![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseI've been singing, and therefore thinking about singing.
There's this thing that happens when you sing a song - most espeically if the song contains even a fragment of a story, not just a bunch of oooh-wahs. If you're sincerely trying to sing it on its own, or for yourself, not just to follow along with the radio, you get into the headspace of the person singing the story. This doesn't usually mean the writer or singer of the song, but the narrator, or the main character. Real musicians have mentioned this (most recently, at this year's folk fest, Richard Thompson and Bruce Cockburn talked about it; Ruthie Foster agreed but didn't say much more on the subject), and how some songs are easy even after years, and some songs get hard not jst because they're requested, but because over time that headspace is less accessible; the current person has less in common with the song's point of view.
This reveals a lot. I still get a bit creeped out singing Mordred's Lullaby, just afterward when I realised how easy it is to get into Morgan's hateful attitude. A lot of ballads, of coruse, distance themselves a bit by having the narrator pretending to be objective, watching the story, leaving oen fo the characters within to say "woe is me" or whatever sad or angry thing they say. But I get angry at the end of Johnny O'Bredislee, even so, and The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry is ahrd to do without some solitary melancholy. For non-traditionals, Captain Jack and the Mermaid (Not the oen with the rum or the one with the shotgun. A third Captain Jack. Yikes. Though confusing them all might make for fun.) is the weirdest one, because you're dealing with singing in at least four points of view (The woman narrating, the ship's crew telling the story, the mermaid, and Captain Jack.) There's one modern ballad I've sung for myself or for practice over and over, adn I can't *not* get choked up at the end. I'm in his head, I know what he feels, and he sure wants to cry. One reason why, besides the settings where I sing, I haven't and probably won't sing it in front of people.
I can't even describe the mood of Crazy Man Michael, it's so strange, except that I don't *think* that's what going crazy would feel like, and at least it lets me sing the bloody song.
I can also tell when I'm into or not into a song in choir by how much I get into the given headspace of it. The average hymn -- especially the standards that the congregation sings with us -- goes by with me mostly racing after the right notes and dynamics for my part. I can sign it technically right without ever really feeling like I truly sang. Others, even if I'm flubbing the notes, I start feeling. Those are the ones I still hear after the fact. Alas, there are a lot more of the first than the second.
Most nights, leaving choir, I feel the need to sing something else on the way home. (I sometimes do that because it's a habit, too, but never mind.) I suspect, though I haven't tried assembling the evidence, that this urge happens more often on days when we didn't sing a lot that I really got inside.)
I'm not sure what the lesson is there, but I'm sure there is one.
______________________
On a related note:
Colin, being a sweetheart, traded back my extra copy of the Loreena McKennitt CD, and in its place, let me special order the new Jim Moray.
This, I think I want to write a full review for and hand it to Green Man, not burble here. Suffice to say, though, he pushed a lot further than he did even on Sweet England.
This is NOT your mother's "Barbara Allen". Wooo.
______________________
Progress notes for January 15, 2007:
Soldier of the Road
Total words new or revised : 1200
Probable percentage actually new: Less than 25.
Reason for stopping: Officially, class time arrived. Actually, had more to do with feeling like I needed to rethink a few things, and like I wasn't beign sufficiently harsh on the original draft.
Tea: Tazo Zen (Green tea plus some other things. A nice blend - Tazo, in spite of incredible pretentiousness, is usually a good tea company.)
Music: Not at the loonieversity.
_____________________
Progress notes for January 17, 2007:
Soldier of the Road
Total words new or revised : Negative 1100.
Probable percentage actually new: About fifty words added to smooth over the sudden gaps. So about .5%?
Reason for stopping: No good one: I decided I'd had enough for the day and went for lunch.
Tea: White with vanilla apple flavour, cheap student's mocha (Coffee with chocolate milk.)
Music: Again, at the University. I should really bring earphones or something. I could then put on Pandora.
Mean Things: Well, does cutting two named characters and an entire camp's worth of soldier-bandits completely out of existence count?
This almost doesn't count as progress, as it involved going back over what I've edited for the past week and a bit. I cut the characters, wrote a much shorter replacement scene, then realized I didn't need or want the bandit camp, either.
I have a bit more to chop before I get to where I paused, but not much.
So far I have 19,600 words. If I'd been asked, I'd have guessed between 15K and 20K
There's this thing that happens when you sing a song - most espeically if the song contains even a fragment of a story, not just a bunch of oooh-wahs. If you're sincerely trying to sing it on its own, or for yourself, not just to follow along with the radio, you get into the headspace of the person singing the story. This doesn't usually mean the writer or singer of the song, but the narrator, or the main character. Real musicians have mentioned this (most recently, at this year's folk fest, Richard Thompson and Bruce Cockburn talked about it; Ruthie Foster agreed but didn't say much more on the subject), and how some songs are easy even after years, and some songs get hard not jst because they're requested, but because over time that headspace is less accessible; the current person has less in common with the song's point of view.
This reveals a lot. I still get a bit creeped out singing Mordred's Lullaby, just afterward when I realised how easy it is to get into Morgan's hateful attitude. A lot of ballads, of coruse, distance themselves a bit by having the narrator pretending to be objective, watching the story, leaving oen fo the characters within to say "woe is me" or whatever sad or angry thing they say. But I get angry at the end of Johnny O'Bredislee, even so, and The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry is ahrd to do without some solitary melancholy. For non-traditionals, Captain Jack and the Mermaid (Not the oen with the rum or the one with the shotgun. A third Captain Jack. Yikes. Though confusing them all might make for fun.) is the weirdest one, because you're dealing with singing in at least four points of view (The woman narrating, the ship's crew telling the story, the mermaid, and Captain Jack.) There's one modern ballad I've sung for myself or for practice over and over, adn I can't *not* get choked up at the end. I'm in his head, I know what he feels, and he sure wants to cry. One reason why, besides the settings where I sing, I haven't and probably won't sing it in front of people.
I can't even describe the mood of Crazy Man Michael, it's so strange, except that I don't *think* that's what going crazy would feel like, and at least it lets me sing the bloody song.
I can also tell when I'm into or not into a song in choir by how much I get into the given headspace of it. The average hymn -- especially the standards that the congregation sings with us -- goes by with me mostly racing after the right notes and dynamics for my part. I can sign it technically right without ever really feeling like I truly sang. Others, even if I'm flubbing the notes, I start feeling. Those are the ones I still hear after the fact. Alas, there are a lot more of the first than the second.
Most nights, leaving choir, I feel the need to sing something else on the way home. (I sometimes do that because it's a habit, too, but never mind.) I suspect, though I haven't tried assembling the evidence, that this urge happens more often on days when we didn't sing a lot that I really got inside.)
I'm not sure what the lesson is there, but I'm sure there is one.
______________________
On a related note:
Colin, being a sweetheart, traded back my extra copy of the Loreena McKennitt CD, and in its place, let me special order the new Jim Moray.
This, I think I want to write a full review for and hand it to Green Man, not burble here. Suffice to say, though, he pushed a lot further than he did even on Sweet England.
This is NOT your mother's "Barbara Allen". Wooo.
______________________
Progress notes for January 15, 2007:
Soldier of the Road
Total words new or revised : 1200
Probable percentage actually new: Less than 25.
Reason for stopping: Officially, class time arrived. Actually, had more to do with feeling like I needed to rethink a few things, and like I wasn't beign sufficiently harsh on the original draft.
Tea: Tazo Zen (Green tea plus some other things. A nice blend - Tazo, in spite of incredible pretentiousness, is usually a good tea company.)
Music: Not at the loonieversity.
_____________________
Progress notes for January 17, 2007:
Soldier of the Road
Total words new or revised : Negative 1100.
Probable percentage actually new: About fifty words added to smooth over the sudden gaps. So about .5%?
Reason for stopping: No good one: I decided I'd had enough for the day and went for lunch.
Tea: White with vanilla apple flavour, cheap student's mocha (Coffee with chocolate milk.)
Music: Again, at the University. I should really bring earphones or something. I could then put on Pandora.
Mean Things: Well, does cutting two named characters and an entire camp's worth of soldier-bandits completely out of existence count?
This almost doesn't count as progress, as it involved going back over what I've edited for the past week and a bit. I cut the characters, wrote a much shorter replacement scene, then realized I didn't need or want the bandit camp, either.
I have a bit more to chop before I get to where I paused, but not much.
So far I have 19,600 words. If I'd been asked, I'd have guessed between 15K and 20K
