Can you sing with a British accent?

Question

No really, can you? Have you heard Hugh Grant sing? No accent.

Answer 1

What are some of you talking about... people DEFINITELY have accents when they sing, even British singers. (From this point forward I'm going to be talking mostly about "proper" singing, not pop singing) British accents are characterized by a couple of things, but I primarily recognize them by the way they handle the letter "R". When it is at the beginning of a sentence, a lot of british singers will trill the R... and at the end of a word, it is frequently dropped altogether, just like when British people speak.

Americans have accents when they sing too... a lot of choirs in the midwest (where I am from, and have sung with/accompanied choirs at many levels) tend to have a very harsh "R" sound, both at the beginning and end of sentences. In fact, american accents are awful for singing and a lot of singers tend to lean towards british pronunciation of words because it takes the consonants out of the way of the vowels.

By the way... even the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), mentioned above, has different symbols to represent American and British ways of spelling words with R at the end... :)

Answer 2

I have heard people sing "My Fair Lady" with British accents (both Proper and Cockney - sorry for bad spelling...)
But I think the reason that most professional singers do not show an "accent" of sorts is that many people learn how to sing in languages by using the International Phonetic Alphabet. Therefore anything in English (be it British or American) would be pronounced - and therefore sung the same.
You can check it out at the web site below:)

Answer 3

Do you mean, can I do it? I would think so, since many of my inflections are British (I'm Australian but I live in Britain).

Or do you mean, is it possible? It's definitely possible. Hugh Grant was probably neutralising his accent for the international market - although it's not actually possible to have 'no accent'.

Have you seen the musical My Fair Lady with Audrey Hepburn? She starts off with a very Cockney (east end of London) accent and sings songs such as 'Just you wait, Henry Higgins'.

Answer 4

I think for the most part accents disappear when you sing because of the way people are trained to sing. Many people I know and have heard are trained the same way; to sing the same vowels. So when you sing similar vowels, it comes out sounding the same. Songs that you hear that sound very british are probably that way intentionally. To use the My Fair Lady example used above, the girl who played Eliza when I was in it had to work to make the vowels that sounded cockney.

My point is, yes it is possible if you work at it. If you don't and sing the way people are usually classically trained, everything comes out sounding the same.

Answer 5

You have hit on one of the oddities of music. No or virtually no singers ever sing with a British accent, not even the Beatles, the Stones, Boy George, Sting, Elton John, no one. The closest anyone came was Gerry and the Pacemakers. "Ferry, cross the Mercy" has a distinct British accent. But beyond that, it just doesn't happen.

Answer 6

I can sing with a British accent, but only in private. Usually in the bath tub! I also speak with a British accent, maybe that's because I'm a Brit! :D

Answer 7

It doesn't matter what kind of accent you have, when you sing there is no accent. It's like magic! Unless of course you have a really really strong accent. I'm talking about songs that are moderately fast and have a lot of background music.

Answer 8

I always thought that Morrissey, the lead singer with The Smiths, had an English accent when he sang. You could hear the Mancunian accent come through sometimes. Also, Damon Albarn (Blur) had a Cockney accent when he sang. I'm sure there's more.

Answer 9

Choirs use this technique because the diction is cleaner and clearer to the audience. In every choir I have been in, we have been taught to sing where people can understand the English and in some instances, it does resemble the accent of the British Isles.

Answer 10

i think of you truly mean English. Lily Allen sings in an 'East end' accessory, which, in my view, i'm unable to stand. we've some large Scottish singers, which includes Maggie Bell, and Dan McCafferty. Robert Palmer constantly sounded English, as did Freddie Mercury. And to throw a curve-ball at you: American singer Candice night now and lower back sounds English in her songs...