An associate of mine said to me a while ago that he was very busy “because he had to feed the YouTube algorithm”. Like many others, he uses YouTube to promote his music, and for that he has to post and keep posting video after video. It’s a ferocious, soul-sucking process which reminds me of some willing, hypnotized victim, in a corset and curls, holding up her tender white neck for a vampire to sink their fangs into for the so-manyeth time.
“So, yeah, it’s a real mess in there…On the upside, I think she had a really good time”, says ViagoVon Dorna Schmarten Scheden Heimburg” (né von Blitzenberg), wielding a roll of paper towels. (He’s played by Taika Waititi in the hilarious 2014 film “What We Do in the Shadows”. )
Sorry, brain no longer functions
I know that’s what people do. I also know that I cannot do it, because by the time I have finished a composition, or a music video, or figured out lyrics, or got all the typos out of a manuscript, I have no more energy left and nothing to say. (Try explaining this to your Mother who complains, “Why don’t you call your Mother? What am I – some stranger?! It’s been weeks!!!”)
I think November 2022 was the last time I read a new book, seen a new movie, or listened to a new album. I have been firmly stuck behind the computer for months.
For the latest album, I decided to take a leap and write songs with lyrics. Because I am a book-worm, and a student of literature, and a bit (teeny bit) of a poet, I searched way back into history and decided to write new lyrics and music for centuries-old (pre-birth-of-Christ) texts. (No copyright problems with that, see? And built-in significance.)
Hanlon’s Razor strikes again
“Hanlon’s Razor” is an adage or rule of thumb that states, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” And I can state that this album can be attributed to stupidity and sheer pigheadedness, and not malice, regardless of the pain in the patootie that it became.
And it did become a royal pain.
Oh, Elton, if only I had a Bernie Taupin like you do.
The big problem arose when I was trying to get vocalists, some so young I could be their granny (!), to sing the lyrics. One song has lyrics in Latin, another is in Medieval Dutch, another in Tudor-era English, and there’s one I wrote in Medieval French, but that was a fiasco which, til today, I cannot make work. But to fit voice to melody, with the right interpretation, pronunciation, melody, phrasing, and expression, was horribly complicated. And there I was, having to produce an actual written score, with lyrics! And worse, I had to sing the demo track! Me! Who at best sounds like Florence Foster Jenkins. Never before have I felt so thoroughly incompetent.
God of Melodic Math (Max Martin), help me
Sitting there, swearing quietly to myself, trying to fit the words to the melody, I was reminded of that hit-making technique called “Melodic Math” that music producer Max Martin pioneered – where you don’t worry so much about the meaning of the lyrics, or even the word choice, as about the “math”: The lyrics have to be made to fit the math – the number of beats, bars, notes, etc., of the melody (and not vice versa).
This means that the number of notes or syllables in a particular musical phrase must be balanced so that the notes or syllables are all equal from line to line. And to do that, you can add in syllables, or change the word to one with the right number of syllables, or have fewer or more words, and so on. So it might end up as a word salad after all that – who cares? It will be a hit.
I wished, many times, that I could resort to using Melodic Math on the lyrics. But it doesn’t work with waka, and those texts had to keep their integrity. Respect to long-dead authors, and so on.
Tah-dah!
The end result of these six months of complications and crises is an album with ten tracks, and a coffee-table-sized book, in stead of liner notes, to go with it.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be introducing these ancient texts – maybe you have read them too. And if you have, to which type of music would you have set them? Or, how would you have done the prosody? Do drop me a comment, once you’ve seen what they are.
SEVEN CIRCUMSTANCES 
An associate of mine said to me a while ago that he was very busy “because he had to feed the YouTube algorithm”. Like many others, he uses YouTube to promote his music, and for that he has to post and keep posting video after video. It’s a ferocious, soul-sucking process which reminds me of some willing, hypnotized victim, in a corset and curls, holding up her tender white neck for a vampire to sink their fangs into for the so-manyeth time.
(He’s played by Taika Waititi in the hilarious 2014 film “What We Do in the Shadows”. )
Sorry, brain no longer functions
I know that’s what people do. I also know that I cannot do it, because by the time I have finished a composition, or a music video, or figured out lyrics, or got all the typos out of a manuscript, I have no more energy left and nothing to say. (Try explaining this to your Mother who complains, “Why don’t you call your Mother? What am I – some stranger?! It’s been weeks!!!”)
I think November 2022 was the last time I read a new book, seen a new movie, or listened to a new album. I have been firmly stuck behind the computer for months.
For the latest album, I decided to take a leap and write songs with lyrics. Because I am a book-worm, and a student of literature, and a bit (teeny bit) of a poet, I searched way back into history and decided to write new lyrics and music for centuries-old (pre-birth-of-Christ) texts. (No copyright problems with that, see? And built-in significance.)
Hanlon’s Razor strikes again
“Hanlon’s Razor” is an adage or rule of thumb that states, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” And I can state that this album can be attributed to stupidity and sheer pigheadedness, and not malice, regardless of the pain in the patootie that it became.
And it did become a royal pain.
The big problem arose when I was trying to get vocalists, some so young I could be their granny (!), to sing the lyrics. One song has lyrics in Latin, another is in Medieval Dutch, another in Tudor-era English, and there’s one I wrote in Medieval French, but that was a fiasco which, til today, I cannot make work. But to fit voice to melody, with the right interpretation, pronunciation, melody, phrasing, and expression, was horribly complicated. And there I was, having to produce an actual written score, with lyrics! And worse, I had to sing the demo track! Me! Who at best sounds like Florence Foster Jenkins. Never before have I felt so thoroughly incompetent.
God of Melodic Math (Max Martin), help me
Sitting there, swearing quietly to myself, trying to fit the words to the melody, I was reminded of that hit-making technique called “Melodic Math” that music producer Max Martin pioneered – where you don’t worry so much about the meaning of the lyrics, or even the word choice, as about the “math”: The lyrics have to be made to fit the math – the number of beats, bars, notes, etc., of the melody (and not vice versa).
This means that the number of notes or syllables in a particular musical phrase must be balanced so that the notes or syllables are all equal from line to line. And to do that, you can add in syllables, or change the word to one with the right number of syllables, or have fewer or more words, and so on. So it might end up as a word salad after all that – who cares? It will be a hit.
I wished, many times, that I could resort to using Melodic Math on the lyrics. But it doesn’t work with waka, and those texts had to keep their integrity. Respect to long-dead authors, and so on.
Tah-dah!
The end result of these six months of complications and crises is an album with ten tracks, and a coffee-table-sized book, in stead of liner notes, to go with it.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be introducing these ancient texts – maybe you have read them too. And if you have, to which type of music would you have set them? Or, how would you have done the prosody? Do drop me a comment, once you’ve seen what they are.
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