Cheating?

Well, you can’t be as bad as me. I once tried singing my son to sleep when he was two, only to be asked to stop, because “you’re making me feel sick”.

I stuck to telling him stories after that.

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That sounds like a genuine badge of pride… :slight_smile:

Our offspring have been under most dire threat since their tinyhood on no occasion to make any descriptive comments about my singing.

Fortunately, they both seem to have their mother’s ear for music, rather than mine.

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Oh, and to get back on topic, @annemarcellarayment - I agree with everyone else - starting before the question ends is not cheating, it’s initiative. In fact, sometimes with the longer sentences, it’s essential!

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That’s because I didn’t hear @aran sing either. But, well … Postojna cave didn’t collaps when he and his choir sang there so he can’t be such a bad singer after all. When I listen to his voice I can prety much imagine how it shoud sound when singing though. :slight_smile:

Did your “neighbour” in the choir never nudged you and said: “Louder, louder!” :slight_smile:

It happened oposite way to me. I read fairy-tales to my son and until we came to some more “bad” scene in it he enjoyed it but as soon as I started to read that part he told me to stop. “Stop! I’m afraid. It sounds all so real.” he said. So I’ve read only nice stories from then on or my husband has read them instead. :slight_smile:

Yes. … we should get back on track eventually, shouldn’t we … unless @annemarcellarayment is amused with our “singing” stories. :slight_smile:

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Oh @tatjana fach! I must have been a strange child! When my mam read a sad story, I listened intently and it became my favourite. When my gran (her mother) read it, i screamed and grabbed the book and cried that she ruined it because she didn’t cry or even sound sad! i still remember the gist of that story and the sad picture of a dog made to sit tidy on a cushion instead of running free and having fun_

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Best way to be! Surrounded by natural Welsh and listening to some beautiful voices, I don’t want to ruin that!!

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Wait! Didn’t I hear one of such beautiful voice once upon a time in Cymru? :slight_smile: (Don’t be too modest @AnthonyCusack.)

Iestyn’s? :wink:

And yours. :slight_smile:

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Reminds me of a story that Bill Bailey tells. He was in the car with his young son (age 3 or so), and James Blunt came on the radio. The child said “Daddy, please turn it off. It’s spoiling my brain.”

Not quite back on topic, but at least on the topic of Welsh singing (as opposed to singing in general):

I’m Australian. There’s a TV series that was shown here recently, called Pulse, about an organ transplant unit in a Sydney hospital. It had a mostly Australian cast, but it also included Welsh actor Owen Teale in a major role.

I won’t give away any spoilers, just in case it ends up being shown on UK TV (in fact I suspect they cast Teale for that reason), but the final episode was extremely moving, not least because Teale sang Calon Lân.

He sang it softly, unaccompanied - he was lying on a hospital trolley, about to undergo surgery - but it was beautiful. At first I was just delighted that I understood a few words of it, but even though I didn’t understand all of it at the time (I had to Google the lyrics later), Teale’s rendition eventually had me in tears.

Since then I’ve been playing every version of Calon Lân I can find on YouTube. I particularly like the Only Boys Aloud version in Britain’s Got Talent in 2012. What a group. What a song.

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A song which can inspire as well… at least, when we sang it at what was then Cardiff Arms Park and -> The National Stadium -> Millennium Stadium -> Principality (:imp:) Stadium, I don’t thank we cried! (Sorry, but I don’t see advertising a Building Society as right for our National Rugby Stadium!)

Calon Lân is possibly more chest-thumping than tear-inducing when sung in rousing fashion at a rugby match. :smile:

But in this program I watched, Teale’s character was facing his own mortality, and harking back to his childhood in Wales, and… look, I really can’t give any more away without spoiling it. It was very moving.

They didn’t make a big deal throughout the series about his being Welsh - if I remember correctly, he said something like “iechyd da” in an earlier episode, but that’s all - so this final episode really packed a punch. If this series makes it to TV in the UK, I can recommend it. We don’t get much Cymraeg sung or spoken on Australian TV, so this episode was pretty special for me.

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I will try to remember to keep an eye open for it! :eye:

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