Singing in Different Accents/Dialects

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 03:52 AM

Walter Pardon again.
Not long before he died we came across an early recording of Walter made at the Norwich Folk Festival around the time he first appeared on the scene.
When we played it to him he said, "Wasn't I broad, I can hardly understand myself".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 07:11 PM

Argh! Please God I won't be here by then! All our regional accents are A National Treasure.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 03:06 PM

While (fortunately) accent snobbery is dying out, so (unfortunately) are the accents themselves. Many people south of Watford now speak a sort of multicultural London dialect which I call 'Innit'. Lee Nelson's Well-Good Show is excellent, he speaks 'Innit' really well and makes me die laughing. But I'm worried that the nuances of different accents and dialect vocabulary are being lost, so folk songs sung in the appropriate way, even by non-native speakers, are maybe a good thing. Wouldn't it be strange if, twenty years from now, all folk events were presented by earnest singers performing in broad Innit?

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 01:43 PM

My daughter had a holiday in Sweden a few years ago and said the place names looked very familiar.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 01:37 PM

In "Wooden Heart" Elvis was actually trying to sing in swabian dialect.........

Here's another aspect for people to pontificate over. There are songs, usually of a humorous/comic nature which, in my opinion, cry out for an over the top accent like 'workin' class Lunnon', for example "The teddy-bears rave-up", Roaring Jelly's "Brown ale and arrers", Leslie sarony's "Isn't gand to be bloody well dead...." Kno worra meen?

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 12:54 PM

The fact that down to the 20th. C. Ladies in Scotland could compose songs and poetry and understand a language, which, whilst not the same language as that used in Scandinavia, could, I understand, be understood by medieval folk in those parts, must surely go some way to giving that language some legitimacy as a separate language.
Where do we have comparable examples from the other parts of the U.K.?
On a visit to Amsterdam some fifteen years back I, as a native speaker of Scots, had the most peculiar feeling that I should be able to understand all the signs on the buses and shop fronts, fact was I understood the meaning of a few and a visit to Scandanavia to test if the same feeling prevails there is now too late to contemplate.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl, again
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 12:49 PM

Sorry 'bout double posting, still getting the hang of this phone..

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 12:42 PM

Plain wrong like Elvis's German in Wooden Heart, you mean????
Sorry, I guess that was uncalled for. Fair play to him, he did have a go.
Having said that, Tunesmith, I know more than a few people who are more bothered by British performers ignoring their own tradition/s in favour of almost anything else.
But, as I understand it, the old traditional singers sang what they liked Because they liked it. Well, some of them did.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:48 AM

It's an interesting one this, because, within the same language, it does bother me - for some reason - when singers adopt an "different" accent e.g. British performers singing the blues like they were born in Mississippi in 1900.
However, what about singing songs in a foreign language?
Then, you have to adopt a foreign accent or it is just plain wrong!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:28 AM

Thanks Eliza. It was the custom of the time, I think, and she wasn't as enlightened as some! We'd not long moved from Up North,for work for Dad, and though he was from Yorkshire, Mum was not, and had learnt her English from cut-glass types.
Thinking of Glasgow/Edinburgh comparisons, I have completely delighted in reading the adventures of Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street residents, though obviously you don't get the full impact of the accents by merely reading them...
One day I'll get tae Bonnie Scotland!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:28 AM

Thanks Eliza. It was the custom of the time, I think, and she wasn't as enlightened as some! We'd not long moved from Up North,for work for Dad, and though he was from Yorkshire, Mum was not, and had learnt her English from cut-glass types.
Thinking of Glasgow/Edinburgh comparisons, I have completely delighted in reading the adventures of Alexander McCall Smith's Scotland Street residents, though obviously you don't get the full impact of the accents by merely reading them...
One day I'll get tae Bonnie Scotland!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:27 AM

"i have never heard and could never reproduce any difference between pearl, curl and pearl"

