A strange evening.This is the week we should have attended the Christmas market in Aachen. Instead Occasional Speeder is spending a few nights with us to push out the boat in local watering holes. Back at home more indulgence.
West Midland News was lurching to its feeble end when it was replaced by songs from the Simon and Garfunkel Central Park concert. OS had linked the TV to her Iphone and it was music I'm very familiar with. I sang along as best I could, amazed at S&G's pell-mell speed.
One thing led to another. I sang a couple of my warm-up songs to illustrate some musical point or other and OS seemed amazed. I explained that these warm-ups were merely preludes to more serious songs like Mozart's O Isis und Osiris. Which I also sang. OS was even more amazed. How long had I been learning, etc?
OS played an Adele song, saying longingly she wanted to be able to sing it. I listened to Adele and said fine but first OS would have to learn a form of recitative singing (In German, Sprechstimme - speak voice) and widen her range. OS doubted her ability. I said pick a carol; we sang In The Deep Midwinter together. I then deconstructed OS's singing, getting her to lengthen her vowels ("...frosty winds made m-o-o-an") and make her consonants cleaner. Then we sang an ascending sequence of scales.
I listened to Adele again and imitated the first line slowly. Got OS to imitate me. Told her she had the basis of a singing voice.
It was 01.50 am, time for bed.
There we left it.
I guess Leonard Cohen's performances could be called Sprechstimme or perhaps Stöhnenstimme might be more appropriate.
ReplyDeleteAvus: Many classical and pop singers employ variants of recitative - often as an introduction to the song proper. Hart (of Rogers and Hart fame) used it as the basis of an entirely separate song, catching out less educated fans.
ReplyDeleteR&H's song, The Lady is a Tramp, does not start with:
She gets too hungry for dinner at eight
but with:
I've wined and dined on Mulligan Stew and never wished for turkey,
As I've hitched and hiked my way along from Maine to Albuquerque.
Alas I've missed the Beaux Arts ball, but what is twice as sad,
I was never at a party where they honoured Noel C'ard
But social circles spin too fast for me.
My hobo-hemia is the place to be
On Ella Fitzgerald's virtually definitive Ella Sings Roger and Hart the members of the audience clap when they recognise the song during the orchestral introduction. But in the case of Tramp and one or two others they often remain silent during the verbal playfulness of intros by Lorenz Hart, that most ingenious of all song-writers. For example:
When love congeals
It soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals,
The double-crossing of a pair of heels,
I wish I were in love again.