Some of you will remember the recent discussion "How Good are You?", initiated by Beloved Bliss. Some of you will have heard my little contribution also, and hopefully had a laugh. In that same vein, the question is, "How good a singer are you?" I found this clip by accident, it's at http://www.worldfiddlemusic.co.uk/singer/wacky.mp3 , while looking for fiddle-related stuff, and I couldn't decide whether it was serious or funny, good or bad, clever or stupid, etc etc. What do you think? (By the way, the connection with Irish music is that this band once sang Irish songs at their school folk club).
That is the voice of deceased Dundonian Billy MacKenzie (I think you posted this before).
His singing on this track - the only one I can remember - is so OTT it's hard to figure out what's going on. I'm with you on it - I could never decide if it was any of those things, and during the period it was being played on the radio, I liked it sometimes and was irritated by it others.
Interesting.
A genius friend of mine once said. "Everyone can sing, some people just have better voices than others. I don't have a good voice, but I can't half sing. Besides, if you want to hear good singers you go to the opera".
He was right. You never heard such passion or angst if you gave this man a mic, he plays guitar (a bit of an understatement) and was brilliant.
JfiddlerH will verify this. He just can't bring himself to say how good I am.
This is the man who once said: "I was gonna have all jazz rockers gassed ... something so greedy about them wanting to keep all those notes for themselves, all dead precious"
I thought the Associates were great - really out there somewhere. The clip you have is a little MURKY - almost like it's being played backwards ....
LOL -- oh, shock rarely gets to me these days, perhaps I'm just getting old. Actually, I've heard far worse than that. Remember, I met my husband at his club when he was one of the top club deejays in the area. Anyway, sounds like somebody's been listening to David Bowie and getting him confused with David Byrne.
Well, I regularly get asked to sing at sessions, so I take that as a pretty good sign. And any band I've ever been in has readily let me sing. Must be doing something right.
I think the "how good" aspect of the question, though, can be looked at in a variety of ways. A lot of it depends on the venue and situation. Are you singing "for the stage," i.e., in a _performance_ context? If so, people may judge -- consciously or subconciously -- whether you're good by criteria like how well you project, how well you articulate the lyrics, whether you make eye contact and so on.
But if it's a session or pub-sing, you may be as much concerned with song _selection_, i.e., choosing something that people can join in on, if they wish, and/or is not too long so that musicians or other singers present don't start looking daggers at you. If possible, I like to go for songs with reasonably easy-to-pick-up choruses and that are over in a couple of minutes; but for a change of pace -- if, for instance, there have been several fast-paced tune medleys -- I might go for a "slow" song with no chorus.
All that said, however, I think there's another quality to being a "good" singer that transcends the whole concert/pub distinction. They're not Irish, strictly speaking, but let me hold up The Watersons as an example. The quality of their voices, individually or collectively, might not be considered aesthetically "beautiful." But there is a definite power and presence, and an integrity, that for me -- and obviously many other people -- override any such shortcomings.
So from that standpoint, listening to the gone-too-soon Lal Waterson sing "Fine Horseman," in a warbly, heavy Yorkshire-accented voice, sends chills down my spine as much as listening to a prize-winning sean nos singer.
I was told recently that singing improved the tone of the muscles at the back of your throat and reduced snoring. As I have recently taken to snoring so loudly I wake myself up, I have got a book and CD from the library and have been doing singing exercises. Repeated howls of "Eeeeooooo!" have been added to the annoyances suffered by my wretched neighbours.
Someone needs to put a lock on that guy's vocal chords. And never let him near recording equipment again. He sounds like David Bowie sitting in a vibrating armchair.
I can sing fairly well as long as the song is in my range, and I love to sing when I'm with friends who know the songs I like and who will sing along with me. My friend Mark and I will sing in the car until the windows crack, usually starting out with "Have Some Madeira M'Dear" and going downhill from there. ;)
I wasn't going to add to this thread but I have to try and redress the balance . Billy McKenzie was a thoroughly decent bloke from Dundee who found life a bit too much and commited suicide in 1997. The clip is as already stated murky and is totally unrepresentative of Billy or the rest of the song or his music in general.