Quite a difference here in this area. My wife always thinks I am saying Carol when I'm talking about our friend Karl. Another pronounciation that she rather likes (for some reason but then she also likes the smell of creosote) is the way we say 'burn' sounding like 'burren'.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:20 AM

Eliza in Jedburgh when we went to school as late as the mid 1970s it was more than a bit confusing. Some of the staff would regard speaking in Scots as bad behaviour or cheek. I remember being sent to the Deputy Rector, a Mr Allan, for nothing more than saying 'aye' instead of 'yes'. Of course 'aye' is as much an English word as a Scots anway. When I went into Mr Allan's room I was greeted with "weil laddie whit ee been daein nou" and we did nothing more than have a wee chat about the rugby.

The Rector was a Mr Silver who happened to be English but in truth that isn't the issue as Scots were as likely to be against the use of Scots as anyone else. However he is quoted in Murray Watson's book "Being English In Scotland". He is actually talking about how incoming English children could be teased for their accents etc. He then goes on to denounce the local Borders Scots dialect of the locals as "a slovenly form of English with broad vowels".

Of course things have moved on a great deal since the 1970s.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 11:19 AM

i have never heard and could never reproduce any difference between pearl, curl and pearl..and there were always people who told us that pin and pen were pronounced differently...never heard the difference...mg

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 10:50 AM

In Edinburgh, many of the stsff spoke in the style of Miss Jean Brodie ("Ai em in mai praim") In fact Maggie Smith (Downton Abbey, Harry Potter) epitomises that type. I remember a formidable woman, Miss Mackenzie, singing "Come o'er the sea Chairlie and dine wi' McClean" in a cut glass Morningside accent (The school wasn't far from Morningside, in Bruntsfield) . But Glasgow was wonderful, so genuine and vibrant, as were the songs. I spoke both 'Edinburgh' and 'Glasgae' quite well I feel. eldergirl, how nasty of that snobby teacher to accost you like that. Shame on her!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 09:25 AM

In a current thread "The last o the tinklers" [Violet Jacobs], see Malcolm Douglas's post of 12.3.03. This being a poem by V.J. and whilst not being in too strong a Scots dialect brings out very strongly the fact that a long line of aristocratic ladies spoke and wrote the Scots Language at least down to a fairly recent period, she died in 1944, she being an Erskine of the house of Dun. Lady Nairne and Lady Jean Scott are two others that come to mind, the latter being the daughter-in-law of a Duke who had the largest landholding in these Isles, she is best remembered for having composed "Annie Laurie" and "Durisdeer"

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 07:37 AM

Wish I'd had a teacher like you in junior school, Eliza! Picture an already misfit 7 yr old asking Where's Denise Evans to? in my best Devon voice, and Teacher answering There's no need for you to speak like that, in her chilliest manner. May not sound like much now, but I did so want to fit in somewhere, and that just squashed me flat. For a little while, anyway!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 05:05 AM

Born and bred in Middlesex, I went up to Edinburgh to Uni and stayed in Scotland for 12 years, the last seven in Glasgow. As a teacher I tried to adapt my ghastly English accent so the pupils could understand words for eg spelling tests. It's no good saying 'girl', 'pearl' and 'curl' with exactly the same vowel sound. In Scotland it's 'girrel', 'perril' and 'currel'. I've quite a good ear for languages and accents. In singing lessons we teachers were given many old Scots songs to teach. I'd have sounded absolutely daft if I'd stubbornly delivered eg Will Ye No Come Back Again? in broad English. As for Come to the Barrowlands Tonight, (Swing yer ma, swing yer pa, swing yer grannie through the wa' etc ) just imagine that in 'posh West Londonspeak'! I also had to coach some pupils in Robert Burns poems for a competition. Luckily a Scots colleague was at hand to help with the Burns words and pronunciation. So I do feel the song determines the accent to a great extent.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 04:50 AM

