As I understand the readings, the Gussenhoven reading presented an overview of phonetics and the Kenstowicz reading discussed the scientific problem posed by allophones and took the position that their existence supports two levels of phonological representation.
The phonetics overview defined many major concepts and distinctions - voiced and voiceless, obstruents and sonorants - which are important to follow Kenstowicz's writing. As a singer, I enjoyed reading a technical perspective on vocal processes I have applied while signing. One of these is the glottal stop, which is useful for making a forceful, abrupt entrance in a piece of music. Along the same lines, the section on vowels reminded me of the fact that, in some cases, classical singers replace vowels that would normally be front unrounded as in "hemp" with back rounded variants. I wonder if this could have something to do with the historical influence of Latin on choral music.
In his discussion of allophones and phonemes, Kenstowicz mentions different phonetic features that are seem to determine an allophone for a phoneme within a word. For instance, a voiceless stop includes a glottal closure "when it belongs to the same syllable as the preceding vowel." I wonder whether the tempo of speech can be one of the phonetic features that figures into the phonological rules Kenstowicz discusses, or whether phonologists have some reason to abstract away from the tempo of speech. For instance, if you ask English speakers why they flap when the say "writer," some will say it feels like it takes too long to pronounce the "t" without flapping. I wonder if this has a phonological basis.
I like the comparison to singing which is an interesting application of linguistics. I wonder if in addition to english speakers pronouncing writer without the "t" if a person changes their pronunciation of words when they are singing vs. when they are speaking normally.
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