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Is that really you?

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Rapparee	19 Jun 03 - 10:49 PM
Mark Cohen	20 Jun 03 - 05:53 AM
GUEST,Tunesmith	20 Jun 03 - 07:25 AM
Alice	20 Jun 03 - 11:58 AM
Sam L	20 Jun 03 - 08:04 PM
Liz the Squeak	21 Jun 03 - 02:19 AM
McGrath of Harlow	21 Jun 03 - 06:00 PM
Frankham	21 Jun 03 - 06:21 PM
Liz the Squeak	21 Jun 03 - 06:40 PM
PoppaGator	22 Jun 03 - 12:34 AM
Sam L	22 Jun 03 - 04:04 PM
PoppaGator	23 Jun 03 - 05:16 PM
Sam L	23 Jun 03 - 07:02 PM
Gurney	24 Jun 03 - 06:00 AM

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 10:49 PM

Sometimes, when I return to my town of birth and growth, I can hear the accents there, mostly (but by no means exclusively) among the older folks.

I, myself, have no accent unless I want to use one or have it forced upon my by proximity and time. I doubt that anyone has an accent when they hear themselves talk -- hearing themselves recorded, on the other hand, is a different story because you hear what others hear: without the echoing within your own sinuses, bone conduction, and so on that happens when you talk or sing.

You don't sound like yourself at all!!!

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 05:53 AM

In 1966 I was a finalist in the National Speling Bee in Washington, D.C. I sat next to a girl who was also from Philadelphia, though her family had moved to Reading, Pa. I remember saying to her, "Do you realize that you and I are the only people in this room who don't have an accent?" Then, when I was a senior in high school, all my hippie friends were saying "man" and "can" without the Philadelphia triphthongs ("mee-ay-in" is a very imperfect way of notating it--a voice teacher once told me that a book she read called Philadelphia vowels the worst of any!) and I thought that was cool, so I did away with most of my Philadelphia acccent. When I sing The Delaware River, though, I repeat the last chorus like a Fullulfya boy.

JJ, your "dahntahn" line reminded me of all the Pittsburgers in my med school class at Hershey! Of course, at Hershey, which is just up Rte. 743 from the Pennsylvania Dutch country of Lancaster County, we'd often hear things like, "Oh, dohctor, it hurts me wunnerful." Don't worry, local American accents are alive and well.

Aloha, Mark

PS 1. I came in 13th out of 71 finalists 2. The word I lost on was "avocet" (that was before the bicycle seat) 3. Yes, it was intentional

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 07:25 AM

I started this particular thread and now I'm going to play devil's advocate. My original stance was that one should sing in one's own natural voice i.e. use one's own natural accent. BUT, as my brother pointed out, it can be a difficult, self-conscious task to try to sing in one's " natural" voice, which of course, in turn, defeats the object! Where does that leave us?

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Alice
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 11:58 AM

Mark... Speling? Ha ha! ;-)

I'd like to hear an analysis of the Montana accent. I think we may accent the sound of "r" in a unique way.

Alice

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Sam L
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 08:04 PM

I think I agree with Frankham and McGrath--it seems that being convincing is the main question, and there's no set formula, creative people find creative ways of being convincing.

It's pretty dumb that people on t.v. talent shows are "supposed" to sing with any particular accent, but then, look at the source. I think that stuff is operating at a sophmoric, conventional level of style in more ways than that--trying to sound like "real" music instead of being actually responsible for making real music. There are lots of really stupid cultural biases about accents, and music marketing just isn't at all immune to them.

    I read recently that attractive female voices, picked out by sound alone, turned out to correspond heavily as belonging to attractive-looking women when picked out by sight alone. Seems really odd, and I don't know what it means.

   One thing that occurred to me about Dylan recently was how well he expresses pride, and how much that helps the reception of his music. When he's rattily strumming a guitar with the high E string out of tune, he doesn't shy off at all. But rather in keeping with the hobo character image he toyed with, it has a touching, compelling effect, like those clean-swept, scrubbed shacks in Walker Evans photos. He put a lot of sheer force of pride behind a rough-hewn sound, and did pretty well selling it. I kinda like it.

