Quoth Surreysinger: "I wouldn't dream of using most of my choral techniques for folk singing though ... overly dotted i's and crossed t's sound daft, and extremely uncomfortable, for traditional unaccompanied English songs. Similarly I wouldn't dream of using some of the vocal mannerisms that I sometimes I adopt when singing folksong for the choral singing. I'd be strung up for that ! When singing with the dots, it's mostly a matter of following the instructions you're given - either by the score, or by the conductor, and singing (in my case) to someone else's direction.

I've found that choral or classically trained singers of my acquaintance have deep difficulty in shaking off their training in terms of use of consonants and vowels - these can sound so over the top in traditional song."

Phew. Here's half or more of the problem. Folk-singing with its unwritten rules! Can't do this cos I'd be strung up for that, deep difficulty shaking off the training...

There...are...no...rules! Of all the genres of music, surely folk-singing in all its diversity can shrug all this nonsense off. I told you two-thirds of a thread ago that inward-lookingness was the problem...