Singing Affectation?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Singing Affectation?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 07:44 PM

This is crazy stuff

Koerner, Ray and Glover
Gerry Lockran
Martin Carthy
Ewan Macoll and Peggy Seeger

None of em sing like they talked. All made massive contributions to our music.

Why not just stand up and say in a proud happy voice - I DON'T LIKE THIS BUGGER AND WHAT HE DOES. Its not compulsory to like everything - even worthy interesting music made by nice people.

rather than thinking up fancy rationalisations of your dislike.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Singing Affectation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 07:49 PM

Alternatively, I DO LIKE THIS BUGGER AND WHAT HE DOES, BUT I DON'T LIKE THE BLOODY WAY HE'S DOING IT. Well done for mentioning Carthy and MacColl, two of the biggest culprits. Geniuses, but culprits.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Singing Affectation?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 07:54 PM

Er - what is the criticism of Martin Carthy in this context? I find his singing and speaking voices very similar.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Singing Affectation?
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 07:55 PM

"Kate Rusby, I say, keeping doing what you do with the voice you have and bugger what others think!"

She must take crits well, cos she gets a lot of it.

Sal (having been for a long walk in the sunshine)

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 08:04 PM

Well Martin Carthy doesn't MEAN to be singing in the same accent as he speaks Richard. he has discussed the personas he adopts in several interviews. One was his 'jolly sailor voice', I can't remember what he said his other one was - I'm thinking of issues of Guitar magazine - sometime in the 1980's.

There was no criticism - just informed comment.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 08:43 PM

To coin a phrase yet again--whatever works. If your affectation disturbes the audience, stop using it. If not, full speed ahead.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 08:51 PM

One man's fish is another man's poisson.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 10:33 PM

Aptly put, Steve!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:30 AM

It might well be possible, Al, that Martin's use of voice has changed since the 80s. His guitar work certainly has.

It is possible, Don, that you are an exceptionally gifted person with accents, but I have never yet heard any American film actor (and their business is acting, not singing) capable of affecting any English accent convincingly, not even the much lauded Meryl Streep.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:32 AM

I should also add that I have never heard any other non-English person likewise capable - not even (for example) the much lauded Peter Ustinov.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:11 AM

I thought Renée Zellweger did an astonishingly authentic Emglish accent in Bridget Jones' Diary.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:12 AM

Or English, even.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: MARINER
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 06:12 AM

The amount of singers in Ireland who sing with a false "DUBALIN" accect is amazing.Even Christy Mooore did in his early day's ,in my opinion .But it's when they find their "own" voices that the singing becomes more relaxed and natural.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 06:53 AM

The late Tony Capstick explained it to me once. he said that's how you start - you pasionately admire some kind of music and you try and copy it. (I was telling him about a Brummie mate of mine who copied his Yorkshire accent.) Tony's first role models were the Irish singers.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 07:29 AM

I think Nic Jones is another who found his real voice after his earliest forays.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:21 PM

'"Kate Rusby, I say, keeping doing what you do with the voice you have and bugger what others think!"

She must take crits well, cos she gets a lot of it.'

It's my understanding the she, in the main, ignores them, which is just as it should be

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:24 PM

British actors aren't much good with the American accent either, except for Bob Hope.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: The Mole Catcher's Apprentice (inactive)
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:29 PM

'British actors aren't much good with the American accent either'

watch Kenneth Branagh in Dead Again...he nailed the L.A. non-accent down perfectly...I was told this by someone who was born and raised in said city.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:46 PM

M.Ted - so no hope for Cary Grant, then?

Kitty

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 08:01 PM

I'm pretty good at it, but I don't think I'm "an exceptionally gifted person with accents." I've heard others do it quite well, both singers and non-singers. My Canadian brother-in-law was a master at dialect jokes and I picked up some my best ones—both jokes and dialects—by listening to him tell them. He was a real Master.

