Gidday and stuff!
I have a Kiwi accent, like my mother before me, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. So my accent comes from Turakina via Kai Iwi and Taihape. It's kind of RKP (Received Kiwi Pronunciation) I suppose you could say.
So, when I sing my own songs, that I wrote myself, I use my own voice. You can hear it on albums such as Atlantean Night Tourists.
Every so often, a reviewer will point out the Kiwi accent as if it's a kind of affectation. Like I'm doing it as an act of self-sabotage, almost, and people should know they're supposed to sing like an American or something.
Perhaps it's coming from a punk/DIY background that gives me the impetus to sound like myself. To represent where I come from. I have played in covers bands for a long time too, and when I play other people's songs I do put some effort into trying to sound more like the way they sang them.
I sang along to other people's songs for many years when I was a kid, well before I was in a band, so I did pick up some of the "80's rock pronunciation", and I do remember examining my pronunciation when I started playing my own songs.
A good example to compare is the word "I". Particularly if the singer holds onto the word for a while, then you can really get a feel for it.
Here's the very first song I ever recorded as the Bing Turkby Ensemble - Crumbly (on a 4-track cassette deck, in the garage-cum-bedroom at the back of my parents' house, 1996):
https://turkby.bandcamp.com/track/crumbly
Was I influenced by Jonathan Richman's completely down-home pronunciation in "I'm Straight"? Very probably.
He had me at the first "I". I love how he sounds like nobody else but himself.
Another example, this time in the chorus: "EMI" by the Sex Pistols. Even under all the sneering, you can tell that John Lydon is British.
And now the best example of an "80's rock" style of "I" that I can think of right now: 'I Wanna Rock' by Twisted Sister.
It's funny, I don't sound like that when I sing, but now I've dug up this video to check it out, it seems I took almost everything else about my performance style from these guys...
Thing is, these acts sounded very exotic to me when I was growing up in a small town in a small country on the other side of the world from where this was all happening. So my theory is that my Kiwi singing voice might sound similarly exotic to a listener from Taos, New Mexico, or Munich, or Singapore.
Every so often I'll use a different accent in a song just for effect, the same way you might have a trombone solo to make a change from a guitar solo.
Anyway, I firmly believe that you should sing however you want to. Singing (at home, or in the car, or at a pub) is so much fun - don't be scared to do it!
I'd still be interested to know - do you sing in a different accent than the one you use for everyday conversation? If so, did it just happen, or was it a conscious choice?
Happy singing!
Love from Bing.
P.S. Recording update: prep is ongoing for the next Heavy Blarney album. Some songs are very close to being finished, some are still very much in a developmental state. Expected release date is currently March 2018, but with luck, it'll be earlier than that.
P.P.S. Book update: there are still a few copies of The Musomancer book left in the TurkbyTone warehouse. You can also buy e-book or p-book versions from Amazon. The sequel is still stubbornly refusing to write itself. But since I have just started an extramural paper through Massey University, I'll probably start writing the book instead of doing my coursework. Cos I'm like that.
I have a Kiwi accent, like my mother before me, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. So my accent comes from Turakina via Kai Iwi and Taihape. It's kind of RKP (Received Kiwi Pronunciation) I suppose you could say.
So, when I sing my own songs, that I wrote myself, I use my own voice. You can hear it on albums such as Atlantean Night Tourists.
Every so often, a reviewer will point out the Kiwi accent as if it's a kind of affectation. Like I'm doing it as an act of self-sabotage, almost, and people should know they're supposed to sing like an American or something.
Perhaps it's coming from a punk/DIY background that gives me the impetus to sound like myself. To represent where I come from. I have played in covers bands for a long time too, and when I play other people's songs I do put some effort into trying to sound more like the way they sang them.
I sang along to other people's songs for many years when I was a kid, well before I was in a band, so I did pick up some of the "80's rock pronunciation", and I do remember examining my pronunciation when I started playing my own songs.
A good example to compare is the word "I". Particularly if the singer holds onto the word for a while, then you can really get a feel for it.
Here's the very first song I ever recorded as the Bing Turkby Ensemble - Crumbly (on a 4-track cassette deck, in the garage-cum-bedroom at the back of my parents' house, 1996):
https://turkby.bandcamp.com/track/crumbly
Was I influenced by Jonathan Richman's completely down-home pronunciation in "I'm Straight"? Very probably.
He had me at the first "I". I love how he sounds like nobody else but himself.
Another example, this time in the chorus: "EMI" by the Sex Pistols. Even under all the sneering, you can tell that John Lydon is British.
And now the best example of an "80's rock" style of "I" that I can think of right now: 'I Wanna Rock' by Twisted Sister.
Thing is, these acts sounded very exotic to me when I was growing up in a small town in a small country on the other side of the world from where this was all happening. So my theory is that my Kiwi singing voice might sound similarly exotic to a listener from Taos, New Mexico, or Munich, or Singapore.
Every so often I'll use a different accent in a song just for effect, the same way you might have a trombone solo to make a change from a guitar solo.
Anyway, I firmly believe that you should sing however you want to. Singing (at home, or in the car, or at a pub) is so much fun - don't be scared to do it!
I'd still be interested to know - do you sing in a different accent than the one you use for everyday conversation? If so, did it just happen, or was it a conscious choice?
Happy singing!
Love from Bing.
P.S. Recording update: prep is ongoing for the next Heavy Blarney album. Some songs are very close to being finished, some are still very much in a developmental state. Expected release date is currently March 2018, but with luck, it'll be earlier than that.
P.P.S. Book update: there are still a few copies of The Musomancer book left in the TurkbyTone warehouse. You can also buy e-book or p-book versions from Amazon. The sequel is still stubbornly refusing to write itself. But since I have just started an extramural paper through Massey University, I'll probably start writing the book instead of doing my coursework. Cos I'm like that.
