Sangre de Muerdago: A Chamada da Néboa

Republished because love and cooperation is what we all need right now:

When you want to see international cooperation in action, look to music. Asia Kindred Moore (American harpist), Georg Börner from Germany, playing a Swedish Nyckelharpa, Erich Heimansberg (German flute player) and Pablo Ursusson, Galician songwriter and singer, sing in Galego, the language of Pablo’s home. Together they make up Sangre de Muerdago. And when the American and the Germans need to harmonise with Pablo in Galego, they do, just fine. This song is called A Chamada da Néboa/The Call of the Mist:

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Bunraku

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

Rocket Man – William Shatner

You can’t un-remember the shape of lines in famous songs. Try to say “I did it my way” without drifting into Frank Sinatra mode. When you find yourself pausing for a moment after “it“, you’re answering to Frank, not English punctuation. There is no comma. Your memory of the ‘right’ way, Frank’s way, shapes your mouth and your breath.

William Shatner tries, valiantly, to reshape the words of Rocket Man;  to give them a conversational feel. But the memory of Elton John’s original tugs William towards it, especially once the music starts up around him. Memory shapes mind. Mind shapes the mouth:

This is a Voice @ The Wellcome Collection

If you are in London before the end of July, it’s worth catching the Wellcome Collection‘s exhibition This is a Voice:

Cover Versions: To Be Or Not To Be?

© Sing Better English, 2016

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: