I've been a musician all my life: majored in clarinet my first year in college, played at performance level on three instruments, played a dozen others passably, sung in top-notch choirs and played solo roles in operas. All that fell away when I heard my first sean nós song--unaccompanied (as all sean nós songs are). It simply reached out and grabbed me 23 years ago. Everything I sing now is unaccompanied. And I love it. Yes, there is a bit of selfishness there, I suppose, but don't we all do (or strive to do)what we love?

The unaccompanied nakedness of the song demands that each verse, each line, each word be treated with individual respect, sung with a focus and presence that is impossible with an accompaniment. Well, not impossible, but rare. And I do work at expressing each line in the most . . . "appropriate" is a watery word for it... way. Perhaps the words "grace" or "strength" or "richness" catch pieces of what I mean. And after I have reworked a line dozens of times until I get it the way I like it, certainly the vast majority of listeners will not catch the subtleties, but it adds to the spell that others have alluded to.

As all music, it is, of course, a matter of personal preference. And I love singing unaccompanied and listening to (good) unaccompanied singers.

David