Talk:The Watersons
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Re: "Their distinctive sound comes from their closely-woven harmonies." Is this really true? My impression is that most of the time they weren't singing true harmony at all; they sang in unison with occasional harmony notes. I'll leave it as is hoping that someone who knows more about it than I can look at it for possible revision.Chris k 03:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia provides definitions of "close harmony" and "counterpoint" which may be useful. As I understand it, close harmony is where two or more singers sing the same melody but at a different pitch, typically two tones apart, so that for every note they sing, what the listener hears is not a single note but a chord. Counterpoint is where two melodies are sung simultaneously but to the same rhythm. Most of the Watersons' songs that I've heard are close harmony, with perhaps occasional counterpoint. If two voices are singing in unison (singing exactly the same notes) the effect is quite different. An example is Rhonda Vincent and Dolly Parton dueting on the bluegrass number "Heartbreaker's Alibi", although I can't think of any examples from my limited experience of English folk music.89.242.77.161 17:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
I think Maddy Prior and June Tabor often sang in unison. Cartwright27 (talk) 13:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I have problems with this term also. But I think the Watersons way of doing harmonies is unique in my experience in that it doesn't necessarily distinguish between harmony and melody in the normal way. What I mean is that sometimes during a particular song a singer is singing the melody and sometimes that same singer is singing the harmony and often this will change from one performance to another. Obviously there are lots of occasions where a more disciplined approach is necessary but this seems to be more of an intuitive thing rather than anything that is 'structured' to any particular degree. There's a bit in the "travelling for a living" documentary where they are rehearsing a song and practicing harmonies etc. Norma has since said that this was a complete fabrication for the purposes of the film and that in reality they never practiced harmonies - just got up there and sang. Kevin Boyd (talk) 21:28, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
