The opera discussion sort of dovetails my question here: What is your opinion of singers out there faking an Irish brogue? I'm of the opinion that songs can keep their charm just as easily with my Pittsburgh accent... as long as you're a native speaker of Pittsburghese. If I try to Irish up a song by saying "divil" instead of "devil" etc. I just get that South Park silent stare. How many fakers out there?
I don't go for fake brogues at all. Never have, never will.
That said, though, there's a dilemma when you sing a song that's very much built on dialect, to the extent that if you "Englishize it" you lose the rhyming couplets. For instance, if you're singing a Scottish song which uses "dee" for "die," and the couplet ends with something like "me," "free," etc., well, you're in a bit of a jam if you opt to sing "die."
And there are some bits of dialect that you really _can't_ correct for. Another example using a Scots song (guess Caledonia's on my mind today) is the chorus for "Welcome Royal Charlie," which goes:
Oh, you've been lang a-comin'
Lang, lang, lang a-comin'
Now, try singing that
Oh, you've been LONG a-comin'
LONG, LONG, LONG a-comin'
Just doesn't work.
The best solution I've found is to sing with a "Mid-Atlantic" accent. If there are certain words or phrases of an Irish or Scottish song that you can't really transpose into American, the idea is to sing them "as they are" without calling too much attention to them or adopting a fake brogue.
Right, sts... I guess another exception is singing "me" for "my." like in 7 drunken nights "...that's a lovely tinwhistle that me mother sent to me..."
Interesting that most of the replies so far are from the States. I sometimes wonder if English-speaking Americans, who live in a country of relative national language uniformity, are more bothered by the fake accent thing than people in environments where code switching, dialect switching, even language switching are a part of daily life. Of course, the same issue comes up with country music and fake Southern accents. In the US, accent and dialect tend to be looked on more as inherent personal characteristics than as malleable aspects of language to be manipulated by those who are adept enough to do so. And people who can convincingly change accent or dialect tend to be seen as phony, instead of being admired for their linguistic skill.
That said, I think a fake generic -- or even worse, imagined -- Irish accent from someone who has no genuine experience of a real regional variety of Irish speech can be painful and embarrassing. But there is a sort of middle ground that resembles, say, an Irish ex-pat who has been living in another country for a long time but who retains a touch of original inflection. In some song performance situations, I find that can sound reasonably natural if done well.
The point has been made before (I'm sorry but I forget who) that if I speak French or German or some other non native language -- I'm expected to make a stab at a proper accent. What's wrong about applying the same thing to dialect?
The best answer of course is to simply play tunes and avoid the issue altogether!
What's this about Americans speaking English? We talk 'mer'can, y'all unnerstan'?
Anyhow, I never try to fake an Irish accent, though I will occasionally modify the phrasing, slightly change a vowel sound, or harden a 'th' into a 't'. I do, however, often do my best to imitate a Scottish accent on Scottish songs when it's the only way to preserve the rhymes. Some songs would need to be completely re-written in order to be halfway decent without using Scottish pronunciation.
My best friend is from Co. Antrim and has lived in the States for about 15 years. Just when I start to understand him, he decides to visit the old country... comes back and then I have to learn to decipher him all over again. I think sometimes, just hanging around him, my singing does emulate a couple of the Irish cadences... but that's not too often, then the more musical Pittsburghese re-emerges. (just joking, obviously about the "more musical Pittsburghese" thing) (in fact, I think that's the first time those three words were used in that particular order)
I was in Sligo when a man asked me where I was from.. I had just ordered a pint and a coke with ICE...(big giveaway).. I said the South... he says Cork? ........ I said no Georgia.... Is there another South? Man if you could of seen this guys expression... I felt bad...so i ordered him a coke with alot of ice.
they were fresh out of sweet tea....hmmm.
I think there used be around 3 thousand flute players in Co Roscommon alone, but they had 3 or 4 middling fiddlers which kept the dancers happy. Some of those lads had funny accents, Co Aramagh or was it Fermanagh? I always get them mixed up. Now that would have nearly always meant not showing out like you were from the North because people were afraid of the 'rah' and the violence.
Today in parts of Co Leitrim some of that is still going ( imported fiddling ).
I don't sing, but I am stuck with the job of announcing our tunes. My normal accent is bland American, and I never fake a brogue--with just one exception, which is always carefully explained: It is just not possible for me to cite the title of "When Sick Is It Tea You Want?" without slipping just slightly into Blarney-speak. I really can't help it, and I always beg forgiveness.
Brendan Gunn is the master brogue faker!-he has coached lots of top actors like Brad Pitt and Mickey Rourke in Irish brogues and is a class trad. fiddler himself,as was his father Tommy.I might add that Brendan only coaches and doesn`t actually use a fake brogue!
An album that inspired me (though not to sing) about 15 years ago was "Barking Mad" by Four Men and a Dog. On it, you can hear Mick Daly, who is from Cork, singing in a lovely American brogue. It cuts both way, this brogue thing!
I hate listening to a wanabe-musician born in Scotland, who do his best to hide it by adopting what is called a "Mockney" accent - a pseudo East-London accent, which he still has problems in speaking in, without waving his hands around like a demented Kermit.
Never mind, we are to get rid of him very soon, when he is set to be replaced by horror of horrors, someone with a proper Scottish accent, who also wants to be Prime Minister of England.
These days, the word "accent" is much more PC. Not a few of my friends find the word "brogue" to be an insult when referring to their "accent."
The word means "shoe," and was used by the English "Visitors" to say that an Irishman spoke English "with a shoe in his mouth."
Hold on now, just about every Irish, Scottish, English, Welsh person I've ever heard sing rock & roll, country, R&B, jazz, blues etc (all originally American) puts on somewhat of an American accent (and often African American accent to boot) . So what's the big deal with American putting on a bit of a lilt or brogue when singing an Irish or Scottish song?
I never thought of it until I saw this thread. I sing a couple of songs and fake a little brouge on one but not the other.
I think because I have a "less than pretty" singing voice, it just sounds a little better to sing with an accent.
I sing occasionally. When I do sing, I try to become the character singing the song-and lean toward character songs and ballads from American and Irish traditions. The songs I sing tend to be written from the point of view of soldiers, smugglers, bootleggers, villains, murderers, miners, or whatever.
I'm not pretending to be Irish. I'm pretending to be THAT GUY, and doing my best to channel him ...and sing it to sound as he might have sounded in 1849 or 1915 or whenever.
I think the key might be in pretending to be X character, and approaching the song like an actor might approach a role, rather than pretending to be a generic Irish guy singing a pub tune.
I do try to be as authentic as I can with the dialects, while still being understandable.
MairinD, if that was the case, why would the English speaking people use the Irish word for shoe to talk about the shoe that they thought was in the Irish person's mouth? Don't they have their own word for shoe?
Tadhg, there is no doubting this etymology, look it up.
As to singing, this debate is exactly why I don't sing in English, as English speaking Irish people always get tetchy when Americans (which thankfully I am not) sing in an Irish accent. Being Canadian is easier as you could have that accent natively by being from down east (NFLD, NB, NS, PEI, Ottawa Valley). Its odd this nationalistic "stop calling yourselves Irish if you were not born in Ireland" attitude is. Irish speakers are just happy that you know Irish songs at all...maybe the English-Irish should just relax a bit. By the By, some of the fakest accents I've heard are from Irish people trying to sing in Irish, but we just smile and pretend they're good...
I sing a lot. I fake the accent alot. Not conciously though. It just happens because I learn the song that way. It works better. The crowd loves it. I am also surrounded by native paddys too. It really grows on you. I see it as a compliment.
For some reason here at the session.org there is is a really distilled group of people who hate punters, and get offended by someone who compliments their accent. Imitation is the highest form of flattery afterall. Yes I agree that the "English-Irish should just relax a bit".
You should sing how you please, even native speakers sing like sh*te often enough. My cousins in Glasgow try to sing like they're from Texas, it may not be right but they're having fun. If it's yer party piece sing how you want.
My parents are from Glasgow and that's how I grew up hearing the songs, I can't help it. I sing it without thinking about it.
Brogue fakers
Brogue fakers
The opera discussion sort of dovetails my question here: What is your opinion of singers out there faking an Irish brogue? I'm of the opinion that songs can keep their charm just as easily with my Pittsburgh accent... as long as you're a native speaker of Pittsburghese. If I try to Irish up a song by saying "divil" instead of "devil" etc. I just get that South Park silent stare. How many fakers out there?
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by pastrings
Re: Brogue fakers
Michael Flatley. Born and raised in Chicago.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by mcdevincabe
Re: Brogue fakers
I don't go for fake brogues at all. Never have, never will.
That said, though, there's a dilemma when you sing a song that's very much built on dialect, to the extent that if you "Englishize it" you lose the rhyming couplets. For instance, if you're singing a Scottish song which uses "dee" for "die," and the couplet ends with something like "me," "free," etc., well, you're in a bit of a jam if you opt to sing "die."
And there are some bits of dialect that you really _can't_ correct for. Another example using a Scots song (guess Caledonia's on my mind today) is the chorus for "Welcome Royal Charlie," which goes:
Oh, you've been lang a-comin'
Lang, lang, lang a-comin'
Now, try singing that
Oh, you've been LONG a-comin'
LONG, LONG, LONG a-comin'
Just doesn't work.
