#Talk to me about melodic DEVELOPMENT in line with character development

[deviiancetv]

The Misconception of Doja Cat (Controversy & Era Analysis)

Heyyoo, so this post is going to be a smaller version of a bigger analysis video I plan to make in the near future about Doja Cat’s Scarlet album. I’ll be sharing my thoughts when it comes to Doja Cat, her recent Scarlet era, the controversies that have followed, as well as how I think she could’ve been conceptualized this era.

There will be a video that comes along with this post some time in the future on my channel, so follow me on YouTube ≫ deViianceTV

In the meantime, let’s talk briefly about this Scarlet era. The themes, concept, and messaging + what I would’ve fixed if I was in the room with her

Scarlet is an album that thematically is about Doja creating this alter ego to be used as a way to lash out at her haters and people who wanted her to fit in a box that critics placed her in. A scarred starlet rebelling against the public eye and people’s perceptions of her.

The concept is a bloodied version of Doja’s alter ego, Scarlet, who symbolizes the bruised and broken version of her that is being reborn into someone confident, tapping into her inner creativity, esoteric intrigue, and embracing her natural beauty.

There are MANY things from this era that I would fix such as making this era a dynamic story of self-discovery through visual and sonic versatility. One example is I would’ve loved it if she split this album into two separate pieces of art that bounce off one another in themes and symbolic representation. The first side of the album having dark horror elements, odes to video games and horror movies she likes. The other side having sultry R&B elements with a lighter tone of inner peace as she accepts her more melodic and jazz roots.

I don’t take Doja as much of a lyricist all the time. She has instances when she can be very witty with fun bars that have pop culture references, and double entendres, but she’s not overly lyrical in her songs. She should’ve taken more time on this project to better compile and write her songs with formatting structures and great analogies that have you think… instead, we essentially got her venting about how rich she is and how she was being attacked online. And then there’s the butter toast line which was just not good lol.

Honestly, another thing that ruined this era is the fact that there were too many controversies involving the time she dissed her fans, her romantic relationship with J Cyrus, and her self-identity issues that have plagued her career since she became mainstream. A lot of these things could’ve been handled better, had she not lashed out on social media, and showcased the cracks within her character. She is to blame for the many times she’s been canceled, by not growing and evolving or even holding herself accountable for her transgressions.

I may be overly critical of her, but that’s because I KNOW she can do so much better, than what she’s given us. I’m hopeful that the next era will be more developed, thought-out, and less drama-filled, focusing on just the music, with standalone videos. Doja IS meant a bonafide star, but Scarlet is a bloodstain on her discographic career… an aesthetically pleasing bloodstain, but still a bloodstain nonetheless.

#poptopics #doja cat #scarlet doja cat #scarlet album #female rappers #hip hop #pop rap #pop music #pop culture #coachella #celebrity gossip

[omar-rudeberg]

ok but young royals original score streaming release WHEN

#Can we talk about this?? Give me all your thoughts?? Loves & hates for the original score?? #(I don't want soundtrack thoughts - just the original electronic score please and thank you) #Bringing my fellow music nerds out of the woodwork #Talk to me about LEITMOTIFS #Talk to me about time-signature less HOLDING PATTERNED MUSIC #Talk to me about melodic DEVELOPMENT in line with character development #Talk to me about Wilhelm and Simon introduced as two interpretations of the same harmonic line - which we then see superimposed :') #Bring it to mama #young royals #young royals score #young royals music #score #analysis #mine

[gwynrielsupremacy]

one shot prompt -

gwyn at training, purposely being more affectionate towards his shadows than him because she knows he wants it so she's teasing him but also, why should he always get the attention?? and az being pouty because he's a simp and he knows it and he can't do anything about it in front of cass and rhys and he has to quietly be jealous the rest of training and watch his shadows hang with their mum because she's cooler.

Gwynriel One-Shot: "Shadows and Training"

So this is my first attempt at an one-shot, inspired by this ask @deardiarystuff sent me! Hope you like it <3 It was so much fun to write. Feel free to submit more prompts in my ask, and I'll check them out as soon as I can :)

“This is not funny.” Azriel muttered to himself, watching Gwyn as she smiled and played with his shadows, which couldn’t stop encircling her.

She likes us a lot, master. And we like her better.

He rolled his eyes at the ones still in his shoulders, crossing his arms against his chest.

“What’s not funny, brother?” Cassian had just approached him, following his gaze to the young priestess on the other side of the training ring, engulfed by a large part of his shadows. He snorted. “Wow. What are they all doing over there?”

“I could ask them the same.” He grunted in response.

“It seems to me your shadows are growing fonder of your mate than of you, Shadowsinger. And vice-versa, may I add.” Cassian switched his stare from the scarce tendrils behind his brother to the majority of Azriel’s mighty shadows hanging around Gwyn, creating a sort of cape around her as she exercised, focused on her movements. But that constant sly smile on her face was driving him insane. As if she knew exactly what it was doing to him.

It’s been no more than a year since they discovered about their mating bond, and since then, Azriel’s life gained a new meaning. It was months and months of getting to know each other, slowly solidifying that bond with each day and night they spent together. And it was the happiest Azriel had ever been. Even the rest of his family noticed it; the way he was easier around others, made more jokes and comments than he usually - well, than he ever - did. All because of Gwyn, and what loving and being truly loved and cherished by the one who was meant for you entailed; the way she was helping him through his darkness, just like he was helping her.

She is teasing you and enjoying it. Go talk to her.

And so he went over to where she stood, alone and panting after she finished one of her sets: “You might hurt yourself if you keep doing it like this.”

She turned her face to him, narrowing her eyes, her beautiful freckled face flushed from training. His shadows were still hovering around her, like a dark cloud. She raised her eyebrows, reading right through him. She wasn’t actually doing anything wrong. Her feet could be spread a little wider, but it wasn’t necessary to her stance. He was just blabbing anything so he could have her attention.

It started a few days ago. They were having dinner together, and then he said something particular that bothered her. An opinion about a book she liked and he didn’t. He couldn’t exactly remember it now, to be honest. She disagreed with him, and argued back. So they found themselves immersed in a discussion about plot lines and poorly developed characters, in their usual bantering. But when they were over, his shadows unexpectedly crossed the small distance between them and went to stay with her.

And then Gwyn started talking to them. Bragging - seeing the expression in Azriel’s face - about how her point made much more sense than his, a victorious smile spread across her face. She talked to them with such fondness he couldn’t help but feeling some kind of jealousy, as ridiculous and irrational as it sounded. His shadows were a part of him, and he was well aware of that fact, but even so.

The way he reacted that night, knitting his brows together and shaking his head slowly, with a slight pout, was enough for Gwyn to notice the effect it had on him; and then she burst into a fit of laughter, her melodic voice easing him almost immediately, and leaned over to give him a soft kiss. And that was all it took for him to keep repeating his reaction every time that interaction happened again. Just like it was now.

“How come, Shadowsinger?” Gwyn teased, returning to her stance. Waiting, he could see, for him to correct her. And knowing for a fact she wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“You could open up your feet a bit more, to improve your posture and give you more balance.”

“I thought my balance was quite well as it was, like you mentioned yesterday.” She turned her head away from him, preparing herself.

Azriel grunted, to which she smirked playfully.

“You know” She kept staring ahead of her, and swiftly twirled her body to bust a kick in the air “It’s not necessary for you to be jealous of me. After all, your shadows are bound to you; it’s not like I could go on and actually steal them.��

We would be happy to test this possibility.

He ignored his shadows, quietly admiring her quick and clean movements as she kicked the air again and again, huffing with each strike.

“Unless…” She trailed off, finishing her set and facing him at last, bracing her hands on her hips and lifting an eyebrow “Unless you’re not jealous of me with your shadows, but of your shadows with me.”

Azriel couldn’t help it, then. Mother, he was so fascinated by her; that challenging look when she assessed him, her clearly amused smile and that twinkle in her teal eyes. Her constellations shining bright with sunlight and sweat, making her face a sky he would happily look up at for the rest of his nights.

“I’m not jealous, Berdara.” He declared, in a low tone.

She nodded delightedly, eyes narrowing. “So you wouldn’t mind if I kept them for now, then? We’re having so much fun together”

He watched as she smiled charmingly at his shadows hovering around her, embracing her shoulders and hips and arms, and then stared deep into his eyes. All he could do was shake his head half-heartedly, in a quiet act of defeat, knowing full well he should let her get back to training.

Before he turned to leave, though, she grabbed his arm, and with a graceful movement she leaned on her toes and kissed him lightly. Quickly, because well, there was still an audience around them – Cassian and Nesta included, whom Azriel could practically feel the stare from across the room – but enough for him to close his eyes and savor her lips, breathing in her scent. Their kisses, they took his breath away ever since the first one, hesitant and soft. And Azriel had a joyous feeling it would always feel like this.

“Thank you” She whispered cheekily and winked when they parted, face mere inches away from his.

He couldn’t help but smile then, the grin that was only meant for Gwyn. After all, she was the reason that made him remember how to do it once again. He was still grinning when he turned away to join Cassian, and it spread as Gwyn hummed a gleeful “’love you!” at him.

When he stood by his brother’s side he was greeted with a laugh from the General, who scanned him from head to toe.

“Damn, brother, you’re such a…”

“I know.” He interrupted, never taking his eyes away from his mate and his shadows as she resumed her practice. “I’m a fool for her.”

