Singing in your own accent

dublinario

I accidentally stumbled across this video while scouring youtube for porn.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=CRJuTQz1Z4U&mode=related&search=

Now, maybe I'm mistaken and the man is American/Canadian (apologies for fusing these countries together), but I think that isn't the case, and the man is from Kildare, yet he sings with a faux US/Canadian accent so strong that it makes Bryan Adams and Ryan Adams sound like Iraqis. No offense to the guy (on the off chance he's reading), but I was mildly embarrassed listening to it.

Why do people do this? The all-powerful oracle (wikipedia) tells me that the population of Kildare is 185,000 Lillywhite-lovin, horse-racing addicted culchies. Let's say the instance of the singer-songwriter pandemic, globally, is 1 victim in 100. If he sung in his own accent there'd only be 1,850 people in the world with his regional intonations. And in reality, it would be much less, because so many of these musicians would be indulging in the North American accent mimicry, and he could set himself apart by merely abstaining.

It is a barmy irony that people go out of their way to suppress their natural vocal inflections in favour of this twangy homogeneous sound, but if you asked them they'd all tell you that they wanted to sound original. I have to admit that I wasn't immune to sounding like a dungarees-wearin, low down, cotton-pickin, straw-chewin bubba from the American deep south for the first couple of years when I was learning guitar, and I still find myself lapsing sometimes if I'm drunkenly lurching through a sloppy rendition of Sweet Home Alabama.

Even though I was never too badly afflicted with the Americana flavour, I still remember the RTE Damien Dempsey documentary a few years back as being a turning point. When he talked about singing in his own accent it seemed so obvious and reasonable, and yet when I took a good hard listen to myself in the mirror (if you'll excuse the sh*t, nonsensical metaphor), I realised I didn't always sound like my roots. I do now though, ever since that day.

Thoughts? Debate? Good youtube porn links?

Fingers Mcginty

I'm gonna be throwin up a few vids meself on youtube .
I promise to sing in my own vernacular bog accent

Fingers Mcginty

I'm gonna be throwin up a few vids meself in youtube .
I promise to sing in my own vernacular bog accent

A Primal Nut

It really depends on what your influences are. A lot of English musicians sung like Americans because they were so influenced by blues artists. If you're doing covers its natural you will do it in the original guys accent, and people would probably laugh if it was done any other way - imagine Sweet Home Alabama with a culchie or dub accent?

When doing your own stuff - its hard to know, having it in a strong regional accent is more a novelty that certain artists use as an important part of their style of music. Personally I'm inspired by a lot of Classic Rock bands, either American or ones strongly influenced by American artists, so is natural that will come through if I sing (not that I sing often) and there is no reason to try to suppress it, unless its blatantly obvious, which it isnt fortunately. That clip there didn't seem too bad.

Having said that, native British accents certainly do work for a lot of singers, Liam Gallagher comes to mind.

dublinario

It's a fair point. When I think about it, I suppose Rory Gallagher sung like his Blues heroes, with North American drawls. And who can forget Phil Lynott's yankie accent when he mutters "no flag, no uniform, ever stopped a bullet from a gun". But then, they were geniuses, so they could do what they wanted. Like the writer Peter Carey, who won the booker prize for writing a book without a single comma: a lesser writer would be spat upon by prospective publishers for writing that way. Being at the top of your game affords you such leeway.

Ah, it's a personal thing I suppose. I'd like to hear more authentic accents from Irish musicians. Say what you want about Enya, but...I can't think of an ending to this sentence.

BENJAMIN61

Gift

SuperSean11

Banim quick

Shapes

Yup... I reckon it's cause when you're so used to listening to the accent and how it's sung that you just imitate it cause that's how you should sing yourself.... or so you think. It's not easy to undo years of 'music learning' when you try to find yourself.... that sounds sooooo new age!

Mars Bar

You don't get a more irish accent in music than the Saw Doctors. Firmly stuck to their roots they are...

nij

I think many different styles of music have their associated accents, just as they do scales, chord progressions etc... It's partly a stylistic choice, and partly a case of maintaining a sort of 'standard' so that people can understand what you're saying. Like in drama...

Eoin Madsen

nij wrote:

I think many different styles of music have their associated accents, just as they do scales, chord progressions etc... It's partly a stylistic choice, and partly a case of maintaining a sort of 'standard' so that people can understand what you're saying. Like in drama...

Being fair, it's not a stylistic "choice" in most cases. It's something done from years of habits that originate from having begun singing through pure mimicry. Most American singing accents adopted by Irish and English singers are relatively unintelligible to Irish and English listeners anyway. If you listen to Damien Dempsey or Duke Special, it's pretty easy for us to hear the words in the songs without ever referring to the inlay card.

It's usually indicative of a lack of ability to consciously control your vocal system tbh. Someone who can sing without an accent (ie in the "accent" native to them) can put on any accent they want if they feel it's appropriate. Singing pronunciation is as effortless as speaking, and subtlety of expression, intonation and accent is as easy to sing as it is to speak - if you're singing properly.

If someone wants to argue that they should be singing like an American because that's their influence or whatever, I can't argue with that (though personally I'd find it dubious to be truthful). But I know from experience that it's more often just an excuse for not being able to do it any other way.

It's like if someone has a guitar strumming technique that causes them to always play a little behind the beat. They might claim it's a style thing, but it clearly isn't. For it to be style you have to be doing it consciously. Which is a whole lot different from being conscious that you're doing it.