I couldn't give you a list of British actors who can bring off an American accent convincingly, but there are a lot of them. I recall a "Brit-com" that my wife and I followed entitled "As Time Goes By" starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. In the sequence in which Lionel (Palmer) was dealing with Mike Barbosa, an American television producer, and later when he and Jean (Judi Dench) went to Hollywood to discuss Lionel's projected television series, a whole batch of Americans were played by British actors. They brought it off most convincingly. Dame Judi is an Oscar winner and Geoffrey Palmer has distinguished himself many times over in both comedy and as a fine dramatic actor, but the British actors who were portraying the American contingent were not well-known at all. They were just darned good at what they did. What was a real kick in the butt was to hear British actors playing American actors who were trying to affect a British accent! That was a riot!!

As to British actors bringing off an American accent, how about Hugh Laurie, until recently, probably most famous, at least in the States, for playing Bertie Wooster or miscellaneous half-wits in "Blackadder?" He's been starring in an Amercan drama series, entitled "House," in which he plays the cantankerous Dr. Gregory House. A lot of American viewers don't even realize that they're watching a British actor—one, incidentally, who (when using his "natural voice") speaks with a fairly obvious British accent.

Give a listen:    CLICKY.

In 2006 and 2007, Hugh Laurie received Golden Globe awards for his portrayal of the acerbic Dr. House. Now tell me:    is he just a "fake?" Or is he doing what he is being paid to do and doing it very well indeed?

As I have said a number of times on this thread, there are songs that, because of their backgrounds and because of the very words of the songs themselves, demand the use of dialect or accent. If one didn't sing them in the appropriated dialect or accent, they would sound very strange.

But as I have also said a number of times, if you can't do it well, then you'd probably better not do it at all. That will, of course, put a limit on the kind of songs you can do.

The item that started this thread was the singing of Charlie Zahm. And as I have noted, I think he's quite a good singer, but I don't think he does accents and dialects very well.

Don Firth

P. S. Okay, I'll be brutally frank. Professional singers and actors, in an effort to do the best possible job with their songs or roles, adopt accents all the time. It's part of the art of performing. About the only people I have ever heard object to their doing this are folkies who are either trying to assert some kind of phony folkoid "purity" (therefore associating themselves with the "folk police"), or just generally have a bug up their butt.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: GUEST,Rio slightly in tune
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 10:02 PM

"Seven Drunken Nights" and "Paddy's Bricks" would not sound right without the accent

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 10:54 PM

Exactly so!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Deckman
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 01:09 AM

I have enjoyed Don's singing for 54 years now ... and I have yet to hear him make a single misspronounciation, in dialect or not. This is a man who studies his material in infinite detail When he sings "The Frozen Logger" in Swedish dialect, you ARE lost in Ballard. As he says, if you're going to do it, you damn well better be able to do it well. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:03 AM

Yeh and that Swedish accent is difficult. You should hear my karaoke version of SOS - its taken me twenty years to perfect. Not made any easier by the blonde wig.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: stormalong
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 06:06 AM

Shirley Collins is my all-time favourite folksinger and inspiration. However, she didn't always sing in the style we know and love as authentically unaffected. Her earliest recordings were more Home Countyish. I think she discusses this somewhere, maybe in the booklet to her box set collection.

Like her, I think there is some scope for reverting to roots, even if this is a little more regional and countrified than the way we might speak in office meetings. I've also noticed quite a few people whose regional/country accents become stronger after a visit home and/or several pints, and this tendency can also come out when singing or reciting poetry, quite subconsciously.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: matt milton
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 07:41 AM

"Try singing
Sae rantin'ly, sae wantonly,
Sae dauntin'ly gaed he.
He played a tune an' he danced it 'roon,
Below the gallows tree.
without giving it a bit of a Scottish burr, and that would sound weird.
The same with
Me name is Dick Darby, I'm a cobbler.
without goin' a bit Irish!"

I totally disagree with this quote. Personally I'd sing those lines in the same accent I sing all my songs – a London one, and a quite "sarf Landan" one at that. I would alter the words to suit my voice – it's hardly a great stretch to sing "roon" as "round" for instance. And I can't imagine ever singing "My" as "Me" for an Irish song – if I was Irish I'd heckle someone for singing like that. It would sound comedy and cheesy as hell and more than a little patronising.