And he didn't mind.

No, he didn't mind one bit.

#aaaaaaaa #my first one shot #gwynriel one shot #gwynriel #gwyneth berdara #azriel and gwyn #gwyn x azriel #gwynriel headcanon #azriel #hope you like it #pls let me know what you think <3

[yumgrapejuice]

An analysis on Ranboo’s lore playlist

okay y’all first of all, ranboo has a killer taste, i love him, and second, i couldn’t resist. i’m an analyst by nature. am i looking too deep into some things? did ranboo maybe choose some songs purely for the vibe? perhaps. do i care? no. let me have my fun.

I’m gonna drop my own analysis/interpretation based on these songs but feel free do use this yourself if you want!! And also feel free to disagree/correct me on anything!! I’m not a professional musical analyst lol and I did take some inspiration from already existing interpretations for the more lyrical songs.

here’s the playlist btw

“Introduction to the Snow”—introduction to the album. Fitting for the playlist’s beginning, seeing the tone. It’s mostly referencing (self-imposed) isolation.

“Dream Sweet in Sea Major”—this Miracle Music’s whole album is about dreams and reality, how they clash, loneliness and the wish to be close to someone, yet still remaining isolated. Very whimsical, metaphorical, melodic, and it has this vibe as if on the edge of consciousness. I’d say it fits quite well with c!Ranboo’s general vibe. This song in particular deals with sleepwalking(ha)/being in a dreamlike state, the line between what’s real and what’s not blurred.

“The Mind Electric”—oh this one fits Ranboo extremely well. First part is in reverse, the second in normal (mirroring), and it can get quite unsettling. Like you’re not sure what’s happening with the instrumentals, many different voices. Again, very metaphorical, but to put it shortly, the protagonist is being judged for a crime they’ve committed and, in their defence, they say: “Father, your honor, may I explain, my brain has claimed its glory over me; I’ve a good heart albeit insane”. They get “condemned to the infirmary” for that, where electric shock is used on them as a form of “therapy”. As a result, the protagonist loses grip on reality and themselves and truly does go insane. They beg for mercy and sympathy, but there’s no one to help them. “Someone help me; Understand what's going on inside my mind; Doctor I can't tell if I'm not me”—need I say more, really?

“Live and Let Die”—the phrase “live and let die” means to live your life how you wish and let others live how they wish without interfering. At first, you live by the phrase “live and let live”, meaning you have your ideals and you try to change the lives of others according to them, but as life progresses, you stop caring as much/try to distance yourself from others’ business.

“Turn the Lights Off”—dreams and nightmares. Mildly foreboding yet energetic. The actual meaning is about growing up (transition from childhood to adulthood), but we can take some other interpretations that’d fit with Ranboo’s character better. This Tally Hall’s album deals with differences, black and white, and how there shouldn’t be a divide between them. In this song, there are some noteworthy lines that I’d like to mention:

- “Bend the nightmare, you control it; Artful dodger, easy does it”—lucid dreaming, you have to be careful with it so as to not lose control.

- “Shut the closet, get under the covers”—you’re afraid of something and instead of facing it and seeing whether there even is something to be afraid of, you hide.

- “Turn the lights off”—confront your fears. It can also mean that in the dark, there’s no differences between people, going back to the album’s meaning.

- “And everybody wants to get evil tonight; But all good devils masquerade under the light”—this could mean that everyone has a darker part of themselves but those who actually indulge in their dark tendencies do so in plain sight by pretending to be someone else.

“Ruler of Everything”—the main theme here is time and how it’s the “ruler of everything”; time doesn’t matter about where it goes, and it will never stop. The second verse is most interesting to me—there are two singers, man and time, but for the sake of interpretation let’s just see it as two voices. One is obsessed about being liked, fitting in, constantly asking for reaffirmation (“Do you like how I walk? Do you like how I talk?”), while the second criticizes the first (“You practice your mannerisms into the wall”). They argue—”I’ve been you, I know you, your facade is scam; You know you’re making me cry, this is the way that I am”. The second is calling out the first for not being honest to himself. Tone is lighthearted but with an edge of unease.

“Merry-Go-Round of Life”—from Howl’s Moving Castle soundtrack. The title’s self-explanatory, I’d say.

“Killer Queen”—this one’s a harder one to interpret in regards to Ranboo lol. The song is about, based on an interview with Mercury, a high class woman that likes to indulge in her various desires (mostly sexual). I would doubt that’s what Ranboo was going for, so! Perhaps about a person that has no regards for their reputation and instead does whatever they feel like it? They have a certain image but still act however they like. Yeah, not too sure about this one :’) But that’s what I’ll go with for my later analysis.

“Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked”—quite straightforward. A person that performs bad deeds has reasons for them. Not excuses, but explanations, and you can sympathize with it. We all do “bad” things for one reason or the other, and, in the end, we’re all just trying to get by. Once again, plays into the theme of there not being a clear distinction between good and bad.

“The Bidding”—another harder one to interpret. On the surface, it’s about an auction where men are trying to sell themselves to women. They all present themselves in different images, and it’s remarked that the women care less about the date and more about the prospect of it, the pretty words. The date, actually, ends up being disappointing. Could be about expectations. Some men outright admit they’re assholes so whoever chooses them should know that. People can tell you what their intentions are from the start so if you end up hurt, you have no one else to blame but yourself.

“A Mask of My Own Face”—another interesting one! Unusual instruments, strong beat. They’re singing about how they have a desire to pretend to be someone else while secretly still being themselves. “I’d rob my own apartment and I wouldn’t give a damn; I’d blame it on the person that nobody knows I am”—implying they have no regard for their own livelihood and are just out to have some fun. Plus, that no one would be aware it’s all an act. “I'd wear it on Thanksgiving and I'd laugh in the parade; At all the people hissing, knowing I'm the one they hate”—they take delight in the idea of upsetting others and them not knowing it’s actually the singer that they should be hissing. “And at the big finale I would tear my face away; And smile as they grip their own and try to do the same”—everyone wears masks, and this person implies that their mask and their true self is not different from each other while others’ are.

“Stardust Crusaders”—soundtrack from Jojo. Action-packed? idk never seen it sorry lol

“I Can’t Decide”—oh, this one’s a doozy! One of the ones that do not fit c!Ranboo at all, but that’s what makes it interesting. A classic, the singer is out to have fun, very lighthearted and yet they’re singing about murder. The protagonist here is clearly mentally unwell and they’re indecisive whether they should let their enemy/toy/(up to interpretation) live or not. Some curious lines:

- “It’s not easy having yourself a good time”—in the context of the song, that “good time” implies something wicked.

- “I’m not a gangster tonight, don’t wanna be the bad guy, I’m just a loner, baby, and now you’ve got in my way”—they don’t view themselves as “bad”, however, the next two lines are paradoxal—the singer says they’re alone and yet decide to “mess around” with whoever comes up in their life.

- “No wonder why my heart feels dead inside, it’s hard and cold and petrified”—signifying lack of empathy.

- “It’s a bitch convincing people to like you”—they don’t actually want to do that and see it as a bother.

“Stranded Lullaby”—back to Miracle Musical, back to the theme of isolation. Super lyrical, super musical. They talk about how their memories float around aimlessly in their head, a sea, and may sometimes get lost. The protagonist, a sailor, is losing touch with reality and can’t tell apart what’s a dream anymore and what’s not. They question what they’re going through and why.

“Hidden In The Sand”—a song about longing, in my eyes. The protagonist sings about how “you” love things and how he wishes to love the same things, in the end admitting that “all I’ve wanted was you”. They don’t wish to be separated, they wish to have someone in their life that they could love.

“Now I’m Here”—euphoric. They sing about how they’re alive again, thanks to one specific person. I’m not gonna go too much into this one (partly because it’s a more difficult one for me again, partly because it’s Queen and I don’t wanna uhh talk nonsense on accident lol), but what I got from it is that when one one else saw them, someone did, and they made them “live again”, and now as a result the protagonist is devoted to them.

“&”—really highlights Tally Hall’s album’s theme of black and white and that there shouldn’t be a divide. The repetition of comparing opposites is present throughout the entire song (Weak & Strong & Wet & Dry…) and it’s heavily implied we should “say goodnight” to this mindset. But people love to choose sides, put things into good or bad categories. By the line “They took a lesson from their fathers” it’s implied that people don’t develop this mindset by themselves and are rather influenced by others around them. The whole album is titled “Good & Evil” and Tally Hall examines and criticizes this idea. If we keep dividing people into good and bad, eventually, we’ll all destroy ourselves.

“I’m Gonna Win”—a song about someone who’s struggling to get by. “Sometimes it can seem like a merciless dream”—life can get really hard and the protagonist wonders “what’s really worthwhile”. In the chorus, whoever, they declare that they’re “gonna win” no matter what. They might get “bloody and bruised” but they won’t give up until they “won’t be abused” and until they’re “laughing alone”. No matter how hard life/others kick them down, they’ll keep going. By the lines “It’s hard to be charming and smart and disarming; It’s hard to pretend you’re the best; It’s hard to fulfill everyone’s expectations; It’s hard to keep up with the rest” it’s implied that they find it tiresome to keep up appearances and be liked. It’s challenging to always fit everyone’s expectations, but they’ll continue doing whatever they have to to “win”.

if ranboo ever adds more songs to his playlist, i may add them here too :) 

#dsmp #ranboo #dream smp analysis #ranboo analysis #song analysis #my analysis #ranboo ily ur taste is amazing brrr #this was a lot of fun but took so long rip #i knew like 90% of these lol

[path-of-my-childhood]

How Aaron Dessner and Taylor Swift Stripped Down Her Sound on ‘Folklore’

By: Jon Blistein for Rolling Stone Date: July 24th 2020

At the beginning of March, the National’s Aaron Dessner traveled back to the United States from Paris, where he’d been living with his family, to shack up at Sonic Ranch Studio in Tornillo, Texas to work on the next Big Red Machine album with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Those plans - obviously - soon shifted, as the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic set in. Dessner and his family were able to relocate to their home in upstate New York as lockdown orders went into effect, and the musician soon settled into a groove of homeschooling his kids and able to focus fully on music in a way he hadn’t in a while, due to the National’s regularly rigorous touring schedule.

In the middle of what Dessner describes as one of the most productive moments of his career, Taylor Swift called. A longtime and avowed fan of the National, Swift asked if Dessner wanted to try collaborating on a few songs remotely. He said of course, and asked if she was looking for anything in particular. He noted that he had plenty of material at the ready, but acknowledged he’d been in a more experimental mood, due to the Big Red Machine sessions; not to mention, Dessner added, he’d never really ventured into the pop world Swift has dominated for well over a decade. She told him to send everything he had.

“I think she was interested in the emotions that she feels in some of the music that I’ve made,” Dessner tells Rolling Stone.” So I just sent her a folder of things I’d done recently and was excited about. Hours after, she sent back a fully written version of ‘Cardigan.’ It was like a lightning bolt struck the house.”

Over the next few months, Dessner and Swift crafted the bulk of Swift’s eighth studio album, Folklore. Dessner spoke with Rolling Stone about working with Swift, their instant chemistry, how the album developed under a thick cloud of secrecy and more.

When Taylor first reached out, did she have a specific vision in mind for the album? She was a bit cryptic. I didn’t know that we were actually working on a record for quite a while. It just seemed that she was seeking me out to collaborate. And then we were both feeling very inspired by it. Once there were six or seven songs that we had written over a couple of weeks, she said, “Hey can we talk?” Then she said, ‘This is what I’m imagining,’ and started to tell me about the concept of Folklore. Then she mentioned that she’d written some songs at an earlier stage with Jack [Antonoff], and they felt like they really fit together with what we were doing. It was a very inspiring, exhilarating collaborative process that was almost entirely remote. Very sort of warp speed, but also something about it felt like we were going toe-to-toe and in a good pocket.

After “Cardigan,” how did these songs develop and do you think she pushed you in any new directions as a songwriter? When you’re working with someone new, it takes a second to understand their instincts and range. It’s not really conscious. She wrote “Cardigan,” and then “Seven,” then “Peace.” They kind of set a road map, because “Cardigan” was this kind of experimental ballad, the closest thing to a pop song on the record, but it’s not really. It’s this emotional thing, but it has some strange sounds in it. “Seven” is this kind of nostalgic, emotional folk song. Even before she sang to it, I felt this nostalgia, wistful feeling in it, and I think that’s what she gravitated towards. And “Peace,” that just showed me the incredible versatility that she had. That song is just three harmonized bass lines and a pulse. I love to play bass like that - play one line then harmonize another, and another, which is a behavior I stole from Justin Vernon, because he’s done that on other things we’ve done together. And actually, that’s his pulse, he sent me that pulse and said, “Do something with this.” But when she wrote that song, which kind of reminds me of a Joni Mitchell song over a harmonized bassline and a pulse, that was kind of like, “Woah, anything can happen here.” That’s not easy to do. 

So, in the morning I would wake up and try to be productive. “Mad Woman” is one I wrote shortly after that, in terms of sound world, felt very related to “Cardigan” and “Seven.” I do have a way of playing piano where it’s very melodic and emotional, but then often it’s great if whoever’s singing doesn’t sing exactly what’s in the piano melody, but maybe it’s connected in some way. There was just some chemistry happening with her and how she was relating to those ideas.

“Epiphany” was something she had an idea for, and then I imagined these glacial, Icelandic sounds with distended chords and this almost classical feeling. That was another one where we wrote it and conceived it together. She just has a very instinctive and sharp musical mind, and she was able to compose so closely to what I was presenting. What I was doing was clicking for her. It was exhilarating for us, and it was surreal - we were shocked by it, to be honest [Laughs]. I think the warmth, humanity and raw energy of her vocals, and her writing on this record, from the very first voice memos - it was all there.

Do you think that chemistry might’ve had something to do with her being a National fan, and you being a fan of her music? We met Taylor at Saturday Night Live in 2014, or whenever that was that we played and Lena Dunham was hosting. We got to meet her, and that was our first brush with a bona fide pop star. But then she came to see us play in Brooklyn last summer and was there in a crazy rainstorm, like torrential downpour, and watched the whole show and stayed for a long time afterwards, talking to me and my brother. She was incredibly charming and humble. That’s the nice thing about her, and a lot of people I’ve met that have that kind of celebrity. It’s great when you can just tune it out and be normal people and chat, and that’s how that felt. So, we knew that she was a big fan, and we really got into the 1989 album. Our Icelandic collaborator, Ragnar Kjartansson, is a crazy Swiftie. So we’ve kind of lived vicariously through him. I’ve always been astonished by how masterful she is in her craft. I’ve always listened to her albums and put them in this rarefied category, like, “How did she do that? How does anybody do that? How do you make ‘Blank Space?’” There was an element that was intimidating at first, where it just took me a second to be like… Not because I think her music is better than what we’ve done, but it’s just a different world.

Were there particular songs, albums or artists the two of you discussed as reference points for this album? “Betty,” which is a song she wrote with William Bowery, she was interested in sort of early Bob Dylan, like Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, I think. “Epiphany,” early on, felt like some weird Kate Bush-meets-Peter Gabriel thing. I think we talked a little about those things, but not a lot. Actually, I think she really trusted me as far as my instincts to where the music would ultimately go, and also the mixing process.  We really wanted to keep her voice as human, and kind of the opposite of plastic, as possible. That was a bit of a battle. Because everything in pop music tends to be very carved out, a smiley face, and as pushed as possible so that it translates to the radio or wherever you hear it. That can also happen with a National song - like if you changed how these things are mixed, they wouldn’t feel like the same song. And she was really trusting and heard it herself. She would make those calls herself, also.

You mentioned William Bowery - who is he? He’s a songwriter, and actually because of social distancing, I’ve never met him. He actually wrote the original idea for “Exile,” and then Taylor took it and ran with it. I don’t actually know to be totally honest.

We’ve been trying to track him down, he doesn’t have much of an internet presence. Yeah, I don’t fully know him, other than he wrote “Betty” and “Exile” with her. But you know she’s a very collaborative person, so it was probably some songwriter.

So it’s not an alias for anyone? No, no, no. I mean, I don’t know - she didn’t tell me there was a “Cardigan” video until literally it came out, and I wrote the song with her [laughs]. So I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure he’s an actual songwriter. She enjoys little mysteries.

With the National, you and your brother write the music, Matt Berninger adds the lyrics, and then you fuse it - was it a similar process on Folklore? Taylor is very collaborative in that sense that, whenever she sent a voice memo, she would send all the lyrics and then ask me what I thought. And sometimes we would debate certain lines, although generally she’s obviously a strong writer. So she would ask me if I liked one line, and she would give me alternate lines and I would give her my opinion. And then when she was actually tracking vocals, I would sometimes suggest things or miss things, but she definitely has a lot of respect for the collaborative process and wants whoever she’s writing with to feel deeply included in that process. It was nice, and was a back and forth, for sure. And she would sometimes have ideas about the production if she didn’t like something, especially. She would, in a tactful way, bring that up. I appreciated that, too, since I wanted to try to turn over every leaf, take risks and sometimes get it wrong. That always takes a second, to get over and then you start again.

You mentioned earlier that once you had six, seven songs, she was able to describe a concept behind the album. I’m curious what that conversation was like. She would always explain what each song was about to me, even before she articulated the Folklore concept. And I could tell early on that they were these narrative songs, often told from a different… not in the first person. So there are different characters in the songs that appear in others. You may have a character in “Betty” that’s also related to one in “Cardigan,” for example. And I think that was, in her mind, very, very important. It doesn’t seem like, for this record at least, that she was inspired to write something until she really knew what it was about. And I think I’m used to a more - at least lately - impressionistic and experimental world of making stuff without really knowing what it is. But this was more direct, in that sense. That was really helpful, to know what it was about and it would guide some of the choices we were making.

Every time she would send something, she would narrate a little bit, like how it fit, or what it was about. And then when she told me about Folklore as a concept, it made so much sense. Like “The Last Great American Dynasty,” for example, this kind of narrative song that then becomes personal at the end - it flips and she enters the song. These are kind of these folkloric, almost mythical tales that are woven in of childhood, lost love, and different sentiments across the record. It was binding it all together and I think it’s personal, but also through the guise of other people, friends and loved ones.

