(Ger.) : Speaking voice. Abbr. Sprechst. and notated with slashes through the note-stems. Schoenberg developed Sprechstimme in Pierrot lunaire (CD 3 ).

(SHPRECK-shtim-eh) Literally, “speak-voice”, a vocal technique that is half speaking half singing. First used by Humperdinck in the first version of his opera Königskinder (1897), where singers were told to approximate the pitches but were doubled by instruments playing exact pitches. Found often in the operas of Schoenberg and Berg ( Pierrot Lunaire: 1912 and Wozzeck: 1914-20, respectively), it often sounds like speaking, but there is also a duration of pitch that also resembles singing.

a style of dramatic vocalization between singing and speaking