His music was not my cup of tea but taking a clip like this is unfair ...http://www.billymackenzie.com/
But only when I'm driving to and from work, on my own. The rest of the time I'm quite terrible. Why is this? I do not know. But I suspect it has something to do with the windscreen. Damn, I love that windscreen.
I will now write a free-verse poem about my windscreen:
Ode to Windscreen
Oh screener of wind, how you screen
out the screaming of the engines of bad drivers
with mags
who drive the same route as I
only in the opposite direction.
Sometimes they are in gears that are too low.
For their speed.
And e'en as you protect from their wails
you stop the rain and, yes, hail
from getting up my nose and in my eyes.
(We won't get into the bugs),
you transform
and transmute
my tibetan throat-singing
into a glorious hierarchy
of tonal perplexity.
Oh screen. Oh winderly shield.
For not much will you yield
(except for freshly hurled bricks,
as I ruefully discovered
while practicing my
yodelling
in a non-yodelly part of town one
midsummer morning).
Gallopede wrote: I was told recently that singing improved the tone of the muscles at the back of your throat and reduced snoring.
Gallopede, if you'd like a second opinion on that, I'd be happy to put you in touch with my wife, who is an unwilling audience to my apparently frequent snorecitals.
Morrisey (when with the smiths) sang "William, it was really nothing. The William in question was the wailing Billy from the above soundclip. Nice poem Q
How good are you? (At singing)
How good are you? (At singing)
Some of you will remember the recent discussion "How Good are You?", initiated by Beloved Bliss. Some of you will have heard my little contribution also, and hopefully had a laugh. In that same vein, the question is, "How good a singer are you?" I found this clip by accident, it's at http://www.worldfiddlemusic.co.uk/singer/wacky.mp3 , while looking for fiddle-related stuff, and I couldn't decide whether it was serious or funny, good or bad, clever or stupid, etc etc. What do you think? (By the way, the connection with Irish music is that this band once sang Irish songs at their school folk club).
What do you think?
Jim
# Posted on May 4th 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
That is the voice of deceased Dundonian Billy MacKenzie (I think you posted this before).
His singing on this track - the only one I can remember - is so OTT it's hard to figure out what's going on. I'm with you on it - I could never decide if it was any of those things, and during the period it was being played on the radio, I liked it sometimes and was irritated by it others.
Interesting.
# Posted on May 4th 2005 by Bren
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
I can't, and so don't.
Trevor
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by Trevor Jennings
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
A genius friend of mine once said. "Everyone can sing, some people just have better voices than others. I don't have a good voice, but I can't half sing. Besides, if you want to hear good singers you go to the opera".
He was right. You never heard such passion or angst if you gave this man a mic, he plays guitar (a bit of an understatement) and was brilliant.
JfiddlerH will verify this. He just can't bring himself to say how good I am.
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
This is the man who once said: "I was gonna have all jazz rockers gassed ... something so greedy about them wanting to keep all those notes for themselves, all dead precious"
I thought the Associates were great - really out there somewhere. The clip you have is a little MURKY - almost like it's being played backwards ....
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by Ottery
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHhh!!!!
MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great googley-moogley, that's irritating! Some techno-pop project run amok!
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by Tunes!
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
I agree with Bliss (are you ok Zina? The shock?).
Bliss i've never denied your abilty as an entertainer, i'd just hesitate to go as far as calling you a good musician!
Good call on the thread though. The guy was a genius.
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by jfiddlerh
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
sounds like some duran duran sort of thing from the 80s
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by ecidralla
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Bowie-esque?
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by grego
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
LOL -- oh, shock rarely gets to me these days, perhaps I'm just getting old. Actually, I've heard far worse than that. Remember, I met my husband at his club when he was one of the top club deejays in the area. Anyway, sounds like somebody's been listening to David Bowie and getting him confused with David Byrne.
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Great minds, Greg!
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Well, I regularly get asked to sing at sessions, so I take that as a pretty good sign. And any band I've ever been in has readily let me sing. Must be doing something right.
I think the "how good" aspect of the question, though, can be looked at in a variety of ways. A lot of it depends on the venue and situation. Are you singing "for the stage," i.e., in a _performance_ context? If so, people may judge -- consciously or subconciously -- whether you're good by criteria like how well you project, how well you articulate the lyrics, whether you make eye contact and so on.
But if it's a session or pub-sing, you may be as much concerned with song _selection_, i.e., choosing something that people can join in on, if they wish, and/or is not too long so that musicians or other singers present don't start looking daggers at you. If possible, I like to go for songs with reasonably easy-to-pick-up choruses and that are over in a couple of minutes; but for a change of pace -- if, for instance, there have been several fast-paced tune medleys -- I might go for a "slow" song with no chorus.
All that said, however, I think there's another quality to being a "good" singer that transcends the whole concert/pub distinction. They're not Irish, strictly speaking, but let me hold up The Watersons as an example. The quality of their voices, individually or collectively, might not be considered aesthetically "beautiful." But there is a definite power and presence, and an integrity, that for me -- and obviously many other people -- override any such shortcomings.
So from that standpoint, listening to the gone-too-soon Lal Waterson sing "Fine Horseman," in a warbly, heavy Yorkshire-accented voice, sends chills down my spine as much as listening to a prize-winning sean nos singer.
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by sts
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
I hate to say I was right, again, about JFH but I was right, again, about JFH.
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
You can say that again.
Jim
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
I was told recently that singing improved the tone of the muscles at the back of your throat and reduced snoring. As I have recently taken to snoring so loudly I wake myself up, I have got a book and CD from the library and have been doing singing exercises. Repeated howls of "Eeeeooooo!" have been added to the annoyances suffered by my wretched neighbours.
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by LowProfile
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Someone needs to put a lock on that guy's vocal chords. And never let him near recording equipment again. He sounds like David Bowie sitting in a vibrating armchair.
I can sing fairly well as long as the song is in my range, and I love to sing when I'm with friends who know the songs I like and who will sing along with me. My friend Mark and I will sing in the car until the windows crack, usually starting out with "Have Some Madeira M'Dear" and going downhill from there. ;)
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by sara g
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Oh, within my range, sure, but these days my range is about five notes, I'm afraid. ;)
# Posted on May 5th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
I wasn't going to add to this thread but I have to try and redress the balance . Billy McKenzie was a thoroughly decent bloke from Dundee who found life a bit too much and commited suicide in 1997. The clip is as already stated murky and is totally unrepresentative of Billy or the rest of the song or his music in general.
His music was not my cup of tea but taking a clip like this is unfair ...http://www.billymackenzie.com/
# Posted on May 6th 2005 by Seasider
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Fair comment, Domino.
Jim
# Posted on May 6th 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
...and yes, I found the clip at the BBC site. All the 30-second samples are low-quality just to save space.
Jim
# Posted on May 6th 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
I'm a fantastic singer, with a wonderful voice.
But only when I'm driving to and from work, on my own. The rest of the time I'm quite terrible. Why is this? I do not know. But I suspect it has something to do with the windscreen. Damn, I love that windscreen.
I will now write a free-verse poem about my windscreen:
Ode to Windscreen
Oh screener of wind, how you screen
out the screaming of the engines of bad drivers
with mags
who drive the same route as I
only in the opposite direction.
Sometimes they are in gears that are too low.
For their speed.
And e'en as you protect from their wails
you stop the rain and, yes, hail
from getting up my nose and in my eyes.
(We won't get into the bugs),
you transform
and transmute
my tibetan throat-singing
into a glorious hierarchy
of tonal perplexity.
Oh screen. Oh winderly shield.
For not much will you yield
(except for freshly hurled bricks,
as I ruefully discovered
while practicing my
yodelling
in a non-yodelly part of town one
midsummer morning).
Oh screener of the street.
You're neat.
# Posted on May 6th 2005 by Q
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Brilliant !
# Posted on May 6th 2005 by BegF
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
I mean the poem is brilliant.......not my singing.
# Posted on May 6th 2005 by BegF
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Gallopede wrote: I was told recently that singing improved the tone of the muscles at the back of your throat and reduced snoring.
Gallopede, if you'd like a second opinion on that, I'd be happy to put you in touch with my wife, who is an unwilling audience to my apparently frequent snorecitals.
# Posted on May 6th 2005 by sts
Re: How good are you? (At singing)
Morrisey (when with the smiths) sang "William, it was really nothing. The William in question was the wailing Billy from the above soundclip. Nice poem Q
# Posted on May 16th 2005 by Thumbs