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Tag Archives: Gladys Knight and the Pips

1960s, America, R&B, Sing Better English, Soul

I Heard it Through the Grapevine

April 16, 2017 SingBetterEnglish Leave a comment

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Barrett StrongdiphthongGladys Knight and the PipsHow to write a songI Heard it Through the GrapevineMarvin Gayesing in Englishvideo
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  • Rosalía and Refree: Catalina
  • Black is the Colour of my True Love's Hair
  • Scott Walker: Jackie and Inspired Translation
  • I Heard it Through the Grapevine
  • The Unthanks and the Magpie song
  • Jacques Brel: the easy and the important
  • Can you sing Amy Winehouse if you've never lived in London?

Lucky Dip

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

     

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    From Lorca to Leonard Cohen and back again

    August 18, 2020 SingBetterEnglish Leave a comment
  2. 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

    A squillo

    May 13, 2020 SingBetterEnglish Leave a comment
  3. 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:

    Continue reading →

    What the Stranglers did to their Diphthongs

    May 4, 2020 SingBetterEnglish 2 Comments
  4. 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:

    Continue reading →

    Lighting every step on the Stairway to Heaven

    May 4, 2020 SingBetterEnglish 2 Comments
  5. Because singing is communicating and connecting. And because all the arts inform each other:

    Continue reading →

    Bunraku

    February 22, 2019 SingBetterEnglish 2 Comments
  6. Music: Poppy Ackroyd

    Director: Ainslie Henderson

    Producers: Puppet Animation Scotland

    Making music

    June 16, 2018 SingBetterEnglish 23 Comments
  7. 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

    Continue reading →

    Akala: Carried Away

    May 16, 2018 SingBetterEnglish 4 Comments
  8. “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.

    Continue reading →

    Lady Leshurr

    February 13, 2017 SingBetterEnglish 7 Comments
  9. 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:

    Continue reading →

    Jazz, respect and memory

    December 14, 2016 SingBetterEnglish 3 Comments
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External links

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  • BBC Learning English Schwa Exercises
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  • NPR All Songs Considered
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  • The Listeners
  • The Lost Women of British Jazz – BBC Radio 4
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Recent Posts

  • Jacques Brel: the easy and the important
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  • From Lorca to Leonard Cohen and back again
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  • Sangre de Muerdago: A Chamada da Néboa
  • A squillo
  • What the Stranglers did to their Diphthongs
  • Lighting every step on the Stairway to Heaven
  • Where’s the ‘y’ in R.E.S.P.E.C.T.?

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