: Work in three layers on the page:
IPA (top) | Italian (middle) | Translation (bottom)

Day 4 – Dramatic Reading in Your Language

• Read the text dramatically in your native language.

• Mark where you’d naturally place emphasis.

• Prompt: Post a short dramatic reading in your language.

Day 5 – Italian Reading with Stress

• Read the Italian text slowly, guided by your IPA (not the spelling).

• Mark the stressed syllables in each line.

• Prompt: Which stressed word felt the most powerful when spoken aloud?

Day 6 – Context & Culture

• Research the composer and cultural period (Carissimi, mid-17th century).

• Prompt: Share one fact that deepened your understanding of the text.

Day 7 – Dramatic Italian Reading

• Combine all your work: IPA, stresses, translation. Read the text dramatically in Italian.

• Prompt: Share how this felt different from Day 1.

• Reply to at least two other singers’ posts—connect and encourage each other.

🎭 Fun Along the Way

• Build “sound families”: list all the words with the same vowel or consonant (like /i/ or /r/) and notice how they recur.

• Try saying the text in three different moods: joyful, sarcastic, and triumphant. Which feels most authentic to you?

• Compare two different recordings—listen for vowel colors and consonant clarity.

📚 A Scholarly Lens

As the Journal of Singing notes:

“By writing IPA transcriptions alongside literal translations, singers internalize the text as sound and sense, not simply spelling. This practice lays the foundation for expressive performance.”
— Journal of Singing, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Nov/Dec 2017), pp. 203–210

✨ By the end of Week 1 you will:

• Have a complete word-for-word translation in your score

• Be comfortable reading the text in IPA

• Recognize the stress patterns in Italian

• Have practiced dramatic readings in both your language and Italian

• Shared reflections and built connections with fellow singers