   I remember being surprised by pictures on the Waterson's Early Years--I had an impression they were all in their mid-70's to 120's or so, their voices seem so rich with life-experience.

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Jun 03 - 02:19 AM

I started singing at age 9, in the local church choir, where there was emphasis on pronunciation. Coming from a locality that had a strong regional accent, and from a family that was particularly strongly accented, I had to learn to pronounce things "properly".

When I started at my secondary school, the local grammar school, the difference was immediate. Whereas at my primary school, everyone spoke more or less like me (except for Christine Benham, but she was a true Romany), at the grammar school, the accents and dialect words were much less obvious. Mine was so strong that I was teased for it, and eventually bullied because of it. To protect myself, I started to speak in my 'church' singing accent and the bullying stopped. (You have to bear in mind that at that time, the class divide mattered more than intelligence when choosing secondary schools. I got in because I passed my 11+ - more than one girl in my form got in because her parents were considerably richer than mine).

In the end, I had two speaking voices, like Tess of the D'Urbervilles - I spoke the Queens' English at school and church, dialect at home.

The speaking voice I have now is very chameleon in nature. When in a strongly accented region, I tend to pick up some of the native accent, a sort of camouflage reaction from my days at school I suppose.

My work mates always know when I've been talking to or visiting old friends or relatives still in Dorset, because I spend the next few days talking with my more native twang, saying 'ur' instead of er, 'yur' instead of here, 'thee' for you, 'gurt' for great and so on.

My sister has developed a strong New Zealand twang, having lived there for nearly 20 years, but she still swears in broad Dorset.

As a result, I 'chameleon' the song I'm singing, although not to the extent that I reproduce the whole accent, I just echo the original - there are several I do that just don't sound right when ennunciated correctly in a neutral accent.

LTS

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 03 - 06:00 PM

So it's the speaking voice is really the artificial one for you, Liz - do you sometimes find yourself going back to your original accent when singing ?

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Frankham
Date: 21 Jun 03 - 06:21 PM

Hi Steve,

Piaf a crap singer? Well she's not bel canto or Leider but her phrasing and timing (an extremely important aspect of singing) was impeccable. I find her voice pleasant. Same goes for Astrid Giberto who has Brazilian timing and a delicacy that requires a small voice but not a crap voice. If Piaf is a crap-singer (not to be confused with Meistersinger) then that would have to include a whole range of traditional folk singers.

Not too familiar with Gracie Fields.

Frank Hamilton

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Jun 03 - 06:40 PM

McGrath - Vaguely, yes... it's become second nature now, but I do notice I put on the consonants a lot more when speaking to certain people... and I drop 'em just as well when speaking to others. The more relaxed I am, the more 'yokel' I get, and yes, occasionally it has strayed into song, although I did 'Linden Lea' in dialect once and Bratling asked me why I sang in that funny voice - she was quite confused when I told her that's how I spoke originally.

LTS

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 12:34 AM

I'm from the school that feels that various genres of song call for their own accents -- or, at least, elements of accents. That is, when singing blues, say, or bluegrass, certain vocal inflections -- certain sets of vowel and consonant sounds -- are as much a part of the expected "sound" as are the sounds of slide guitars and banjos, respectively. It certainly does not makes sense to go overboard, embarrasing yourself and others with a parody of someone else's natural speech, or making yourself incomprehensible to the general public, but I think it is proper and even preferable to "pick up" some of the obvious basic elements of the appropriate diction.

Moving on:

You midwesterners (Canadian and American) who think you "don't have an accent" --- puh-leeeze! If for just one time you could stand inside my shoes, you'd know what it's like for me to hear you!