You were working in secret - how did that affect the process? Was that a difficult burden? It was. I was humbled and honored and grateful for the opportunity and for the crazy sort of alchemy we were having. But it was hard not to be able to talk openly with my usual collaborators, even my brother at first. I didn’t know if I could really tell him, because we normally… Ultimately, he helped me quite a bit, he orchestrated songs. But we always help each other. But eventually, we figured out how to do it. Towards the end of the process, I said to Taylor, ‘I really feel that I need to try a few experiment and try to elevate a few moments on the record because we have time, and we’ve really done a ton of work here, and it all sounds great, but I think we can go even further.’ And then she said, ‘Well what does that mean?’ And I explained how that would work, and the way that we work. Our process is very community-oriented, and we have long-time collaborators that we have a good understanding with. So I was able to say, to my friends, ‘This is a song I’m working on, I can’t send it to you with the vocals, and I can’t tell you what it is, but I can explain what I’m imagining.’ And the same with my brother, he knows my music so well that that was very easy for him to just take things that we were working on, add to that, and do his kind of work. So it was all remote and everyone was in their corner and we were shipping things around. It was incredibly fast because of that, because you didn’t have eight people needing to come to the studio. You had eight people working simultaneously - one in France and one in L.A. and one in Brooklyn. This is how it went, and it was fun. We got there.

When were you able to tell everyone who contributed that this was the Taylor Swift record, what was their reaction? You can imagine. I think they realized it was something big because [of] the confidentiality, and they were like, ‘It could only be a few things.’ I couldn’t tell them until, basically, when she announced it. Just in the moments after she announced it, I basically told everyone. I was like, ‘By the way…’ And they were thrilled. Everyone’s thrilled. Nobody seemed mad, everyone was thrilled and honored. Even Justin Vernon had not heard anything else except “Exile,” even though the pulse of that song “Peace,” he gave that song to me. It was important to have it be a surprise, and you know how it can be with someone in her position, with all the speculation, and she’s always under a lot of pressure like that. So it was really important to the creative freedom she was feeling that this remained a secret, so she could just do what we were doing.

Being such longtime friends and collaborators with Justin, what was it like hearing “Exile” for the first time? His voice and Taylor’s together? He’s so versatile and has such a crazy range, and puts so much emotion… Every time he sings when I’m in his presence, my head just kind of hits the back of the wall. That’s the same on this song. William Bowery and Taylor wrote that song together, got it to a certain point, then I sort of interpreted it and developed a recording of it, and then Taylor tracked both the male and female parts. And then we sent it to Justin and he re-did obviously the male parts and changed a few things and also added his own: He wrote the “step right out” part of the bridge, and Taylor re-sang to that. You feel like, in a weird way, you’re watching two of the greatest songwriters and vocalists of our generation collaborating. I was facilitating it and making it happen, and playing all the music. But it was definitely a “Wow.” I was just a fan at that point, seeing it happen.

Are there any moments that really stick out to you as particularly pivotal in shaping the sound of this record? The initial response. When we first connected, and I sent a folder of music and Taylor wrote “Cardigan,” and she said, “This is abnormal. Why do you have all these songs that are so emotional and so moving to me? This feels fated.” And then she just dove into it and embraced this emotional current. And I hope that’s what people take out of it: The humanity in her writing and melodies. It’s a different side to her. She could have been every bit as successful just making these kinds of songs, but it’s so great that she’s also made everything that she’s ever made, and this is a really interesting shift, and an emotional one. It also opens other doors, because now it’s kind of like she can go wherever she wants, creatively. The pressure to make a certain kind of… bop - or whatever you want to call it - is not there really anymore. And I think that’s really liberating, and I hope her fans and the world are excited by that because I am. It’s really special.

#Aaron Dessner #interview #about taylor #taylor swift #Rolling Stone magazine #folklore album #folklore era #songwriter #coronavirus #release week

[star-anise]

Can you please explain more about why minor chords and medieval european settings don't mix? I had only ever learned a bit about this, and what I learned had said that the church banned the use of minor chords. However, this to me does not mean that minor chords are out of place. Medieval europe had plenty of "screw the church I'll do this", even if in quiet and subtle ways, which to me "using a minor chord" sounds like one of? But I don't know a lot about the subject so I'd love to learn more!

It’s more that minor chords as we know them didn’t exist yet. The book is set in the 1130s; Christian polyphony was in its infancy inside the Church and had gotten as far as “a melody against a fixed drone” and “a melody and the same melody a perfect interval lower.”  The next development in polyphony wouldn’t happen until the Notre Dame school of polyphony got going 30 years later. 

The musician is a blind laywoman who learned to sing and play by ear and has never been in a musical ensemble. Harmony just wouldn’t be on her radar. (I’ve been watching my nephews take piano lessons, and their teachers have to turn absolute backflips to make Western harmonic concepts like chords and scales intuitive and fun. These kids are like, “We don’t want to learn what G Minor is! We just want to play the melody! Stop making us learn music theory mean teachers!” and I have to explain, as someone raised on the Orff method, what an advantage their education is if you ever want to collaborate with other musicians. So seriously, unless you’re destined to sing in a huge choir or play with an orchestra or something, why not just focus on a single melodic line, and sing and play the same melody together?)

You can do really amazing things with monophony! Traditional Middle Eastern music doesn’t use harmony the way Western music does, and it doesn’t mean their music isn’t awesome or doesn’t show incredible amounts of skill:

It’s just one of those little blips that shows the author isn’t deep into the history of early music, and just assumes that of course when her character learned the lute, she learned harmonies and chords. I got confused on this myself, because 12th century troubadour lyrics mention “the chords I play” or “the sounds of my chords”, but in that context they literally mean cords, the strings of their instrument. It’s just that back then, playing “a chord” meant playing a single note, not several at once.

So in the context of the book, instead of saying “she played a few minor chords” it would just be “she played a sad little melody” or something.  A minor issue! But it came right after I’d spent a lot of time reading and talking about music history, so it hit me like (ha ha) a discordant note.

#medievalism #music history #thecricketconfusion

[foreverdavidbyrne]

David Byrne’s interview in NME magazine

In 1979, David Byrne predicted Netflix. “It’ll be as easy to hook your computer up to a central television bank as it is to get the week’s groceries,” he told NME’s Max Bell, sitting in a Paris hotel considering the implications of Talking Heads’ dystopian single ‘Life During Wartime’.

He predicted the Apple Watch in that interview too: “[People will] be surrounded by computers the size of wrist watches.” And he foresaw surveillance culture and data harvesting: “Government surveillance becomes inevitable because there’s this dilemma when you have an increase in information storage. A lot of it is for your convenience, but as more information gets on file, it’s bound to be misused.”

In fact, over 40 years ago, he predicted the entire modern-day experience, as if he instinctively knew what was coming. “We’ll be cushioned by amazing technological development,” he said, “but sitting on Salvation Army furniture.”

The 68-year-old Byrne says today, “You can’t say that you know,” chuckling down a Zoom link from his home in New York and belying his reputation for awkwardness by seeming giddily relieved to be talking to someone. “It’s crazy to set yourself up as some sort of prophet. But there’s plenty of people who have done well with books where they claim to predict what’s going on. I suppose sometimes it’s possible to let yourself imagine, ‘Okay – what if?’ This can evolve into something that exists, can evolve into something more substantial, cheaper – these kinds of things.”

It’s been a lifelong gift. Byrne turned up at CBGBs in 1975 with his art school band Talking Heads touting ‘Psycho Killer’, as if predicting the punk scene’s angular melodic evolution, new wave, before punk was even called punk. In 1980, Talking Heads assimilated African beats and textures into their seminal ‘Remain In Light’ album, foreshadowing ‘world music’ and modern music’s globalist melting pot, then used it to warn America of the dangers of consumerism, selfishness and the collapse of civilisation. Pioneering or propheteering, Byrne has been on the front-line of musical evolution for 45 years, collaborating with fellow visionaries from Brian Eno to St Vincent’s Annie Clark, constantly imagining, ‘What if?’

The live music lockdown has been a frustrating freeze frame, but Byrne was already leading the way into music’s new normal. Launched in 2018, the tour to support his 10th solo album, ‘American Utopia’, has now turned into a cinematic marvel courtesy of Spike Lee – the concert film was released in the UK this week. The original tour was acclaimed as a live music revolution. Using remote technology, Byrne was able to remove all of the traditional equipment clutter from the stage and allow his musicians and dancers, in uniform grey suits and barefoot, to roam around a stage lined with curtains of metal chains with their instruments strapped to them. A Marshally distanced gig, if you will.

“As the show was conceptually coming together, I realised that once we had a completely empty stage the rulebook has now been thrown out,” Byrne says. “Now we can go anywhere and do anything. This is completely liberating. It means that people like drummers, for example, who are usually relegated to the back shadows, can now come to the front – all those kinds of things – which changes the whole dynamic.”

With six performers making up an entire drum kit and Byrne meandering through the choreography trying to navigate a nonsensical world, the show was his most striking and original since he jerked and jived around a constructed-mid-gig band set-up in Jonathan Demme’s legendary 1984 Talking Heads live film Stop Making Sense.

The American Utopia show embarked on a Broadway run last year, where Byrne super-fan Spike Lee saw it twice and leapt at the chance of turning the spectacle into Byrne’s second revolutionary live film, dotted with his musings on the human condition to illuminate the crux of the songs: institutional racism, our lack of modern connection, the erosion of democracy and, on opener ‘Here’, a lecture-like tour of the human brain, Byrne holding aloft a scale model, trying to fathom, ‘How do I work this?’