Shores of Erin. Oh, human beans are very good at mis-hearing things...
Also, as humans we tend to reinvent ourselves to some extent throughout our lives, learning by experience and all that. But some of us manage greater reinventions and adaptations than others.
Which kind of takes us back to where we came in, I.e. accent/dialect, use of, to fit in, to adapt, to make the effort to be part of a given community.. I think.. Not to mock or sneer, but to better express what needs to be said or sung.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 04:14 AM

"Shoals of Herring"
Turns up here often in Ireland as 'Shores of Erin' - even in academic collections - See Horace Beck's 'Folklore and the Sea'.
"reinvented man"
Peggy told a Woman's Hour interviewer who described him as such during an obituary feature that "He wasn't 're-invented' he just gathered up all the different bits of his life and experiences, joined them together and poured them into folk-song"
I drink to that every time I sing one of his songs or make use of something he wrote or told me/us.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 04:05 AM

Couter to rhyme with scooter was the country pronunciation.
It is only in recent years that I came across Ewan MacColl in The Tobar an Dualchais site, before that if I had heard his name it did not register. I asssume that the recordings on that site were made in his early days while he was still working up to a Scots accent for to be quite frank, to a native speaker, his Scots accent in those recordings sounds so artificial.
As those were the only recordings of him that I have heard I cannot comment on how he developed it in later recordings.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 03:52 AM

I always thought Shoals of Herring was Scottish, till I discovered it was by Ewan McColl. And there went a reinvented man..

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Aug 13 - 03:28 AM

"Thanks Jim, here I am again!"
Welcome aboard!
All this has set me off to thinking that tackling songs in unfamiliar accents - or taking the easy way out by parodying them in 'Oirish' or 'Mock-Jimmy', can come about because of an underestimation of your audience - "what does it matter how I do it, what do they know, so I might as well do a 'Clancy Brothers Soundalike'", or in my case on occasion "they won't follow, or be interested in what I'm singing about so why do it?" and revert to the tried and tested 'Desert Island Discs' fall-backs.
Not directly related to accents, but MacColl used to tell a story against himself of when he started singing long ballads in public back in the 'Ballads and Blues' days
One of the earliest of these was 'Gil Morrice' which he decided was too big a bite for new audiences, so he broke it into two halves, one in the first half and one after the interval.
"One night a young feller who had recently become a regular; A great big trouncer who used to deliver beer locally, hands like crane-grabs"; (Ewan elevated exaggeration into an art-form), "came up and rather aggressively asked me "Why do you sing that ******* song in two bits; it's like waiting for the other bleedin' shoe to drop?""
He used the story to illustrate his belief that any audience was on your side from day one, and if you realise that fact and respect it "you can get them to follow you anywhere - over the White Cliffs even"
He believed that "Any problems in communicating a song was far more likely to be through a lack of confidence on the part of the singer rather than an inability to follow by an audience, any audience"         
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 10:37 PM

I've pretty much lost my West Riding accent now, but if I sing "Poverty Knock" or "The Dalesman's Litany" or other songs from the area I revert back to an accent even broader than the one I grew up with.

"Poverty Knock" as sung by Chumbawamba and various other people is just cringe-making sung in "received pronunciation". I'd rather hear someone "put on" the accent and sing it so that the rest of the song fits in with the dialect words, as long as they don't make a complete arse of it.

And "Dalesman" as sung by Maddy Prior and Tim Hart (and various others I've heard at times) sounds terribly twee...not only because " 'Ull and 'Alifax and 'Ell " sounds much better than when sung with "properly pronounced" H's, but placenames like Keithley and Bra'f'd just sound wrong, as does their use of "bairns" and "brass" and other dialect words.

