Another Lyrical Challenge

[steve]

Maybe in time... I don't have any ideas right now, certainly not after having my hearing "tainted" by Adrian's harmonically sumptuous setting ;-)

[adrianallan]

If the truth be told I wrote the whole piece and was happy with and then - I noticed I had missed off the last verse!

I tried to change it and make it right but it just wasn't happening - I'd found the "right" ending that I was happy with.

So I had to do a few little changes. The last verse is (fortunately)a mirror of the second half of the second verse, give or take a few conjunctions.

I know it's not really good practice, what I did, but I liken it to making a nice statue and then realising that the model was holding an apple and not grapes. I fudged and came up with something pretty close near the end.

By the way I hope that more people have at this challenge. There is no one definitive version and I certainly haven't done it - especially now I've revealed my flawed approach!

[adrianallan]

Please keep the lyric challenges coming - I enjoyed doing this so if anyone has any suggestions for another poem to be set to music I will give it a go.

thanks

[Kevin]

I certainly shall. Have you heard back from the family about copyright yet?

[adrianallan]

They passed it on to their legal side and I just got an "out of office" reply e-mail. I'm not too hopeful at this point, as I feel that in cold legal terms they might not be supportive; I did post a link to the audio and PDF files, and I have a feeling that somebody closer to the family would have to like it and enjoy it to give it the seal of approval. But we will wait and see.

[whataguy]

I always find these lyrical challenges fun and try to get involved in them when I can. At work, a lot of the words I'm assigned to write to don't make sense and even if they do, they are about BBQ restaurants, wedding mills, vitamins, politicians, etc., pretty uninteresting stuff. So far, on SOS, we're asked to attempt to write music for some very nice poetry. What a change and a challenge.

I've attached a leadsheet here and posted a demo on the jukebox. Demos are tricky animals. In the commercial world, just how elaborate a demo should be depends on the client. I pretended to write for a middle-of-the-road-type client so I could get away with producing the whole tune, music and vocals, on my laptop.

One thing I wanted to make clear is I never think of these SOS challenges as competitions. So far, we've seen and heard two very fine songs based on the same lyrics. I don't think of mine as better, just different. I hope there will be more songs in this thread because I'm sure we all can learn a lot from them.

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[adrianallan]

I enjoyed your piece and you must have spent some time recording this properly - is that you singing? It's a different style from mine, but some of that is due to the realization of the recording. Ok, there is a "easy listening" feel to the music, but that's not to say there's not musical interest too.

Can somebody address this point (as I'm working on steve's chosen poem right now) I'm just a little confused as to a comfortable range for vocals.

I take it that most scores don't specify male or female vocals and a tenor would automatically sing the octave below - is that a correct assumption.

Given that, what would you say is a comfortable range. I have a piece going from the G below middle C to the Eb at the top space of the stave. Is that reasonable for most people, or am I pushing it? Do it need to specify the voice type? I know these are fundamental issues but I just need my mind putting at rest,

thanks

[steve]

A range of less than two octaves is within the means of any professional singer, even if, depending on the singer, the piece needs transposition. Anyone with less range than what you're asking for is almost certainly not trained to sing and wouldn't do your piece justice in any event.

[steve]

Whataguy, you've given up another contrasting vision. It's amazing to me just how different these versions are. It's as if there were different glasses one could put on and, when doing so, the world would not just change tints of color, but shapes and sizes and textures as well as hues and tones! The same lyrics, a whole new world... That is the power of music! Thanks for sharing this song :-)

[whataguy]

Thanks for the nice comments. And, yes, that's me singing to my MacBook with that tiny mic that is surprisingly un-tinny. I often provide a scratch vocal on a demo so the real vocalists can learn the tune quicker.

As far as vocal ranges go, when writing pop or jazz, a very loose rule of thumb is female vocalists usually are comfortable from the keys of C-E., and male vocalists from F-Ab. But this all goes out the window depending on the song and the vocalist. If you have a particular vocalist in mind, meet with her, find her key, then write the arrangement. I agree with Steve: Keep the range of your tune to about an octave and a half, or even an octave, and your singer should be OK with it.

When I was learning to write for classical singers, I was told to specify the voice type I are writing for and not to assume everyone is a Callas or a Carreras. You can see where this would be difficult. It's like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears: "Not too hard and not too easy, but just right."

Also, watch your intervals. It may be cool for us to write b5ths or M7ths or b9ths, but can be uncool for the people who have to sing this stuff. For the most part (not always) it's best to keep the intervals relatively close and uncomplicated. We don't all have a young Dionne Warwick available who could sing weird intervals and multi-time signatures at the drop of a hat and make them all sound so natural. That Burt Bacharach was a lucky guy.

[steve]

60% off? It is tempting...

[Kevin]

Mar 22, 2011 0:17:01 GMT adrianallan said:

By the way I noticed that East West's Symphonic choirs was on sale at a 60% off price today( I was tempted). We could maybe do with a thread on VST vocals as it's an interesting issue....

You are allowed to create such a thread adrian!

[steve]

I'm thinking maybe the title was too long and something about the limit of characters in the file name area prevented the file from being read correctly [or is that hogwash?]. At any rate, attached is the PDF for my choral setting of Octavia Butler's words. I took advantage of East West Choirs sale and soon will try my hand at it with this piece, creating an mp3 that sings back [please wish me luck with the initial setup!]. :-)

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[Deleted]

I just thought I would sign in here for a moment ... to let whataguy know that his version of Where The Sidewalk Ends is pleasantly floating through my head right now. Nice piece!

[whataguy]

Thanks, Anne!

[adrianallan]

oh well, it's going to have to stay as an instrumental - never mind! Private performances only etc.

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[steve]

Disappointing, but not a complete travesty as the instrumental version is so outstanding!

[Kevin]

I have to agree with Steve on that as well. Trust me it will be played as soon as I can find the space for it.

[Deleted]

Mar 1, 2011 17:43:58 GMT steve said:

During any given bar Anne, I like the bright sound that seems like sunshine on a freshly paved white sidewalk and it brings to mind the bright light of Shel Silverstein's poetry, but overall each bar is a bit too similar, I feel, to all the others. There were places I could hear an A minor chord instead of another C major chord, for example, and a bit more rhythmically varied accompaniment might help liven it up a bit. As it stands, I found the accompaniment a little too "Einstein on the Beach" for my tastes, if you follow Glass. I do like your general idea a lot and it provides a nice contrast mood-wise to the other submission, but I feel it needs a little polishing. I hope you will give it the love it needs to shine! :-)

EDIT - just see now there is a new version so please disregard the above pending a listening to the new version

Steve, I owe you an apology here in that I missed this comment for a long time and then later did not have time to come back to it. However, I would like to thank you for your kindly comments and yes, if I find a few moments, I hope to come back and work this piece into something much more interesting musically.

[adrianallan]

My friend John Lynch did a video for my music as part of his art project. I think he's done a great job in portraying the bittersweet nature of the music. Hope you enjoy it too.

[steve]

Great indeed! The only transition I thought was jarring was from the animated children on the staff to the moon - just didn't work right. Otherwise I thought it was clever and creative. The opening credit sequence was particularly nifty and original I thought. And the music of course is top notch! and they compliment each other quite well.