“I didn’t know how much of a fan Spike was!” Byrne laughs today. “He’d even go, ‘Why don’t you do this song? Why don’t you add this song in’. We knew one another casually so I could text him and say, ‘I want you to come and see our show; I think that you might be interested in making a film of it’.”

Are the days of the traditional stage set-up numbered? “Yes, I think so,” he replies. “At least in theatres and concert halls the size that I would normally play, yes. The fact that we can get the music digitally [means] a performance has to be really of value. It has to be really something special, because that’s where the performers are getting their money and that’s what the audience is paying for. They’re not paying very much for streaming music, but they are paying quite a bit to go and see a performance, so the performance has to give them value for money… It has to be really something to see.”

How does David Byrne envisage the future possibilities of live performance?

“I’ve seen a lot of things that hip-hop artists have done – like the Kanye West show where he emerges on a platform that floats above the stage,” he says. “I’d seen one with Kendrick Lamar where it was pretty much just him on stage, an empty stage with just him on stage and a DJ, somebody with a laptop – that was it. I thought, ‘Wow’. Then he started doing things with huge projections behind. There are lots of ways to do this. I love the idea of working with a band, with live musicians. ‘How can I innovate in this kind of way?’ It’s maybe easier for a hip-hop musician who doesn’t have a band to figure out. The pressure is on to come up with new ways of doing this.”

In liberating his musicians from fixed, immovable positions, American Utopia also acts as a metaphor for freeing our minds from our own ingrained ways of thinking. As Byrne intersperses Talking Heads classics such as ‘Once In A Lifetime’, ‘I Zimbra’ and ‘Road To Nowhere’ with choice solo cuts and tracks from ‘American Utopia’, he also dots the show with musings on an array of post-millennial questions: the health of democracy; the rise of xenophobia and fascism; our increasing reliance on materialism and online communication; the climate change threat; the existential nightmare of the dating app; and, crucially, the distances all of these things put between us.

“The ‘likes’ and friends and connections and everything that the internet enables,” he argues, “even Zoom calls like this, they’re no substitute for really being with other people. Calling social networks ‘social’ is a bit of an exaggeration.”

Byrne closes the show with the suggestion that, rather than isolate behind our LCD barriers, we should try to reconnect with each other. In an age when social media has descended into all-out thought war and anyone can find concocted ‘facts’ to support anything they want to believe, is that realistic?

“I have a little bit of hope,” he says. “Not every day, but some days. I have hope that people will abandon a lot of social media, that they’ll realise how intentionally addictive it is, and they’re actually being used, and that they might enjoy actually being with other people rather than just constantly scrolling through their phone. So, I’m a little bit optimistic that people will, in some ways, use this technology a little bit less than they have.”

A key moment in American Utopia comes with Byrne’s cover of Janelle Monae’s ‘Hell You Talmbout’, a confrontational track shouting the names of African-Americans who have been killed by police or in racially motivated attacks – Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd and far, far too many more. Does Byrne think the civil unrest in the wake of Floyd’s death and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement make a serious impact?

“We’ll see how long this continues,” he says, “but in projects that I’m working on – there’s a theatre project I’m working on in Denver, there’s the idea of bringing this show back to Broadway, there’s other projects – those issues came to the fore. Issues of diversity and inclusion and things like that, which were always there. Now they’re being taken more seriously. The producers and theatre owners realise that they can’t push those things aside, that they have to be included in the whole structure of how a show gets put together.”

“At least for now, that seems to be a big change. I see it in TV shows and other areas too. There’s a lot of tokenism, but there’s a lot of real opportunity and changed thinking as well.”

Elsewhere, he encourages his audience to register to vote, and had registration booths at the shows. He must have been pleased about the record turnout in the recent US election? “Yeah, the turnout was great. Now you just got to keep doing that. Gotta keep doing it at all the local elections, too. It was important for me not to endorse a political party or anything in the show but to say, ‘Listen, we can’t have a democracy if you don’t vote. You have to get out there and let your voice be heard and there’s lots of people trying to block it.’ We have to at least try.”

Will Trump’s loss help bring people together after four years with such a divisive influence in charge?

“Yes. I think for me Trump was not so much a shock; we knew who he is. He was around New York before that, in the reality show [The Apprentice], we knew what kind of character he was. What shocked me was how quickly the Republican party all fell into line behind him, behind this guy who’s obviously a racist, misogynist liar and everything else. But it’s kind of encouraging – although it’s taken four years and with some it’s only with the prospect of him being gone – that quite a few have been breaking ranks. There are some possibilities of bridge building being held out.”

But, he says, “It’s too early to celebrate,” concerned that Senate Majority Leader and fairweather Trump loyalist Mitch McConnell will use any Republican control of the Senate to block many of Biden’s policies from coming into effect. “[This] is what happened with Obama… I want to see real change happen. [Climate change] absolutely needs to be a priority. The clock had turned back over the last four years, so there’s a lot to be done. Whether there’s the willpower to do everything that needs to be done, it remains to be seen, but at least now it’s pointing in the right direction.”

How will he look back on the last four years? Byrne ponders. “I’m hoping that I look back at it as a near-miss.”

American Utopia is as much a personal journey as a dissection of modern ills. Ahead of ‘Everybody’s Coming To My House’, Byrne admits to being a rather socially awkward type. He claims that a choir of Detroit teenagers, when singing the song for the accompanying video, had imbued the song with a far more welcoming message than his own rendition, which found him wracked with the fear that his visitors might never leave. How does someone like that deal with celebrity?

“In a certain way it’s a blessing,” Byrne grins, “because I don’t have to go up to people to talk to them – they sometimes come up to me. In other ways it’s a little bit awkward. Celebrity itself seems very superficial and I have to constantly remind myself that your character, your behaviour and the work that you do is what’s important – not how well known you are, not this thing of celebrity. I learned early on it’s pretty easy to get carried away. But it does have its advantages. I had Spike Lee’s phone number, so I could text him.”

Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz’s recent book Remain In Love suggests that the more successful Byrne got early on, the more distant he became.

Byrne nods. “I haven’t read the book, but I know that as we became more successful I definitely used some of that to be able to work on other projects. I worked on a dance score with [American choreographer] Twyla Tharp and I worked on a theatre piece with [director] Robert Wilson – other kinds of things – [and] I started working on directing some of the band’s music videos. So I guess I spent less time just hanging out. As often happens with bands, you start off being all best friends and doing everything together and after a while that gets to be a bit much. Everybody develops their own friends and it’s like, ‘I have my own friends too’. Everybody starts to have their own lives.”

The future is far too enticing for David Byrne to consider revisiting the past. “I do live alone so sometimes it would get lonely”, he says of lockdown, but he’s been using his Covid downtime to cycle around undiscovered areas of New York and remain philosophical about the aftermath.

“We’ll see how long before the vaccine is in, before we return to being able to socialise,” he says, “but I’m also wondering, ‘How am I going to look at this year? Am I going to look at it as, “Oh yes, that’s the year that was to some extent taken away from our lives; our lives were put on pause?”’ We kept growing; we kept ageing; we keep eating, but it was almost like this barrier had been put up. It has been a period where, in a good way, it’s led us to question a lot of what we do. You get up in the morning and go, ‘Why am I doing this? What am I doing this for? What’s this about?’ Everything is questioned.”

Post-vaccine, he hopes to “travel a little bit” before looking into plans to bring the ‘American Utopia’ show back to Broadway, and possibly even to London if the financial aspects can be worked out. “Often when a show like that travels, the lead actors might travel,” Byrne explains, “but in this case it’s the entire cast that has to travel. So you’ve got a lot of hotel bills and all that kind of stuff. We wanted to do it. There might be a way, if we can figure that out.”

Once we all get our jab, will everyone come to recognise that, as Byrne sings on ‘American Utopia’s most inspiring track, ‘Every Day Is A Miracle’? “Optimistically, maybe,” he says. “There will be a lot of people who will just go, ‘Let’s get back to normal – get out to the bars, the clubs and discos’. That’s already been happening in New York; there’s been these underground parties where people just can’t help themselves. But after all this it’d be nice to think that people might reassess things a little bit.”

And with the algorithm as the new gatekeeper and technology beginning to subsume the sounds and consumption of music, what does the new wave Nostradamus foresee for rock in the coming decades? Will AIs soon be writing songs for other AIs to consume to inflate the numbers, cutting humanity out of the equation altogether?

“It seems like there’ll be a kind of factory,” Byrne predicts, “an AI factory of things like that, and of newspaper articles and all of this kind of stuff, and it will just exaggerate and duplicate human biases and weaknesses and stupidity. On the other hand, I was part of a panel a while back, and a guy told a story about how his listening habits were Afrofuturism and ambient music – those were his two favourite ways to go. The algorithm tried to find commonalities between the two so it could recommend things to him and he said it was hopeless. Everything it recommended was just horrible because it tried to find commonalities between these two very separate things. This just shows that we’re a little more eclectic than these machines would like to think.”

And in the distant future? Best prepare to welcome your new gloop overlords. Byrne isn’t concerned about The Singularity – the point at which machine intelligence supersedes ours and AI becomes God – but instead believes that future technologies will emulate microbial forms.

