As an American, I used to feel very uncomfortable singing solo unaccompanied. I never heard anyone here in the USA do it. This was years ago. I also now realise that where I lived at the time, I was not exposed to live unaccompanied singing. The only unaccompanied solo singing I heard was on recordings.

It wasn't until I lived in Edinburgh (yes THAT Edinburgh) that I began to understand and learn about solo unaccompanied singing. I went to every singing session I could get to, listened and learned from many of the singers I encountered. Probably the most influential singers for me during that time were Cathal McConnell, Ray Fisher, Gordeanna McCulloch and Aileen Carr. Great teachers all.

When I came back to the US, I felt a lot more confident about my solo accompanied singing and at open mics, I would be the only person singing an accompanied traditional song.

I am glad to hear Frank say that it seems like this art is being revived.

BTW-John Roberts and I just did a concert last night and our good friend David Jones turned up. We asked him to sing and he did a fantastic version of Gordon Bok's "Fundy Bay". Solo unaccompanied of course :-)

Deb Cowan