I won't even mention non-Yorkie attempts to sing "Ilkla Moor" :-)

On the other hand, I frequently hear English people singing songs of English origin in fake Oirish accents....Fiddler's Green and Shoals of Herring being two of the worst for that....presumably because they've heard them done by famous Irish artistes in Irish accents and think they're Irish songs.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 08:15 PM

Well I certainly didn't. I wonder if the meaning had a bearing on Philip Pullman's choice of mrs Coulter as name of hard, cold evil woman in His Dark Materials, whose chief task was to divide the children from their souls? No relation at all to Coulter's Candy then!
Like mrrzy, I sing in accent of person I learned song from. So My Husband's Got No Porridge In Him comes out somewhat Yorkshire..(from lovely Hilary Spencer) Not too great a stretch as it's actually where I was born, though I've not lived there since I were 5.
Thanks Jim, here I am again!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 07:01 PM

"Coulter"
It's a word that always fascinated me when I learned that the punishment for the ploughman who assisted Lady Warriston to murder 'is Lordship was to be "broken over a coulter" - she, as fitting to her rank, was smothered between two silk pillows - not a lot of people know that!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tootler
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 06:31 PM

Coulter isn't specifically a Scots word. It is also found in England.

I googled it and got this

coul·ter (kltr)
n.
A blade or wheel attached to the beam of a plough that makes vertical cuts in the soil in advance of the ploughshare.
[Middle English culter, from Old English culter and Old French coltre, both from Latin culter, knife, ploughshare]

For all that, I take your point, Jim.

I have two rules of thumb I use about anglicising words:

1. Is there an exact or, at worst, a very close equivalent in standard English? If not, then leave the original alone.

2. If there is an equivalent in standard English, can it be used without destroying the rhythm of the words or in any other way adversely affecting the poetry of the song? Again, if the answer is no, then leave the original alone.

Most of the time, that means don't anglicise.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,jim bainbridge
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 06:00 PM

AS a Geordie who's spent time in Kent, London, Scotland, Ireland and El Hierro in the Canaries, am quite happy to sing songs from all places without worrying too much about my accent- leave others to judge how successfully! Wouldn't even attempt some of Hamish Henderson's or Rabbie Burns', much as I love them.
Think I get away best with Scots Irish songs, to which I think the Geordie accent has some affinity? When singing Irish songs for the locals 20 years ago in the Mizen area of West Cork, I was asked what county I came from- my answer of County Durham produced a few headshakes in response, but they must have thought I was Irish. By the way, there was little Irish music in the area then- which was why a Geordie brought up in NE folk clubs got the 'tourist' gig for many years.
I tried the same thing in Boulogne when I lived in Dover, but even though I had a beret and a bag of onions, the locals weren't deceived at all, despite my accent, which owed more to 'Allo 'Allo' than Georges Brassens....

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 05:03 PM

"Think I'll shut up an go back to lurking,"
Please don't EG - these threads work best when everybody participates - seems to be working here and you usually have something interesting to say
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 04:57 PM

I cannot help but sing in the accent in which I heard the song. It's terrible.
Fascinating thread.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,eldergirl, again
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 01:38 PM

This is a most excellent thread. Or mebbe it's just grand. Think I'll shut up an go back to lurking, too many things I'd like to chip in with, would take me yonks to tap it all in, by which time you'll all be four pages ahead. Keep going youse guys. I'll follow as best as I can...
Oh, recording songs. Couple of weeks ago I discovered a recording of me done 2 yrs ago which I never knew about, singing one of my fave Northern songs, learnt from a Northern woman, and I do not sing it quite the same now as I did then. We're supposed to improve with time an practice, right?

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 01:04 PM

Jim roup is still in use in the West of Scotland for an auction sale of many kinds in farm and business closures whether they be due to retirement, death or financial collapse.
I would imagine that tractor drawn ploughs still have couters as horse drawn ones certainly had in my young days, that was in the time when country blacksmiths kept what were called "smiddy hours" ie. from ten in the morning till ten at night, this allowed ploughmen to visit the smiddy after their dailly darg to have the couters sharpened and other minor repairs carried out and provided a warm place to gather and put the world to rights in their wide ranging discussions leavened with the odd sang--- and some of them were very odd!-- as anyone who has heard me singing will testify

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 12:18 PM

Sometimes you have to get stuck in and hammer at a song - even though you know its not really right, And recording it is another set of problems.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 12:15 PM

