Re: Singing in foreign langs. was Re: Greetings

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Mills" <romilly@...>

> Jan van Steenbergen wrote:
> >> That's something I've always been interested in: how do opera singer
> learn
> >> to sing in languages they don't know.
Tell me about your own singing, Jan.  And whether you create songs in your
language that you sing.  And record.

As for singing in a language you don't know, I can tell you this; I used to
be in Church Choir, and for a semester I took a choir class in college.
Most of the songs were in Latin, so the phonetics were pretty easy, as they
mostly matched those of Spanish.  It was French that floored me.  (my
pre-French days).  For the French material, I just wrote under each word
some transcription of what I heard the choir master singing, and then
memorized it.  I remember listening over and over again to a French album of
songs, and just aping the words.  I was a good mimic.  I would have to hear
it first, though.  I memorized "Dominique-nique-nique" long before I knew
what the words meant; also "Allouette, gentil Allouette.  Allouette, je te
plumerai."  I had no idea how cruel the words were!  (Forgive me,
Christophe, if I don't spell that correctly!)  Also:  "Sur le pont,
D'Avignon, l'on y danse, l'on y danse."  It was only until I took French
that I knew what these favorite songs meant.

Where does the "Dominique" song come from?  I seem to associate it with
something called "The Singing Nun."  Also, "Allouette"?  From some musical?
From a folktune? Who is this unhappy bird?  I always assumed it was getting
plucked alive.

Same for German.  Now if I'd had some Czech song to sing, I would have done
the same thing.  I can sing the first verse of Iva Bittova's first song, but
only because I transcribed it.  I have no idea how the syntax works or how
it MEANS.

Roger wrote:
> Singing in general seems to deform language in curious ways.  Though
fluent
> in Spanish, I've never been able to puzzle out songs, aside from the
> inevitable rhymes "corazón...amor".  A slightly crazed friend heard "with
> innocent pleasures" (from Purcells's "Come ye sons of art") as "with
hymnals
> and prayerbooks", and the Magnificat's "quia fecit mihi magna" as "we are
> facing Mimi Gaga"-- childhood names for his grandmothers.
LOL!  When I was little, I didn't understand songs in English.  I just sang
them.  I think the Christmas Carols are the best examples.  What does "round
yon virgin" mean to a child of four?  In a movie with Jack Nicholson (now I
can't remember the title) I remember with delight how they talked about
this;  "round John Virgin."

As for distortion, it always seemed to me that singers of songs in Spanish
were far more willing to put the emphasis on the "wrong" syllable than
singers of English songs, or to end measures in the middle of a word.  (I'm
going on memory here of a CD I can't remember the name of or the name of the
singer!  La Llorna?).  Singing in English (at least most contemporary
English songs) seems to require that the words fall into place within
measures, and that their emphasis match that of the tune.  Like you, I had a
hard time following songs in Spanish.  And for all I can tell, Bittova is
willing to start new measures in the middle of her words.  When I try to put
Teonaht into verse, especially rhyming verse, I still labor under the
anglophonic assumption that the words cannot be distorted, emphasis cannot
be changed, verbal phrases have to match measures; and therefore it's
incredibly hard to versify Teonaht.  I'm trying to shake free of that.

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."

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