The best solution I've found is to sing with a "Mid-Atlantic" accent. If there are certain words or phrases of an Irish or Scottish song that you can't really transpose into American, the idea is to sing them "as they are" without calling too much attention to them or adopting a fake brogue.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by sts
Re: Brogue fakers
short answer is "yik" I have a friend who does this I usually ask him why does he torture his singing voice and the song.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by Joze
Re: Brogue fakers
Right, sts... I guess another exception is singing "me" for "my." like in 7 drunken nights "...that's a lovely tinwhistle that me mother sent to me..."
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by pastrings
Re: Brogue fakers
Interesting that most of the replies so far are from the States. I sometimes wonder if English-speaking Americans, who live in a country of relative national language uniformity, are more bothered by the fake accent thing than people in environments where code switching, dialect switching, even language switching are a part of daily life. Of course, the same issue comes up with country music and fake Southern accents. In the US, accent and dialect tend to be looked on more as inherent personal characteristics than as malleable aspects of language to be manipulated by those who are adept enough to do so. And people who can convincingly change accent or dialect tend to be seen as phony, instead of being admired for their linguistic skill.
That said, I think a fake generic -- or even worse, imagined -- Irish accent from someone who has no genuine experience of a real regional variety of Irish speech can be painful and embarrassing. But there is a sort of middle ground that resembles, say, an Irish ex-pat who has been living in another country for a long time but who retains a touch of original inflection. In some song performance situations, I find that can sound reasonably natural if done well.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by MTGuru
Re: Brogue fakers
The point has been made before (I'm sorry but I forget who) that if I speak French or German or some other non native language -- I'm expected to make a stab at a proper accent. What's wrong about applying the same thing to dialect?
The best answer of course is to simply play tunes and avoid the issue altogether!
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by fidkid
Re: Brogue fakers
What's this about Americans speaking English? We talk 'mer'can, y'all unnerstan'?
Anyhow, I never try to fake an Irish accent, though I will occasionally modify the phrasing, slightly change a vowel sound, or harden a 'th' into a 't'. I do, however, often do my best to imitate a Scottish accent on Scottish songs when it's the only way to preserve the rhymes. Some songs would need to be completely re-written in order to be halfway decent without using Scottish pronunciation.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by GaryAMartin
Re: Brogue fakers
My best friend is from Co. Antrim and has lived in the States for about 15 years. Just when I start to understand him, he decides to visit the old country... comes back and then I have to learn to decipher him all over again. I think sometimes, just hanging around him, my singing does emulate a couple of the Irish cadences... but that's not too often, then the more musical Pittsburghese re-emerges. (just joking, obviously about the "more musical Pittsburghese" thing) (in fact, I think that's the first time those three words were used in that particular order)
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by pastrings
Re: Brogue fakers
I was in Sligo when a man asked me where I was from.. I had just ordered a pint and a coke with ICE...(big giveaway).. I said the South... he says Cork? ........ I said no Georgia.... Is there another South? Man if you could of seen this guys expression... I felt bad...so i ordered him a coke with alot of ice.
they were fresh out of sweet tea....hmmm.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by lamh trom
Re: Brogue fakers
I'd say there is a fine line between trying to get proper inflection and slipping into the "Music Hall Irish Brogue" which can be offensive.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by Murph
Re: Brogue fakers
I think there used be around 3 thousand flute players in Co Roscommon alone, but they had 3 or 4 middling fiddlers which kept the dancers happy. Some of those lads had funny accents, Co Aramagh or was it Fermanagh? I always get them mixed up. Now that would have nearly always meant not showing out like you were from the North because people were afraid of the 'rah' and the violence.
Today in parts of Co Leitrim some of that is still going ( imported fiddling ).
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by Schlongbow
Re: Brogue fakers
I don't sing, but I am stuck with the job of announcing our tunes. My normal accent is bland American, and I never fake a brogue--with just one exception, which is always carefully explained: It is just not possible for me to cite the title of "When Sick Is It Tea You Want?" without slipping just slightly into Blarney-speak. I really can't help it, and I always beg forgiveness.
Not a mortal sin, I hope.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by mickray
Re: Brogue fakers
Dick Gaughan advised English singers of Scottish songs to sing the dialect words, but not to try to put on a Scottish accent.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by nicholas
Re: Brogue fakers
Brendan Gunn is the master brogue faker!-he has coached lots of top actors like Brad Pitt and Mickey Rourke in Irish brogues and is a class trad. fiddler himself,as was his father Tommy.I might add that Brendan only coaches and doesn`t actually use a fake brogue!
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by cos
Re: Brogue fakers
An album that inspired me (though not to sing) about 15 years ago was "Barking Mad" by Four Men and a Dog. On it, you can hear Mick Daly, who is from Cork, singing in a lovely American brogue. It cuts both way, this brogue thing!
