I think what I find hard to take about Cara is that baby-girl voice, which becomes more incongruous now that she's a mother in her 30s. Yes, she has attracted some younger people to listen to traditional music, but some of the girls think that's the way you have to sing to sound Irish, and copy her.

I don't object to the way she uses ornamentation, but what didn't come over in the interview was that ornamentation is largely an alternative to accompaniment, as it helps to put the notes into some sort of harmonic context as the melody goes along. Once you have a guitar giving the chords, or a full-blown band bashing away, as happened in most of the songs we heard, the sean-nos style of singing is inappropriate. There's no point in attempting much ornamentation then, as the noise of the accompaniment drowns out the subtlety of the pitch inflexions and prevents any freedom of rhythm in the delivery of the song.


Marje