“I watched a documentary on slime moulds [a simple slimy organism] the other day,” he says, warming to his sticky theme. “Slime moulds are actually extremely intelligent for being a single-celled organism. They can build networks and bunches of them can communicate. They can learn, they have memories, they can do all these kinds of things that you wouldn’t expect a single-celled organism to be able to do.”

“I started thinking, ‘Well, is there a lesson there for AI and machine learning, of how all these emerging properties could be done with something as simple as a single cell?’ It’s all in there… when things interact, they become greater than the sum of their parts. I thought, okay, maybe the future of AI is not in imitating human brains, but imitating these other kinds of networks, these other kinds of intelligences. Forget about imitating human intelligence – there’s other kinds of intelligence out there, and that might be more fruitful. But I don’t know where that leads.”

His grin says he does know, that he has a vision of our icky soup-world future, but maybe the rest of the species isn’t yet advanced enough to handle it. But if we’re evolving towards disaster rather than utopia, we can trust David Byrne to give us plenty of warning.

December 18, 2020

#david byrne #talking heads #music #new wave #post-punk #art pop #avant funk #worldbeat #interview #nme magazine #2020

[dweemeister]

Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959, India)

Almost a quarter of the way through the twenty-first century, globalization has pierced the remotest corners of the planet. The examples academics and politicians cite demonstrating this globalization are almost always economic, but the most profound examples are cultural. Once known only in South Asia, Indian cinema has burst onto a global stage. Its stars and its most popular directors seem larger than life. Reading on some of modern Bollywood’s (Hindi-language cinema) personalities, I find few of their biographies compelling beyond their unquestionable status as South Asian and international celebrities – I won’t name names here because that is for another time. That is partly a result of not watching enough Bollywood films. It is also because I am making unconscious comparisons between those modern actors to actor-director Guru Dutt. Dutt was a tragic romantic – off- and on-screen – to the point where those personas can become indistinguishable.

As an actor, Dutt can be as charming a romantic male lead as anyone, as well as lend a film the dramatic gravitas it needs. As a director, he refined his sweeping visuals and theatrical flairs over time. That artistic development culminated with Pyaasa (1957) and his final directorial effort, Kaagaz Ke Phool (“Paper Flowers” in English). The latter film is the subject of this piece. Both films elevate themselves to a cinematic altitude few movies anywhere, anytime ever accomplish. They are, for lack of a better word, operatic* – in aesthetic, emotion, storytelling, tone. In Kaagaz Ke Phool, Dutt once again lays bare his artistic soul in what will be his final directed work.

An old man enters a film studio’s empty soundstage, climbs onto the rafters, and gazes wistfully at the darkened workspace below. We learn that this is Suresh Sinha (Dutt), a film director whose illustrious past exists only in old film stock. The film is told in flashback, transporting to a time when his marriage to Bina (Veena) is endangered – the parents-in-law disdain his film work as disreputable to their social class – and he is embarking upon an ambitious production of Devdas (a Bengali romance novel that is among the most adapted pieces of Indian literature to film, the stage, and television). He is having difficulty finding someone to play Paro, the female lead. Due to this conflict, Bima has also forbidden their teenage daughter, Pammi (Kumari Naaz), from seeing Suresh. Pammi is sent to a boarding school far from Delhi (where Bima and her parents reside) and further from Mumbai (where Suresh works), without any sufficient explanations of the spousal strife.

One rainy evening, Suresh generously provides his coat to a woman, Shanti (an excellent Waheeda Rehman). The next day, Shanti arrives at the film studio looking to return the coat. Not knowing anything about film production, she accidentally steps in front of the camera while it is rolling – angering the crew who are tiring of yet another production mishap. Later, while viewing the day’s rushes, Suresh casts Shanti as Paro after witnessing her accidental, but remarkable, screen presence. She achieves cinematic stardom; Suresh and Shanti become intimate. When the tabloid gossip eventually reaches Mumbai and Pammi’s boarding school, it leads to the ruin of all.

What did you expect from an operatic film – a happy ending?

Also starring in the film are Johnny Walker (as Suresh’s brother-in-law, “Rocky”) and Minoo Mumtaz (as a veterinarian). Walker and Mumtaz’s roles are vestigial to Kaagaz Ke Phool. Their romantic subplot is rife with the potential for suggestive humor (she is a horse doctor), but the screenplay never justifies their inclusion in the film.

Shot on CinemaScope lens licensed by 20th Century Fox to Dutt’s production company, Kaagaz Ke Phool is Dutt’s only film shot in letterboxed widescreen. From the onset of his directorial career and his close collaboration with cinematographer V.K. Murthy, Dutt exemplifies an awesome command of tonal transition and control. Murthy’s dollying cameras intensify emotion upon approach: anguish, contempt, sober realization. These techniques render these emotions painfully personal, eliminating the necessity of a few lines of dialogue or supplemental motion from the actor. The effect can be uncomfortable to those who have not fully suspended their disbelief in the plot or the songs that are sung at the time. But to the viewers that have accepted that Dutt’s films exist in a reality where songs about infatuation, love, loss, and regret are sung spontaneously (and where revelations are heard in stillness), this is part of the appeal. Dutt and Murthy’s lighting also assists in directing the narrative and setting mood: a lashing rainstorm signaling a chance meeting that seals the protagonists’ fates, the uncharacteristically film noir atmosphere of the soundstage paints moviemaking as unglamorous, and a beam of light during a love melody evokes unspoken attraction. That final example represents the pinnacle of Dutt and Murthy’s teamwork (more on this later).

As brilliant as his films (including this) may be, Dutt suffered during mightily during Kaagaz Ke Phool’s production. In writings about Dutt, one invariably encounters individuals who believe Dutt’s life confirms that suffering leads to great art. Though I think it best to retire that aphorism so as not to romanticize pain, I believe that the reverse is true with Guru Dutt – his later directing career contributed to his personal tribulations. In some ways, that suffering informed his approach to what I consider an informal semiautobiographical trilogy of his films: Mr. & Mrs. ’55 (1955), Pyaasa, and Kaagaz Ke Phool. Dutt directed and starred in each of these films. In each film he plays an artist (a cartoonist, poet, and film director, respectively); with each successive film his character begins with a greater reputation, only to fall further than the last. The three Dutt protagonists encounter hardship that do not discriminate by caste, professional success, or wealth.

For Dutt’s Suresh, he is unable to consummate his love for Shanti because the specters of his failed marriage haunt him still. He never speaks to his de facto ex, but marital disappointment lingers. Why does he bother visiting his stuffy in-laws when he knows they will never change their opinions about him? Abrar Alvi’s (the other films in the aforementioned informal Dutt-directed trilogy, 1962’s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam) screenplay is silent on the matter. Also factoring into Suresh’s hesitation is his daughter, Pammi. Pammi is young, looks up to both her parents, and cannot fathom a parent being torn from her life. Her reaction to learning about Shanti implies that neither of her parents have ever truly talked to her about their separation. Pammi does not appear to blame herself, but it seems that her parents – intent on protecting their child, perhaps speaking to her not as a soon-to-be young adult – are loath to maturely talk about the other. In a sense, Pammi has never mourned her parents’ marriage as we see her deny the tabloid reports about Suresh’s affair and express anger towards her father when she learns the truth.

When Suresh’s film after Devdas flops, his film career is in tatters. But Shanti’s popularity is ascendant, creating a dynamic reminiscent of A Star is Born. In a faint reference to Devdas, Kaagaz Ke Phool’s final act contains anxieties about falling into lower classes. If Kaagaz Ke Phool is contemporaneous to its release date, one could also interpret this as concerns about falling within India’s caste system (reformist India in the late 1950s was dipping its toes into criminalizing caste discrimination, which remains prevalent). Suresh’s fall is stratospheric and, in his caste-conscious, masculine pride, he rejects Shanti’s overtures to help him rebuild his life and film career. This tragedy deepens because Shanti’s offer is in response to the contractual exploitation she is enduring. We do not see what becomes of Shanti after her last encounter with Suresh, but his final scenes remind me, again, of opera: the male lead summoning the strength to sing (non-diegetically in Suresh’s case) his parting, epitaphic thoughts moments before the curtain lowers.

Suresh’s and Shanti’s respective suffering was preventable. Whether love may have assuaged his self-pity and alcoholism and her professional disputes is debatable, but one suspects it only could have helped.

Composer S.D. Burman (Pyaasa, 1965’s Guide) and lyricist Kaifi Azmi (1970’s Herr Raanjha, 1974’s Garm Hava) compose seven songs for Kaagaz Ke Phool – all of which elevate the dramatics, but none are as poetic as numbers in previous Dutt films. Comments on two of the most effective songs follow; I did not find myself nearly as moved by the others.

“Dekhi Zamane Ki Yaari” (roughly, “I Have Seen How Deeply Friendship Lies”) appears just after the opening credits, as an older Suresh ascends the soundstage’s stairs to look down on his former domain. The song starts with and is later backed by organ (this is an educated guess, as many classic Indian films could benefit with extensive audio restorations as trying to figure out their orchestrations can be difficult) and is sung non-diegetically by Mohammed Rafi (dubbing for Dutt). A beautiful dissolve during this number smooths the transition into the flashback that will frame the entire film. That technique, combined with “Dekhi Zamane Ki Yaari”, prepares the audience for what could be a somber recollection. However, this is only the first half of a bifurcated song. The melodic and thematic ideas of “Dekhi Zamane Ki Yaari” are completed in the film’s final minutes, “Bichhde Sabhi Baari Baari” (“They All Fall Apart, One by One”; considered by some as a separate song). Together, the musical and narrative arc of this song/these songs form the film’s soul. For such an important musical number, it may have been ideal to incorporate it more into the film’s score, but now I am being picky.