Well yes Jim - but the first version was an important step on your way to understanding the song. That's how it is sometimes.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 11:51 AM

Shortly after MacColl composed it I began to sing 'Tenant Farmer'. I believe it to be one of his best - he wrote it after a discussion with a group of Border farmers at a Hogmanay party outside Lockerbie.
I Anglisised it, but was never happy at losing some of the Scots words, particularly, "coulter" and "roup", but it still worked for me.
When I started to re-sing twenty-odd years later here in Ireland I put it back in my repertoire but this time I included the Scottish words I had omitted.
It now works like a charm; so much so that when I sang it earlier this year I choked on it - I find it very emotionally involving and anger provoking.
I stopped worrying about the Scots words altogether when, while singing the eviction sale (roup) verse a local elderly farmer standing next to me at the bar shouted in my ear "The feckin' bastards" - worth a thousand good reviews.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tootler
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 09:57 AM

Gutcher,

My wife, who's from The West Riding of Yorkshire (RIP) would understand exactly what you meant.

I'm originally from Aberdeen, though I have lived nearly all my life in England (my Father's a Yorkshireman but was in the RAF so we moved around a lot). When I first met my wife, I was struck by how many terms she used that were in common with terms used by my grandparents because she was quite broad and her mother used quite a few dialect terms.

I sing a number of Scots songs and I find that a fair number of the Scots words are also in common use in the North of England, but there are others that I am unfamiliar with and I have look up. I think it's important to understand what you are singing so I have a Scots Dictionary bookmarked in my browser.

When I sing a Scots song, I don't consciously put on a Scots accent but some people have told me one comes out. Someone once even asked how come I was singing in an Aberdeen accent, so I reckon the fact that much of my earliest years were spent in Aberdeen have left a mark, even if it was buried away. It does sometimes worry me a bit because I wouldn't want a Scot to think I was putting the accent on.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 09:36 AM

Great story, Jim. Love it!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,SteveT
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 07:39 AM

Particularly with the narrative songs mentioned earlier, perhaps the litmus test is whether the listener ends up focussing on the song or the singer. It's not so much about what the singer feels about their ability but what the audience feels about the song itself. A friend once reported a comment he'd heard to me which, paraphrased, goes something like "A poor singer stands in front of their song, a good singer stands behind it."   For me the listener should be listening to the song and the singer shouldn't get in the way of that: the words and accents need to work so the listener hears the story not the accent. Different singers may achieve this in different ways with different audiences: I have my own way but I don't think it's a case of one size fits all.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 06:09 AM

Over the twenty years we recorded Walter Pardon we spent many pleasant hours just chatting.
One night we were talking about accents when, in his gently quiet way he said, "I get fed up with people taking the mickey out of the way we speak in Norfolk - they always make out we say "oo –ar""
Pat said tentatively, "but you do say "oo –ar" Walter".
He thougt a minute and replied, "oo –ar, so oi do".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 05:55 AM

I like Don Firth's synthesis best. It proposes a means of pursuing a creative life as an artist to the best of ones abilities.

All the other side has to offer is that we sit around being reverent to 'the greats' of folk music, and sneering at anyone who opens his gob in an unapproved manner.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 05:51 AM

I'm kind of agreeing with everyone here. Like Don says if you are doing something in another dialect/language then surely you want to try and get it as well done as you can? Totally agree with Tattie Bogle. Burns wrote some works in a broader Scots dialect; some works in a less broad more anglicised dialect; some works in standard English; and in some he chops and changes within the piece itself. Most famously in Tam O'Shanter. The bulk of the poem is in Scots then the middle section is standard English. Many Scots even speak like that changing from minute to minute. Why not in a song if someone wants to anglicise a line then try it. Sometimes it will work - sometimes it may not.

Scots themselves differ as to how they sing certain songs with some using a heavier dialect than others.