I don't buy into that dramaturgical stance – an actor playing a role – at all. If I wanted to do that, I'd join a battle re-enactment society. (Did anyone see that Mitchell & Webb sketch where a Home Counties battle re-enactment society decide to do a Zulu war re-creation? It should be required viewing for this thread.)

I love the way Shirley Collins sings American songs on "Folk Roots, New Routes": exactly how she always sings, without even the tiniest of acknowlegements that she's singing an alien vocabulary.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: matt milton
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 08:04 AM

another thought - was listening to Nick Drake's album "Family Tree" recently. Early home recordings in which he sings a lot of blues songs. He does so in his middle class accent, in his soft-spoken voice. Which is extraordinarily mature of him – he was around 18 at the time. Most white singers, even now in 2008, default to a pompous, ursine bellow and an unconvincing attempt at a Chicago accent (which they can't sustain). Whereas that doesn't seem to have even occurred to young Nick, despite the fact that he was a teenager enthralled by this new exotic music from across the Atlantic. It's a great album, by the way – far superior to the over-produced and rather glutinous first two studio albums IMO.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 08:19 AM

Lets face it Matt, at the moment, you have a comprehensive set of reasons for looking down on people who have given their lives to this music.

You are not alone in this on Mudcat.

However I tend to think this springs from some pretty deep flaws in the personalities of our snotty brethren - rather than a superior appreciation of folk music.

Don't join the assholes. Their destructive cowardly nastiness is written deep in the soul of the English with their bloody awful class system - and its endemic need to discount the worthiness of our fellow humans. the careers they have destroyed and blighted are already legion. God forgive them - I won't.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: matt milton
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 08:55 AM

But where do you draw the line then? Would you not feel a little uncomfortable if you heard, for instance, a white English person affecting a Trinidadian accent to sing a calypso song? I've heard precisely that on an otherwise really enjoyable British folk album. I wasn't the first or the only person in the room to cringe. Now obviously there's a lot more recent historical and cultural baggage attached to that particular example, but for me it's the same root unease.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 09:13 AM

The job of an actor is to achieve suspension of disbelief. He plays a character and the task is to portray that character.

The job of a singer is different.

With you all the way Matt (except about Nick Drake: I haven't heard the early home recordings, but the released stuff I have bought was schmaltzy crap). Even for the same reasons. I've felt that cringe too. I don't sing the blues because I'm not black. That revelation came to me when I was about 25. Now I don't sing Irish songs, almost without exception, because I am not Irish (and I don't fancy praising blowing up British troops). I don't sing American songs, mostly (for similar reasons).

I'll allow myself some Scottish songs since my middle name is MacDonald.

I do some contemporary as well. But I'm not anyone else. I'm me, and I come from Kent.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: matt milton
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 10:20 AM

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I wouldn't go that far. Seems like you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There are good white blues singers. There are plenty of good performances of Irish and Scottish songs by English musicians. Songs are kind of porous anyway – the British Isles just aren't that big – which is partly why I was surprised to read about putting on different accents in the first place.  
You're royally caricaturing Irish song there. Which Irish songs did you used to sing?

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 02:39 PM

'Kate Rusby, I say, keeping doing what you do with the voice you have and bugger what others think!

She must take crits well, cos she gets a lot of it.'

'It's my understanding the (that [?]) she, in the main, ignores them, which is just as it should be'

I thought that was what I said!?

Sal (having just been for a very fast walk to lose weight)

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 02:50 PM

'British actors aren't much good with the American accent either'

'watch Kenneth Branagh in Dead Again...he nailed the L.A. non-accent down perfectly' and mostly the population across the pond can't say the words "mirror" or "squirrel" I've noticed.(Or north american tree rat as I perfer)



Sal (not spending all night infront of the pc)

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 02:58 PM

I have heard that in many of the folk clubs in the British Isles, one is not allowed to sing—or at least one is severely frowned upon if one sings—songs that are not from his or her own background. In other words, if you're not Scottish, you're not allowed to sing a Scots song, or if you are an American singer, you'd better not attempt to sing anything other than American songs. Or so I was told some years ago by a reliable source. I don't know if it's still this way, but from what I read here, it would seem so.