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by de Selby
Re: Brogue fakers
I hate listening to a wanabe-musician born in Scotland, who do his best to hide it by adopting what is called a "Mockney" accent - a pseudo East-London accent, which he still has problems in speaking in, without waving his hands around like a demented Kermit.
Never mind, we are to get rid of him very soon, when he is set to be replaced by horror of horrors, someone with a proper Scottish accent, who also wants to be Prime Minister of England.
I despair.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by geoffwright
Re: Brogue fakers
These days, the word "accent" is much more PC. Not a few of my friends find the word "brogue" to be an insult when referring to their "accent."
The word means "shoe," and was used by the English "Visitors" to say that an Irishman spoke English "with a shoe in his mouth."
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by Ceolagusrince
Re: Brogue fakers
Hey geoffwright, please keep them BOTH down there - we don't want them back
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by Ron P
Re: Brogue fakers
Hold on now, just about every Irish, Scottish, English, Welsh person I've ever heard sing rock & roll, country, R&B, jazz, blues etc (all originally American) puts on somewhat of an American accent (and often African American accent to boot) . So what's the big deal with American putting on a bit of a lilt or brogue when singing an Irish or Scottish song?
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by Barnesy
Re: Brogue fakers
I never thought of it until I saw this thread. I sing a couple of songs and fake a little brouge on one but not the other.
I think because I have a "less than pretty" singing voice, it just sounds a little better to sing with an accent.
# Posted on April 7th 2007 by CleverName
Re: Brogue fakers
A delicate subject, but not a new one:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/12152/comments#comment247919
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/7924/comments#comment169792
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/7058/comments#comment150465
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/5919/comments#comment126373
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/12152/comments#comment252997
# Posted on April 8th 2007 by oldstrings
Re: Brogue fakers
I sing occasionally. When I do sing, I try to become the character singing the song-and lean toward character songs and ballads from American and Irish traditions. The songs I sing tend to be written from the point of view of soldiers, smugglers, bootleggers, villains, murderers, miners, or whatever.
I'm not pretending to be Irish. I'm pretending to be THAT GUY, and doing my best to channel him ...and sing it to sound as he might have sounded in 1849 or 1915 or whenever.
I think the key might be in pretending to be X character, and approaching the song like an actor might approach a role, rather than pretending to be a generic Irish guy singing a pub tune.
I do try to be as authentic as I can with the dialects, while still being understandable.
# Posted on April 8th 2007 by jwvansteenwyk
Re: Brogue fakers
MairinD, if that was the case, why would the English speaking people use the Irish word for shoe to talk about the shoe that they thought was in the Irish person's mouth? Don't they have their own word for shoe?
# Posted on April 8th 2007 by Tadhg mac Saoirse
Re: Brogue fakers
Thankfully, I don't sing
# Posted on April 8th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: Brogue fakers
Good point, jwvansteenwyk.
# Posted on April 9th 2007 by oldstrings
Re: Brogue fakers
Tadhg, there is no doubting this etymology, look it up.
As to singing, this debate is exactly why I don't sing in English, as English speaking Irish people always get tetchy when Americans (which thankfully I am not) sing in an Irish accent. Being Canadian is easier as you could have that accent natively by being from down east (NFLD, NB, NS, PEI, Ottawa Valley). Its odd this nationalistic "stop calling yourselves Irish if you were not born in Ireland" attitude is. Irish speakers are just happy that you know Irish songs at all...maybe the English-Irish should just relax a bit. By the By, some of the fakest accents I've heard are from Irish people trying to sing in Irish, but we just smile and pretend they're good...
# Posted on April 9th 2007 by dubhghaill
Re: Brogue fakers
I sing a lot. I fake the accent alot. Not conciously though. It just happens because I learn the song that way. It works better. The crowd loves it. I am also surrounded by native paddys too. It really grows on you. I see it as a compliment.
For some reason here at the session.org there is is a really distilled group of people who hate punters, and get offended by someone who compliments their accent. Imitation is the highest form of flattery afterall. Yes I agree that the "English-Irish should just relax a bit".
# Posted on April 9th 2007 by saltcast
Re: Brogue fakers
There is indeed doubting it, I just did.
Where exactly should I look it up? That one place?
# Posted on April 10th 2007 by Tadhg mac Saoirse
Re: Brogue fakers
You should sing how you please, even native speakers sing like sh*te often enough. My cousins in Glasgow try to sing like they're from Texas, it may not be right but they're having fun. If it's yer party piece sing how you want.
My parents are from Glasgow and that's how I grew up hearing the songs, I can't help it. I sing it without thinking about it.
# Posted on April 10th 2007 by kruther4d
Re: Brogue fakers
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=brogue&searchmode=none
Nil point, Tadhg
# Posted on May 20th 2007 by dubhghaill