I agree with MG too that the songs are not only Scottish heritage. Basically I am not trying to proscribe people from doing them. I am happy if they do them. I am not sugesting that they should or shouldn't anglicise the words. In some cases it will work in others less so but there is no harm in trying. I just find nothing unusual about people using the Scots words without reverting to the adoption of an OTT Scottish accent, and tend to prefer it, because adopting an accent can often sound comical and like Jim says the bad accent overshadows the song. To me on balance it is better for (especially on a serious piece) the song to sound slightly different and unusual than it is for it to sound plain comical.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 05:27 AM

"Not angry, but in many cases I think they would become amused and stop listening"

Totally agree with you Jim. If the singer has no interest in what Scots think then fair enough but I imagine the very fact that someone is trying to sound Scottish means they are attempting to get it sounding as geniune as they can. Don't know why the other poster had to bring an almost racism thing into it? Plain fact is that whether one is acting or singing - a bad accent risks ruining the performance. At least for those who know the accent!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gutcher
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 04:58 AM

Anent whither Scots be a language or a dialect I raised a smile on a visit to the hospital yesterday by enquiring at the information desk for directions to the Lug, Neb and Thrapple department.
Astute readers of this forum will have no difficulty in translation as the meaning of one of the words will be well known furth of this land.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 04:36 AM

I've already posted that, in my opinion, feeling comfortable with the text you are singing convincingly is more important. If you feel you can do an accent without going over the top, the dialect words present no problem and you are comfortable singing a song this way - fine. Conversely, if you're happier anglicizing parts of the text - fine again.
However if you're trying a heavier dialect like Geordie('Pitmatic' or not) or possibly a language like Scots (to say nothing of other languages) I think it's important that you also UNDERSTAND what you are singing about so that your performance carries the necessary respect and rings true.
If you're in doubt about the course to take, try making a recording of yourself singing the song in question with and without accent etc. and see which works better for you.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 04:10 AM

Well I'm a Scot by birth and residence but with an English accent, thanks to living in England for nearly 2/3 of my life. I lived in Suffolk, and there are not many people who can do a convincing Suffolk accent, either singing or speaking it, unless they've been brought up with it: otherwise it comes out as "mixed BBC rural". I do like the Kipper family repertoire as the Norfolk accent is close to it.
Having learned a lot of Scots songs since living up here, AND having been brought by a Scottish mother, I think I can make a fair stab at some Scots songs and the accent(s) and would never dream of trying Anglicise e.g. Yellow ( Yella, in fact) on the Broom. My mother taught us to say the ch sound properly very early on, no such place as LOCK Lomond! I also write songs, sometimes choosing to do so in Scots, depending on the subject matter if the song. But I'll never sound quite like someone who has lived here all their life. Like Allan Conn's wife, I often slip Scots words into conversation, especially wi' ma braider freens.
As for not mixing it, just look at Burns: plenty of examples of poems/ songs where he uses a mix of English and Scots in the same composition, even alternating versions of the same word between 2 "languages" - often for the sake of a rhyme.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: mg
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 03:40 AM

Well, Scotland seems to be the focus. For hundreds of years, we in North America, which would include Canada, Mexico and U.S., as well as Greenland if you are talking about continents, and various islands, such as Costa Rica, Puerto Rico etc...did I forget anything? have had a fair number of Scots Scottish but do not say Scotch that is for whiskey people in our midst. We also have a cultural history of numerous S/S/S songs, such as Auld Lang Syne, coming through the rye, Loch Lomand, Annie Laurie etc...so these words are part of our heritage somewhat as well..you can't put a wall around a language and say only we'uns can speak it. If other people like a song, like a phrase, etc.,,,they can use it. Hopefully they will treat sacred things especially with respect. We might end up all talking Franglish, Spanglish, Swedlish or whatever but we can and it is good.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 03:25 AM