Just over the one-hour mark, “Waqt Ne Kiya Haseen Sitam” (“Time Has Inflicted Such Sweet Cruelty On Us”; non-diegetically sung by Shanti, dubbed by Geeta Dutt, Guru’s wife) heralds the film’s second act – Suresh and Shanti’s simultaneous realization of their unspoken love, and how they are changed irrevocably for having met each other. Murthy’s floating cameras and that piercing beam of light are revelatory. A double exposure during this sequence shows the two characters walking toward each other as their inhibitions stay in place, a breathtaking mise en scène (the arrangement of a set and placement of actors to empower a narrative/visual idea) foreshadowing the rest of the film.

Dutt’s perfectionist approach to Kaagaz Ke Phool fueled a public perception that the film was an indulgent vanity exercise with a tragic ending no one could stomach viewing. Paralleling Suresh and Shanti’s romantic interest in each other in this film, the Indian tabloids were printing stories claiming that Dutt was intimate with co-star Waheeda Rehman and cheating on Geeta Dutt. These factors – perhaps some more than others (I’m not versed on what Bollywood celebrity culture was like in the 1950s, and Pyaasa’s tragic ending didn’t stop audiences from flocking to that film) – led to Kaagaz Ke Phool’s bombing at the box office. Blowing an unfixable financial hole into his production company, Guru Dutt, a man who, “couldn’t digest failure,” never directed another film. Like the character he portrays here, Dutt became an alcoholic and succumbed to depression in the wake of this film’s release. Having dedicated himself entirely to his films, he interpreted any professional failure as a personal failure.

Kaagaz Ke Phool haunts from its opening seconds. Beyond his home country, Dutt would not live to see his final directorial effort become a landmark Bollywood film and his international reputation growing still as cinematic globalization marches forth. Dutt’s most visually refined films, including Kaagaz Ke Phool, are films of subtraction. The cinematography and music make less movement and dialogue preferable. Kaagaz Ke Phool is a film defined about actions that are not taken and scenes that are never shown. The result is not narrative emptiness, but a receptacle of Dutt’s empathy and regrets. Exploring these once-discarded, partially biographic ideas is not for faint hearts.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

* I use this adjective not to reference operatic music, but as an intangible feeling that courses over me when watching a film. Examples of what I would consider to be operatic cinema include: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Taiwan); Greed (1924); The Red Shoes (1948); and The Wind (1928). Some level of melodrama and emotional unpackaging is necessary, but the film need not be large in scope or have musical elements for me to consider it “operatic”.

#Kaagaz Ke Phool #Guru Dutt #Waheeda Rehman #Kumari Naaz #Bollywood #Mehmood #Johnny Walker #Mahesh Kaul #Veena Sapru #Abrar Alvi #V.K. Murthy #S.D. Burman #Mohammad Rafi #Geeta Dutt #Asha Bhosle #My Movie Odyssey

[bananaofswifts]

At the beginning of March, the National’s Aaron Dessner traveled back to the United States from Paris, where he’d been living with his family, to shack up at Sonic Ranch Studio in Tornillo, Texas to work on the next Big Red Machine album with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Those plans — obviously — soon shifted, as the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic set in. Dessner and his family were able to relocate to their home in upstate New York as lockdown orders went into effect, and the musician soon settled into a groove of homeschooling his kids and focusing fully on music in a way he hadn’t in a while, due to the National’s regularly rigorous touring schedule. 

In the middle of what Dessner describes as one of the most productive moments of his career, Taylor Swift called. 

A longtime and avowed fan of the National, Swift asked if Dessner wanted to try collaborating on a few songs remotely. He said of course, and asked if she was looking for anything in particular. He noted that he had plenty of material at the ready, but acknowledged he’d been in a more experimental mood, due to the Big Red Machine sessions; not to mention, Dessner added, he’d never really ventured into the pop world Swift has dominated for well over a decade. She told him to send everything he had. 

“I think she was interested in the emotions that she feels in some of the music that I’ve made,” Dessner tells Rolling Stone.” So I just sent her a folder of things I’d done recently and was excited about. Hours after, she sent back a fully written version of ‘Cardigan.’ It was like a lightning bolt struck the house.” 

Over the next few months, Dessner and Swift crafted the bulk of Swift’s eighth studio album, Folklore, which was released today, July 24th, after being announced the day before. Folklore is yet another mesmerizing musical move from Swift — a shift in sound, style and palette towards a vaster indie sound (à la, of course, the National) that still feels distinctly Swift-ian, as if she’s been making music like this her whole career. Lyrically, too, the record finds Swift playing with character and myth in new ways that — befitting the album’s title — recall the great American folk tradition. 

Dessner wasn’t the album’s only collaborator; Swift wrote several songs with regular producer Jack Antonoff, as well as songwriter named William Bowery, who doesn’t seem to have much of an internet footprint. Vernon also contributed to two songs, singing on one of the album’s many stunners, “Exile,” while Dessner’s brother and National bandmate, Bryce Dessner, helped orchestrate it with a mix of musicians scattered around the globe (none of whom even knew what they were playing on when they recorded their parts).

Dessner spoke with Rolling Stone about working with Swift, their instant chemistry, how the album developed under a thick cloud of secrecy and more.

When Taylor first reached out, did she have a specific vision in mind for the album? 
She was a bit cryptic. I didn’t know that we were actually working on a record for quite a while. It just seemed that she was seeking me out to collaborate. And then we were both feeling very inspired by it. Once there were six or seven songs that we had written over a couple of weeks, she said, “Hey can we talk?” Then she said, ‘This is what I’m imagining,’ and started to tell me about the concept of Folklore. Then she mentioned that she’d written some songs at an earlier stage with Jack [Antonoff], and they felt like they really fit together with what we were doing. It was a very inspiring, exhilarating collaborative process that was almost entirely remote. Very sort of warp speed, but also something about it felt like we were going toe-to-toe and in a good pocket. 

After “Cardigan,” how did these songs develop and do you think she pushed you in any new directions as a songwriter? 
When you’re working with someone new, it takes a second to understand their instincts and range. It’s not really conscious. She wrote “Cardigan,” and then “Seven,” then “Peace.” They kind of set a road map, because “Cardigan” was this kind of experimental ballad, the closest thing to a pop song on the record, but it’s not really. It’s this emotional thing, but it has some strange sounds in it. “Seven” is this kind of nostalgic, emotional folk song. Even before she sang to it, I felt this nostalgia, wistful feeling in it, and I think that’s what she gravitated towards. And “Peace,” that just showed me the incredible versatility that she had. That song is just three harmonized bass lines and a pulse. I love to play bass like that — play one line then harmonize another, and another, which is a behavior I stole from Justin Vernon, because he’s done that on other things we’ve done together. And actually, that’s his pulse, he sent me that pulse and said, “Do something with this.” But when she wrote that song, which kind of reminds me of a Joni Mitchell song over a harmonized bassline and a pulse, that was kind of like, “Woah, anything can happen here.” That’s not easy to do.

So, in the morning I would wake up and try to be productive. “Mad Woman” is one I wrote shortly after that, in terms of sound world, felt very related to “Cardigan” and “Seven.” I do have a way of playing piano where it’s very melodic and emotional, but then often it’s great if whoever’s singing doesn’t sing exactly what’s in the piano melody, but maybe it’s connected in some way. There was just some chemistry happening with her and how she was relating to those ideas.

“Epiphany” was something she had an idea for, and then I imagined these glacial, Icelandic sounds with distended chords and this almost classical feeling. That was another one where we wrote it and conceived it together. She just has a very instinctive and sharp musical mind, and she was able to compose so closely to what I was presenting. What I was doing was clicking for her. It was exhilarating for us, and it was surreal — we were shocked by it, to be honest [Laughs]. I think the warmth, humanity and raw energy of her vocals, and her writing on this record, from the very first voice memos — it was all there. 

Do you think that chemistry might’ve had something to do with her being a National fan, and you being a fan of her music? 
We met Taylor at Saturday Night Live in 2014, or whenever that was that we played and Lena Dunham was hosting. We got to meet her, and that was our first brush with a bona fide pop star. But then she came to see us play in Brooklyn last summer and was there in a crazy rainstorm, like torrential downpour, and watched the whole show and stayed for a long time afterwards, talking to me and my brother. She was incredibly charming and humble. That’s the nice thing about her, and a lot of people I’ve met that have that kind of celebrity. It’s great when you can just tune it out and be normal people and chat, and that’s how that felt. So, we knew that she was a big fan, and we really got into the 1989 album. Our Icelandic collaborator, Ragnar Kjartansson, is a crazy Swiftie. So we’ve kind of lived vicariously through him. I’ve always been astonished by how masterful she is in her craft. I’ve always listened to her albums and put them in this rarefied category, like, “How did she do that? How does anybody do that? How do you make ‘Blank Space?’” There was an element that was intimidating at first, where it just took me a second to be like… Not because I think her music is better than what we’ve done, but it’s just a different world. 