So—just how far does this ban extend? I was born in California and have lived most of my life in the Pacific Northwest. Does that mean that I can't sing songs from New England or the Southern Appalachians? I have to restrict my repertoire to California mining songs or Northwest logging songs?

It appears to me that this is the sentiment that is being expressed by a number of people here.

I absolutely refuse to be restricted in this manner. If a song appeals to me, no matter where it comes from, I will learn it and sing it. And as someone who has spent a good portion of his life singing for paying audiences, I feel that it is my responsibility to those audiences to do the best job I can. And that includes putting any given song into its proper context, which sometimes requires the use of a dialect or accent. If the "I" of a particular song is Scottish, or Irish, or an American cowboy, using that vocabulary and style of speech while singing the song lends to the verisimilitude of the song. This is what an actor does when playing a part, and it's part of the art of performing. An aid the listeners' "willing suspension of disbelief." Yes, I see it as a form of acting. I don't see that there is a significant difference, especially when performing before an audience, between singing and acting.

Incidentally, I do sing a few Caribbean songs. With the appropriate dialect. I don't see how it's possible to sing these songs without adopting the dialect. And I've never had anyone roll their eyes when I sing them.

I don't, however, lather it on too thick. This is a characteristic of doing it badly. But I definitely do it.

But once again:    If you can't do it well, then don't do it!

So, with the wide variety of songs I do, I guess I wouldn't go over too well in British folk clubs, if things are still the way I was told they were. That's okay. I would just go to listen then. There are plenty of other places for me to sing.

Don Firth

P. S. Serendipitously enough, this morning on a locally produced program on KUOW-FM (my local NPR affiliate), Steve Scher spent a hour interviewing Derek Bickerton, a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics. Prof. Bickerton made a number of interesting comments. For example, "An accent or dialect acts as a badge of identity." [An actor or singer, by using the appropriate accent or dialect, identifies himself of herself with the character being portrayed—DF.]

In discussing the point at which a dialect has grown essentially unintelligible to speakers of its parent language and becomes a separate language, Steve Scher asked, "What is the difference between a dialect and a language?" Prof. Bickerton chuckled and responded, "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy."

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Bee
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:19 PM

I think what most average singers do, when faced with a song that pretty much demands a dialect or an accent, is to try to the extent of their ability to give a little of the flavour of the original dialect/accent. I think that's acceptable and respects the origins of the song.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:25 PM

(Or north american tree rat as I perfer)

that would be the grey/gray squirrel of course *LOL

Charlotte (the tree house view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: JedMarum
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:51 PM

I couldn't disagree more with the premise that one ought NOT to sing dialect. The Charlie Zahm video is fine. He is singing a song that was was written in dialect, sung in dialect for generations and he is even singing a fairly modest and modern version on that dialect.

I have heard the "never sing with an accent" argument before, and I totally disagree. As a singer of a song, especially a song written in dialect you have a responsibility to honor that dialect as much as possible.

In the early 19th Century it was popular for Irish writers and performers to purposely use dialect in their poetry and lyrics. Hip hop and Rap artists do the same today - and many many folks style writers (like me) do so too.

an old example:
"twas down by the Glenside I saw an an old woman
She was picking young nettles and she scarce saw me comin'"

Where you be with using the appropriate pronunciation?? Without a rhyme.

a modern song purposely written in dialect:
"well Ah ken ya dinna like it lass to wintah here in toon
for the scaldies they all cry us aye, and they try to put us doon"

Perhaps my dialect spelling is a bit suspect, but where would the singer be without doing his/her best to correctly pronounce the dialect in this Adam McNaughton song? The dialect contains the beauty of the lyric.

There is a difference between pretending to be something that you're not in performance, and singing in dialect or even using accent when singing. Accent is the music of language, it is the color of the lyric - and often it is important to the song.

ALSO - I grew up learning songs from uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents, etc who sang in accent, because they were immigrants. Of course, when I learned those songs as a child, I sang them the same way. I've actually had to unlearn that for some of those songs (for the ones where accent is not important).

When I sing in Spanish or French I do my very best to pronounce the words correctly.
__________

I simply do not buy the argument that says never sing in accent or in dialect. I agree, you should think about why you're doing it, but often it totally appropriate to do so, even it isn't your native tongue.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:54 PM

And there you have the definition of theory being inferior to practice. Well said Jed.
G

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:56 PM

Amen!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 04:04 PM

It is my preference not to sing in any dialect and that it has nothing to do with wouldn't shouldn't couldn't.

Charlotte (the view from Ma and Pa's piano stool)

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: JedMarum
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 04:09 PM

It is the never sing with accent part of the argument I don't like. The truth is I am normally conscious of whether or not I use accent or dialect - and I make that choice thoughtfully. I too find the Pubsinger putting on the "Clancy Brothers" act in his/her intros and song a bit off-putting - but I know it is perfectly correct to do for many of the songs.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Big Mick
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 04:18 PM

The only problem I have with folks that attempt to affect a dialect is when they don't take the time to be sure that they are singing, or telling a joke in the appropriate dialect, and getting it fairly close. Like singing the songs, one cannot be lazy or they actually do the opposite of honoring the song. I have heard folks do "Irish" that had little snippets of the North, Dublin, and the West all at once. And all done badly. To me that is lazy on the part of the performer. It seems to me that dialect should be used if it is necessary to the song, and should not be used to try and appear to be something you are not. Done well, as in the example Jed gives for "The Yellow On The Broom", it can be effective. I also reject out of hand the notion that it should never be done.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: JedMarum
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 04:21 PM

Three or four posts from me in one day, you can tell I ought to be doing something more important!

It's tax time for me, and I am afraid I'll be paying this year again - so I am finding "important" Mudcat posts that I need to reply to, instead of preparing my taxes!

;-)

I do love this place, even though I don;t get to visit that often anymore. Sorry I missed the Rick radio show ...

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: M.Ted
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 06:27 PM

Cary Grant always sounded like Cary Grant, which was never anything less than perfect for whatever part he played. Kenneth Branaugh's "American" accent was highly distracting--

I am a good mimic, which has been a problem for me, because it made it easy to do impressions rather than to find my own voice. I used to do a lot of Balkan stuff, but singing songs in languages that I could not speak ended up being more like doing parlor tricks than like really singing.

Though I it isn't strictly accurate to call it a "Chicago Accent", the point that certain singers tend heavily toward doing a "blues impression" is valid. In some cases, the affection is so transparent that it is embarrassing--a lot of people do make it work, though--

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 06:46 PM

Hmm, big post of mine gone. The post eater is out again.

If you speak a dialect, sing in it. If you don't, don't. Otherwise you are at best an impersonator. It's one of the things Ewan MacColl got right (at least for others although he exempted himself and Peggy Seeger for some reason). Fake is fake.

A folksong singer singing someone else's folk song is just a cuckoo in the nest.

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 06:52 PM

So, Richard, I guess what I was told about British folk clubs is true.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 06:57 PM

Ewan was born in Salford, but claimed to be a Scot, and sang many songs using a Scots accent. Like Jed said earlier, he was of Scots descent, and may even have learned some of the songs in Scots dialect.
G

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 07:24 PM

"A folksong singer singing someone else's folk song is just a cuckoo in the nest."

It took a few moments for that to sink in.

I guess that means that you shouldn't sing any folk song unless you learned it from your grandmother.

No, that won't work either. That's your grandmother's folk song!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 07:25 PM

100?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Singing Affectation?
From: the button
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 08:08 PM

Thing is, we all sing with an accent -- whether it's our own, or someone else's. I thought I didn't have much of one, until I made my first radio show and listened to myself back. I was actually quite shocked.

I come from a bit of East Yorkshire where the accent is quite hard to place. I've even been accused of coming from Hartlepool for God's sake. Heh.

On a completely unrelated point, one of the things I notice about the recordings of "proper" folk singers (Harry Cox, Walter Pardon & Fred Jordan in particular) is that their singing voices are a lot different to their speaking voices, in that all three of the ones I mentioned have accents which are far less marked when they sing than when they speak.