And finally -- a few thoughts on the amazing musician who New Orleans critic & DJ Michael Dominici calls "The Twangilicious Diva"::

People actually think Lucinda Williams "must be from New York," huh? I met her when she was about 17 or 18; I can assure you that she had that same twangy Arkansas accent, and (just like now) she is one artist who sings in the exact same voice in which she speaks.

She lived in New Orleans for quite a few years, starting when her father joined the faculty at Loyola University (where he founded the New Orleans Review, still a thriving academic literary magazine). When her parents divorced, her mother stayed in New Orleans and her father moved on to Univeristy of Arkansas in Fayetteville, way up in the Ozarks. Cindy stayed with her mom through each school year and with her dad for every summer vacation; this went on for a number of years -- I don't know how many -- until she finished high school. Her adoption of that deep-hills Arkansas diction must have developed during those summers with her father; it was probably not an *entirely* consicous decision -- who knows? Nobody else in New Orleans talks like that, but by the time I met her, shortly after she got out of high school, she sure did.

Now, Lucinda's cultural and musical influences are decidedly NOT limited to what you'd pick up in the rural South. She was born in Lake Charles LA and lived in various different large and small Southern towns, but they were all *college* towns, since she was the daughter of a poet who made his living as an English professor. The old man, Miller Williams, was (and I suppose still is) a specialist in beatnik literature, and often sponsored lectures and readings by all the great underground literary figures of 50s-60s America, many of whom often stayed at the Williams' home for a day or two at a time. If you can visualize the pre-teen Lucinda showing her songs and poems to Allen Ginsburg, asking him for advice as they sat in her parents' living room, you can understand why it actually makes sense for someone to think she might be from New York.

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Sam L
Date: 22 Jun 03 - 04:04 PM

PoppaGator, these people had no idea of her background, never heard of her father, but were simply expressing an idea about music industry images. They didn't really think that she was from NY, just that she was "probably" from there, or somewhere. So it wouldn't matter that some New Orleans actually sounds a bit like some New York, for example. Anyway, she sounds pretty darn good, I think.

Who does know, about these things? I'm not sure there's a true, natural, inherent identity thing at the bottom of the well. It's all affectation, really, but it seems a little silly when people go too far out of their way. Especially when they aren't good at it.

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 05:16 PM

Fred,

I figured the "She must be from NY" reaction might have been prompted by a perception of her attitude, sophistication, cynicism, or whatever -- something about Lucinda that seems inconguous with the down-home Southern aspects of her persona. It would certainly *not* be a logical conclusion based on her extremely country-style diction; of course, the point was apparently that the accent must be fake.

My response, based on first-hand knowledge (albeit from a brief 6-8 month acquaintance over thirty years ago) was to (1) observe that she really does speak with the same diction/accent/whatever that she uses to sing, and (2) her background and upbringing were extremely cosmopolitan and quite atypical of the culture associated with that accent. Incidentally, in addition to the various college towns in which they lived, the family spent an academic year or two on a Fulbright professorship in Santiago, Chile.

I've always loved the story about Ginsberg helping her with her homework.

Even as a teenager, Lucinda was amazingly talented as a writer, singer and fingerpicker. For years, I found it hard to believe that she hadn't yet gained any serious recognition. I knew she was keeping up a continuous effort, and found it baffling that decades went by as she remained "undiscovered." I'm glad to see her finally enjoying a little bit of fame and fortune.

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Sam L
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 07:02 PM

Me too. I once quit a guitar forum because nobody had heard of her. Made me feel alienated. And I think her father is probably better known now as a poet, in addition to his scholarship.

My own father was once asked to narrate a film about a Kentucky artist living in Paris. He said he wasn't sure if he was who they wanted, because he had a bit of N. Carolina mountain twang. They said We know, that's why we asked you.

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Subject: RE: Is that really you?
From: Gurney
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 06:00 AM

Sorry, as Dave the Gnome pointed out, Fred Wedlock is still kicking, and I slipped a gear in my brainbox. Fred Jordan, I meant.

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