Where’s the ‘y’ in R.E.S.P.E.C.T.?

Aretha Franklin’s R.E.S.P.E.C.T. is a popular choice for singing contests, but a lot of singers stumble over the ‘spelling’ part of the song. It feels too crowded, so they drop a letter, usually the C.

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Windshield wipers, splishin’, splashin’

If I told you that 16th century English aristocrats created their own posher version of a French girl’s name, what kind of invention would you expect? Frideswide? Lettice? Josian?  Wrong.

It’s a name that gives nothing away. At first glance, it’s plain. So plain that it’s become a byword for anonymity in the US. But it’s a name that camouflages a wealth of possibilities for songwriters – it’s easy to rhyme, its diphthong expands, it’s easy to sing.

Any guesses?  Here’s a cryptic Italian clue:

Diana Ross and the missing B

When you sing, you have a choice. The choice to bury a consonant and the choice to bring it out into the light when it suits you.

Listen, with your eyes closed, to the Supremes singing My World is Empty Without You. What’s missing from Diana Ross‘ life? A lover called Bay? eBay? A Turkish Bey? What word can you hear?

If you know the song, you know the answer. If English is your native language, you’ve guessed the answer. So ask yourself a different question: when does Diana choose to sing the word clearly, right through to the last consonant? Why then and nowhere else?

Pharrell Williams & the 3 riddles of Happy

None of the words in Pharrell Williams’ songs are long or difficult, but there are often a lot of them. If you’re going to sing a cover of Happy, you need to give each word time and space.

Happy needs to feel relaxed and expansive. If you’re racing, blurring and stressing your way through the verse or the bridge, the song’s effortless mood will slide away from you. If English isn’t your first language: please don’t just sing the word happy loudly, every so often. Every word is important to the song.

Pharrell builds and boosts the light, upbeat feel of Happy by choosing and placing each word with precision. How does he fix them into place? We’ll look at his technique for framing the airy vowels, then at the first verse and the bridge. Watch the live video and ask yourself these 3 questions:

• Pharrell adds a sound to the end of most lines. What and why?
• Where does Pharrell take a breath in the line I’m a hot air balloon that could go to space? And where does he put the stress – hot, air or balloon?
• What do you hear when he sings Bring me down, can’t nothing? What does the th of nothing sound like? How about the ng?       

Bend, Stretch and Chop with Frankie Valli. Or lose your job.

Imagine this: Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons are on tour in your country. One of the singers falls off stage at the soundcheck and breaks their leg. You’re the last-minute replacement. This could be your big break.

Frankie makes a last minute change to the set list. He adds The Night. You don’t know the song, but you smile at Frankie anyway. “My favourite song,” you say. You feel sick.

A roadie hands you a dog-eared copy of the score, with all the latest additions to the song. Frankie smiles. You gulp. Read the lyrics now. The first thing you notice? An awful lot of words.

If English isn’t your first language, it can be difficult, when you sing, to know where to bend words or break lines without damaging their integrity. You’ll need to squeeze, stretch and chop in all the right places if you want the words to fit the music in The Night. You’ll lose the job if you don’t get it right.

Smile. Borrow Frankie’s diamond-studded pencil. Get to work. Find a private corner. Listen to The Night. Mark your lyrics to show where the strongest stress falls in each line. That’ll be your scaffolding :

From Lorca to Leonard Cohen and back again

It’s a marvellous thing to write music that suits the original flamenco Spanish of the Lorca  poem as much as your English translation:

 

A squillo

It’s a lovely thing to see image and movement in the service of knowledge.  Ming Luke provides the words, Franz Palomares brings them to life and Ted-Ed provides the screen:

© Sing Better English 2020

What the Stranglers did to their Diphthongs

R.I.P. Dave Greenfield. Keyboardist, songwriter and singer.

When you listen to the Stranglers’ song Golden Brown, pay close attention to the way Hugh Conwell sings the word brown:

Lighting every step on the Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven is a classic choice for song contests.  If English is your native language, don’t take the words of this song for granted. If English isn’t your native language, don’t take the words of this song for granted. The words matter.

They matter, but they’re not a liturgy.  Dave Grohl captures the heart of the song without reciting every word in order. Or at all:

Bunraku

Because singing is communicating and connecting. And because all the arts inform each other:

Making music

Music: Poppy Ackroyd

Director: Ainslie Henderson

Producers: Puppet Animation Scotland

Akala: Carried Away

The mouth is almost like a percussive instrument. If you use it in the right way, your flow can have melody coming from the vowel sounds, but then percussion coming from the consonant sounds. And your flow of how you divide up these consonants and vowels determines how nice an instrument your rapping can become.

Akala

Lady Leshurr

“I started thinking, ‘You know what? Why don’t I just rap?’ Because it’s just poetry with a beat behind it, really.”

Lady Leshurr in The Guardian.

Jazz, respect and memory

What’s a Polish song doing on a blog about singing in English? Blaszane Mordy is here to show that connecting with a song is a conscious skill, and an ability, that transcends language. You don’t need to understand Polish to ‘understand’ Lautari‘s Blaszane Mordy. Emotion pulses within the shape of the words alone: