On Apr 4, 2006, at 2:17 AM, Robert C L Watson wrote:
I too enjoy assonance. I happen to feel that a lot of the rhymes in rap are not assonance, but merely "close enough". One time there is a perfect rhymne, another time you dignify it with the term "assonance". To put it simply, it's like the composer who fully intends the consecutive fifths and the third-rater who just happens to write that way.
OK, so you and I disagree on this.
Frankly, I have difficulty understanding what they are trying to say. They don't enunciate.
Well, there's one point we do agree on. I hate it when rappers don't speak clearly. Not only does it mean I can't understand what they're saying, but it's also part of a general pattern whereby they're just making noise and don't care about actually communicating to the listener.
Then again, I could say the exact same thing about opera singers ... as, in fact, I do. A great many opera singers are horrible enunciators, but that doesn't make me dislike opera. It just makes me better appreciate the ones who do.
With rap, it's not just a matter of enunciation; it's about production. Pretty much all rap is recorded or at least amplified. Mixing the recording so that the vocal part is comprehensible is an artistic choice -- which apparently some artists elect not to make. I think part of Eminem's success comes from the fact that you can understand what he's saying without effort.
[Also Rob, in a different post]
BTW, it is "parlando".
Parlato, parlando. Either makes sense. You're right that "parlando" is more common in scores, but I've seen both. (For example, in Butterfly, when Cio-Cio-San says "uno, due, tre" before getting all the relatives to bow, that's marked "parlato".) I probably chose "parlato" unconsciously because it made more grammatical sense in the (macaronic) sentence that I wrote. Past participle vs present participle.
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