"would actually take the song out of context and simply fail to do it justice"
Which more or less sums it up for me.
Some songs are made around the dialect; the words, even the sound of them, give them their vitality and beauty - take that away or mess it up and you destroy the song. Anglicising them can make them sound mundane and rob them of their essence, both for the singer and the listener.
"Neither do I think Scottish people would get angry if someone did a song in a mock Scottish accent!"
Not angry, but in many cases I think they would become amused and stop listening - the accent would become the object of attention rather than the song itself.
I think there is an added problem with Irish songs, where historically the Irish (Oirish) accent has become a way of denigrating and mocking a 'troublesome' people - Mr Punchifying them.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that this would be the intention of any singer, but it can sometimes be the way it is seen.
That aside, singers have to be able to immerse themselves enough in their songs to become emotionally involved in them - the songs have to work for them before they will work for an audience, to be ideas, facts and emotions that you are communicating rather than just sounds, no matter how accurately produced.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 02:38 AM

I don't beleive we are the default. I would be the same the other way round. There is a guy at our club who mainly does American songs but he does them in the most cringingly bad American accent. It simply spoils the performance and it isn't necessary.

Neither do I think Scottish people would get angry if someone did a song in a mock Scottish accent! Simply pointing out that many people (of course there are exceptions)who mimic a Scottish accent go way over the top and it comes out sounding an awful parody. I only suggested that singing the words as written without overtly mimicking the accent itself is in my opinion generally better. Personally i find non-English speakers often don't have the problem as they just sing the words straight without the mimicking.

Fair enough an awful parody of a Scottish accent may not be recognised as so depending on where you are - but if I am doing a song from someone else's culture then I'd like to think I could do it to the best of my ability and I'd like to think that they might not find it ridiculous sounding. In other words I'd be interested in their advice and not just accuse them of some kind of superiority complex.

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 13 Aug 13 - 01:32 AM

Rather than Anglicizing it into...would actually take the song out of context and simply fail to do it justice.
And would, in a way, take it over for yourself without having to give due to the people it came from.

But that's just what Anglicizing in the old guard British tradition is, isn't it. It's a great tradition, old boy. It's more than language; it's culture in general. "We" are Greenwich Mean Time. "We" are the default standard of the world—people shall conform to us, not we to them.

Just look, for instance, at the South Asian ethnic communities in the U.K., as compared to North America and other places. In the U.K., Indians typically don't even say their own names right, because they have caved to whatever the Anglo society is expecting. I'm not talking about just saying it with English accent (which is completely reasonable in English context) but changing it into funny other things. Yet in the States the Indians just say here's how to say my name and the local people say it.

So, the "rules" seems to be:
1) WE shouldn't have to budge from our way. And those among us who do condescend to the level of the Natives of elsewhere, when doing their thing, are traitors and fakes. Yes, we will take their thing that we like, but only in properly Anglicized way...knife, fork, and all.
2) YOU should not try to do things our way, because you'll never be us, we'll never consider you to have truly gotten it (how can you capture our essence when your essence is different?). Our status as the default shall be maintained, and others will diverge from that accordingly.

An extreme caricature I've made, to be sure. My aim is not to create a straw man or overgeneralize a group of people.

It's rather to suggest that there is a worldview shaping this sense of propriety when it comes to singing and accents. And it's just *one* worldview. There has been a claim that Scots would be angry or put off or something if a non-Scot sang a Scottish song in a Scots accent. OK, they have the right; better to be pissed off than pissed on, I guess. But so many other people or the world, in the same sort of scenario would be THRILLED to have someone make that gesture. Plenty would not even think about the accent at all. For example, so long as the words were comprehensible, they might be focused on the meaning of the words, or the passion in the singer's voice, and might even feel honoured to have that.

The main theme I've been yapping on about is that if changing accents is a violation of one's aesthetics, so be it. It's a valid preference. Don't sing in a different accent, don't put your elbows on the dinner table, and don't forget to say "Excuse me" after you fart. But it is quite illogical to apply those "rules of etiquette" (of sorts) to what other people are doing in this big wide world. The default position is an illusion.

Excuse me!

Subject: RE: Singing in Different Accents/Dialects
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Aug 13 - 11:57 PM

good on yer Don!