Martina.Rosenberger
Mon, 07 Apr 2008 05:11:28 -0700
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> schrieb: > > In einer eMail vom 07.04.2008 08:41:13 Westeuropaische Normalzeit schreibt > [EMAIL PROTECTED]: > > With song texts it is helpful to speak the text aloud as well as singing it. > Spoken lyrics are stored in another brain section as sung lyrics. (That's > why we get confused first and can't remember them without the music) But the > imprint of the thing is deepened by connecting those two areas. > > > > Martina, > > Interesting point! Though I'm a singer, I hadn't realised that! > > I always thought that the memorisation of music and lyrics worked the same > way: just keep doing it - i.e. reproducing the notes and the words until you > "get inside them", and know how they work, and why this note must follow that > note and this line must follow that line, and then just let them out of you, > as if you were telling the audience about something you had experienced. This > method worked when I had to learn long speeches from Shakespeare plays at > school, and it worked later when I had to memorise arias from Handel > oratorios. > Find out what the poet/composer was trying to "say", and say it for him. An > important aspect is anticipation: you have to know how the piece ends if you > want to do the beginning and the middle right. > I want to add here - also used to learning long monologues for school theatre - that I did it then mostly "in movement". I went walking with the textbook, contemplated the structure the way you described and then filled it with the words demanded. Reciting while walking, reciting while swimming. I did not KNOW at that time, that this is learning method, that involves the "non-logical" brain half much more than sitting there with the book. I just could not concentrate for more than two minutes, just sitting there with the book. I naturally found a method, that fitted my demands before I found out years later, that this kind of thing is one of several indications of an undetected left-handed mind. It fits a certain learning type. So the walking part works for lyrics and humming the tune, visualizing lines. Practising the instrument has to be added "seated" or "standing", depending on the complexity of the music. > I had an interesting experience on St. Patrick's Day, when I performed with > my German-Irish folk group. We do the complex ballad "The Foggy Dew". We've > been doing it for years now, and memorisation is complete. But for some > reason, > I started (off stage) just reciting the words. Long, 7-stressed (iambic > heptameters), rhymed lines with occasional internal rhymes. Our bass-player > and > chief arranger just grunted and said, "It sounds better recited than sung!" > And I'd never recited it before - only sung it! I suppose that is the sign of > a really good lyric - it can stand on its own without the music. > As a song-writer with the emphasis on lyrics I can only underline that. For me music is a wonderful gift to give the lyrics an emotional vehicle. The language itself has implicit music, the poem sets the rhythm, if it has enough strengt to start music............ The other way round, if "some text" is added to a good tune, there are sometimes problems with connecting several verses to the same pattern, the words do not fit in the way, that emphasized syllables come off-beat, important words don't get the right place etc. In ideal circumstances, both music and lyrics have their own strength and get each other on a higher level. .> By the way, what was that "complex German ballad" that you had to learn? http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Grenadiere It is a Heinrich Heine poem with music by Robert Schumann. It was easy to reconstruct, because the music changes several times as the "background" for the "plot", so structure was evident, even with five years between listening and memorizing. off to work Martina The "bit by bit surfacing from nowhere" is an interesting phenomenon. (I've had > that experience - in the days before Google!) It compels you to think about > the structure, and where each bit fits in. Basically, you were "re-composing" > the piece, so when it all came together, it was "yours". > > Cheers, > John > > > > > > > -- > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > --