I recently heard a professional singer deliver a song[this singer makes most of his /her livelihood not in folk clubs but at festivals and art centres]...

If this is just another one of those threads where people who probably cruise in here will see themselves hoist on a petard, I'm not interested.


OTOH, if this is a thread about general singing technique, I can mention two well-known folks who sing lovely tunes.... with words I often cannot make out at all.

A famous example is that since Emmylou Harris so often sings consonant-free vowels, people can be said to have "Emmylou'd" a lyric.

Last night I tried to enjoy Townes VanZandt songs as sung by VanZandt-loving Steve Earle-- who Emmylou'd every damn Van Zandt song I sat thru, till I finally erased the whole Austin City Limits episode off of the DVR.

I don't want to have to refer to liner notes, or MudSearch every song, just to hear a damned song!!!


It's hard work to sing consonants! In choir we were taught proper technique. But I'm bested week in and week out: I got a real ear-opener one Sunday when a regular Lector was reading right above my head-- I was sitting in as guest muso and the lectern was immediately over my playing position. You could hear every consonant spit right out, CLEARLY being deliberately over-exaggerated.

I had heard this man read hundreds of times, and had never realized how hard he had to work to produce such a clean sound.

Up close it sounded awful, but heard from the pew it was perfectly clear! I was so stunned that I even recorded him from two positions, just so new lectors could hear how it's done!

Singers, likewise, cannot learn it simply from being TOLD. They need to hear it done well from CLOSE UP to really "get" exactly how much to enunciate the consonants to any make sense out of the lovely, rounded vowels that feel so good in the throat.

~Susan