Footnotes: Pop music in the US style
Natalie Robehmed
Last Updated: August 07. 2010 4:42PM UAE / August 7. 2010 12:42PM GMT
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcsi.dll/bildeSite=AD&Date=20100808&Category=LIF...The Rolling Stones are one of the groups accused of singing in an American accent. Bru Garcia / AFP Photo
For years, musicians around the world have been mocked for affecting an American accent. Artists from the British Rolling Stones to the Canadian Shania Twain have been suspected of adopting an American twang to curry favour in the US. Yet according to a new study, singing in an American accent is the most natural way to carry a tune.
The researcher Andy Gibson says it’s all down to the difference between speaking and singing and the way in which Americans round off words. Mr Gibson, of the Auckland University of Technology, studied the voices of New Zealand singers and found that even if participants spoke with strong Kiwi accents, they would sing the same words with an American twang.
Gibson said: “There were huge differences between the sung and the spoken pronunciation of the same words.
Consider the difference between “I” (spoken) and “ah” (sung), “girl”, pronounced without the “r” in speech and with the “r” in singing, and “thought” with rounded lips in speech versus “thart” with unrounded lips in singing”.
Gibson stated that his research suggested an American-influenced accent is the default when singing pop songs, and added that: “The American accent doesn’t stick out in singing because we are so used to hearing it”. He suggests that the American singing voice should be called the “pop music accent” instead.
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100808/LIFE/708079980/117...
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Singing accents...real or fake ? (Read 739 times)
