doing justice

I keep a loose eye on a listserv called IRTRAD-L. It devolves into scrappiness every so often like too many listservs. I ignore those bits as best I can and keep my eyes open for (very subjective) interesting discussions and news of new good music/musicians I should find. I have probably made 3 posts in the many years I've been subscribed. This morning I posted #4 to the list in response to a question about songs and singing in languages other than your own. Given what I've been up to for the last 7 years I could hardly keep quiet...

Original question to the list:

All,
Can a singers do justice to a song in a language that they are not fully fluent in (Irish) - and can a listener who does not understand that language (Irish) appreciate that song as anything other than a 'nice sound' - presuming, of course, that it has been sung skillfully enough?
Best,
Jim

My reply:

Good heavens I hope so. Anecdotal evidence in favor:

I grew up in the States and started learning Irish a decade ago. Fully fluent is pushing it but I have good conversational ability. I sing with a small group (just 3 of us). We do songs in Irish, Scottish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish and Breton. For years we've sung Griogal Cridh' - mostly to American audiences who have no knowledge of Scottish. We sang a set including that song at a small intimate dinner a few years back where we weren't introducing the songs at all. Later in the evening a woman came to talk to us asking to tell her about "that song." With a bit of singing partial lines we realized she meant Griogal. She had no Scottish (or Irish, etc) and had never heard it before but understood easily that it was a strong lament, and it had reduced her to tears.

I like to think we do justice to that song and many others, and I know that, while it's a different experience than listening to a song in your own language, people can have a deeper experience than thinking they've heard a "nice sound."

Music is it's own language and any song sung is really in two languages - the language of the music and that of the words. None of us would argue that instrumental pieces can draw out emotion, but I think there is an extra element when lyrics are sung. The human voice can convey quite a lot, even if it isn't a Babel fish.

Respectfully,

Elizabeth

I'm fearful of the responses devolving into a tradition/purist snipe-fest, but if they don't it could come to be an interesting set of posts to have around - hopefully good for all of us who didn't grow up in the Gaeltacht.