I concur with the Irish trad info posted previoulsy in this thread. For myself, I automatically close my eyes when I am going into a deeply emotional or expressive slow song. If it's a fast song, a comedy, or a sing along, my eyes open. I think there is nothing at all about closed eyes that would "embarrass" an audience. Why in the world would people be embarrassed to see someone close their eyes? People close their eyes in many situations where the sound is what is the main thing being communicated. Haven't you ever seen a conductor, a violinist, a pianist, with eyes closed while concentrating on sound? It's no different for a singer.

This is what the great sean nós singer Joe Heaney had to say about singing traditional Irish songs:

"If you're asked to sing a song in a country house, you'll make sure or try to make sure that nobody sees you while you're singing it - don't you see anybody - you turn your back. Not through disrespect, but out of shyness - I don't know how you call it. If you're wearing a cap, you'll pull it over your eyes, so you're actually just living the song while you sing it, or if you haven't a cap on, you put your hand over your eyes. Then you'll see nobody while you're singing it. You're just singing the song to yourself. And that's the way you'll find it, even tomorrow if you go back there. You'll find the man what they call the cúinneach; the man who goes into the corner and sings a song, the song is heard but he's not seen. And a cúinne of course is a Gaelic word for a corner, and the man who sits in the corner is called the cúinneach." - Joe Heaney, The Road From Connemara, songs and stories told and sung to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger

Alice