In the early '80s (or late '70s) Ewan came out to Australia and, among his concerts, gave a series of voice projection workshops. I wasn't able to attend either the concerts (which disappointed me, because I'd enjoyed all the times I had had previously with both Peggy and Ewan and I wanted to ask him about his Sheath and Knife version) or the workshops. As a singer of shanties and a caller/MC at bush dances I'd never had any problems with voice projection but I was out of luck there too.

At the workshops Ewan gave everyone lessons in how to move the diaphragm with a series of "Hough!" (for want of any better spelling) ejaculations. The idea was to do these exercises in front of a mirror so that you could see that you weren't forcing the air by moving your shoulders; all the vocalisation had to come from the diaphragm. A friend of mine, who lived at Wyong (on the mid-North Coast of NSW, and thus vaguely subtropical, for all you northern hemisphere people) taped Ewan's performance of these exercises so that he could properly replicate the "Hough!"

My friend would routinely play the tape and perform the exercises in front of his bathroom window. Outside the window lived some tree frogs. After the first couple of days practising the exercises, my friend noticed that, whenever he played the tape, every time Ewan's voice ejaculated "Hough!" the resident frogs would respond with their call, which was very similar to Ewan's call. This became part of the day's routine for my friend, who later commented that he wanted a second tape recorder so that he could record the antiphon-response between Ewan and the frogs.

I never found out whether he'd ever made such a tape of the folk process at work.

Cheers, Rowan