Were there particular songs, albums or artists the two of you discussed as reference points for this album?
“Betty,” which is a song she wrote with William Bowery, she was interested in sort of early Bob Dylan, like Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, I think. “Epiphany,” early on, felt like some weird Kate Bush-meets-Peter Gabriel thing. I think we talked a little about those things, but not a lot. Actually, I think she really trusted me as far as my instincts to where the music would ultimately go, and also the mixing process.  We really wanted to keep her voice as human, and kind of the opposite of plastic, as possible. That was a bit of a battle. Because everything in pop music tends to be very carved out, a smiley face, and as pushed as possible so that it translates to the radio or wherever you hear it. That can also happen with a National song — like if you changed how these things are mixed, they wouldn’t feel like the same song. And she was really trusting and heard it herself. She would make those calls herself, also. 

You mentioned William Bowery — who is he?
He’s a songwriter, and actually because of social distancing, I’ve never met him. He actually wrote the original idea for “Exile,” and then Taylor took it and ran with it. I don’t actually know to be totally honest. 

We’ve been trying to track him down, he doesn’t have much of an internet presence.
Yeah, I don’t fully know him, other than he wrote “Betty” and “Exile” with her. But you know she’s a very collaborative person, so it was probably some songwriter. 

So it’s not an alias for anyone?
No, no, no. I mean, I don’t know — she didn’t tell me there was a “Cardigan” video until literally it came out, and I wrote the song with her [laughs]. So I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure he’s an actual songwriter. She enjoys little mysteries. 

“These are kind of these folkloric, almost mythical tales that are woven in of childhood, lost love, and different sentiments across the record.”

With the National, you and your brother write the music, Matt Berninger adds the lyrics, and then you fuse it — was it a similar process on Folklore?
Taylor is very collaborative in that sense that, whenever she sent a voice memo, she would send all the lyrics and then ask me what I thought. And sometimes we would debate certain lines, although generally she’s obviously a strong writer. So she would ask me if I liked one line, and she would give me alternate lines and I would give her my opinion. And then when she was actually tracking vocals, I would sometimes suggest things or miss things, but she definitely has a lot of respect for the collaborative process and wants whoever she’s writing with to feel deeply included in that process. It was nice, and was a back and forth, for sure. And she would sometimes have ideas about the production if she didn’t like something, especially. She would, in a tactful way, bring that up. I appreciated that, too, since I wanted to try to turn over every leaf, take risks and sometimes get it wrong. That always takes a second, to get over and then you start again. 

You mentioned earlier that once you had six, seven songs, she was able to describe a concept behind the album. I’m curious what that conversation was like. 
She would always explain what each song was about to me, even before she articulated the Folklore concept. And I could tell early on that they were these narrative songs, often told from a different… not in the first person. So there are different characters in the songs that appear in others. You may have a character in “Betty” that’s also related to one in “Cardigan,” for example. And I think that was, in her mind, very, very important. It doesn’t seem like, for this record at least, that she was inspired to write something until she really knew what it was about. And I think I’m used to a more — at least lately — impressionistic and experimental world of making stuff without really knowing what it is. But this was more direct, in that sense. That was really helpful, to know what it was about and it would guide some of the choices we were making. 

Every time she would send something, she would narrate a little bit, like how it fit, or what it was about. And then when she told me about Folklore as a concept, it made so much sense. Like “The Last Great American Dynasty,” for example, this kind of narrative song that then becomes personal at the end — it flips and she enters the song. These are kind of these folkloric, almost mythical tales that are woven in of childhood, lost love, and different sentiments across the record. It was binding it all together and I think it’s personal, but also through the guise of other people, friends and loved ones.

You were working in secret — how did that affect the process? Was that a difficult burden?
It was. I was humbled and honored and grateful for the opportunity and for the crazy sort of alchemy we were having. But it was hard not to be able to talk openly with my usual collaborators, even my brother at first. I didn’t know if I could really tell him, because we normally… Ultimately, he helped me quite a bit, he orchestrated songs. But we always help each other. But eventually, we figured out how to do it. Towards the end of the process, I said to Taylor, ‘I really feel that I need to try a few experiment and try to elevate a few moments on the record because we have time, and we’ve really done a ton of work here, and it all sounds great, but I think we can go even further.’ And then she said, ‘Well what does that mean?’ And I explained how that would work, and the way that we work. Our process is very community-oriented, and we have long-time collaborators that we have a good understanding with. So I was able to say, to my friends, ‘This is a song I’m working on, I can’t send it to you with the vocals, and I can’t tell you what it is, but I can explain what I’m imagining.’ And the same with my brother, he knows my music so well that that was very easy for him to just take things that we were working on, add to that, and do his kind of work. So it was all remote and everyone was in their corner and we were shipping things around. It was incredibly fast because of that, because you didn’t have eight people needing to come to the studio. You had eight people working simultaneously — one in France and one in L.A. and one in Brooklyn. This is how it went, and it was fun. We got there. 

When were you able to tell everyone who contributed that this was the Taylor Swift record, what was their reaction?
You can imagine. I think they realized it was something big because [of] the confidentiality, and they were like, ‘It could only be a few things.’ I couldn’t tell them until, basically, when she announced it. Just in the moments after she announced it, I basically told everyone. I was like, ‘By the way…’ And they were thrilled. Everyone’s thrilled. Nobody seemed mad, everyone was thrilled and honored. Even Justin Vernon had not heard anything else except “Exile,” even though the pulse of that song “Peace,” he gave that song to me. It was important to have it be a surprise, and you know how it can be with someone in her position, with all the speculation, and she’s always under a lot of pressure like that. So it was really important to the creative freedom she was feeling that this remained a secret, so she could just do what we were doing. 

Being such longtime friends and collaborators with Justin, what was it like hearing “Exile” for the first time? His voice and Taylor’s together? 
He’s so versatile and has such a crazy range, and puts so much emotion… Every time he sings when I’m in his presence, my head just kind of hits the back of the wall. That’s the same on this song. William Bowery and Taylor wrote that song together, got it to a certain point, then I sort of interpreted it and developed a recording of it, and then Taylor tracked both the male and female parts. And then we sent it to Justin and he re-did obviously the male parts and changed a few things and also added his own: He wrote the “step right out” part of the bridge, and Taylor re-sang to that. You feel like, in a weird way, you’re watching two of the greatest songwriters and vocalists of our generation collaborating. I was facilitating it and making it happen, and playing all the music. But it was definitely a “Wow.” I was just a fan at that point, seeing it happen. 

Are there any moments that really stick out to you as particularly pivotal in shaping the sound of this record? 
The initial response. When we first connected, and I sent a folder of music and Taylor wrote “Cardigan,” and she said, “This is abnormal. Why do you have all these songs that are so emotional and so moving to me? This feels fated.” And then she just dove into it and embraced this emotional current. And I hope that’s what people take out of it: The humanity in her writing and melodies. It’s a different side to her. She could have been every bit as successful just making these kinds of songs, but it’s so great that she’s also made everything that she’s ever made, and this is a really interesting shift, and an emotional one. It also opens other doors, because now it’s kind of like she can go wherever she wants, creatively. The pressure to make a certain kind of… bop — or whatever you want to call it — is not there really anymore. And I think that’s really liberating, and I hope her fans and the world are excited by that because I am. It’s really special. 

#taylor swift #folklore

[songwritingtipsandtricks]

To be, or not to be a songwriter transcript

Hello and welcome everyone again, to a new episode of Songwriting Tips and Tricks. My name is Kieper, and I am really excited to talk to you again today. Thank you so much for the reviews and messages you send to me in the last weeks. If you like the show so far, please consider sharing it with friends that could benefit from it and leave a review on whatever platform you are using.

In the last episode, we've been talking about songwriting while at home during the corona pandemic and a possible lockdown. This time, however, I want to focus more on what a songwriter, in fact, is. Are we modern-day poets? Are we, full-fledged musicians or are we authors? Playwrights to some degree perhaps? What do the lines that we write really mean in context?

Maybe some of you ask themselves what art they are producing. And to be honest, I ask this question most of the time. I mean from a literature point of view, we are developing plots, we are searching for rhymes and words and maybe even look for the meter. On the other hand, as musicians, we try to make the lyrics fit the melody and meter of the music that was composed by us or others, or we are trying to find a suitable melody to words we have written. So what really is a songwriter?

One could argue that songwriters are modern-day poets. But this definition is somewhat limited. Because as songwriters, we do what feels right to us, and fits the music. We do not count the meter rigidly or know about iambs, dactyls or anything else. Another thing is that most of us write about day-to-day life. This sure is something to write about, yet it means that a lot of other issues are not being touched by songs. Many songwriters, think about marketing too early and write what might attract an audience. But that is not art, is it? I mean, you could be paid to write a song about something, but the most powerful songs are those that are inspired by things that happen to you or you observe. These songs also cover things that were not in the spotlight or only had little media coverage.

So if you are an aspiring songwriter, what would you chose to do? Would you like to write songs that are empowering people and have topics and viewpoints that no one else uses, or would you like to be someone creating standard pop songs that will be lost over the centuries, decades, or years? Because it is not those that do things like the rest that stand out, but those that dare to do something different. Perhaps when you are writing your next song, try to write about something else except love. Maybe you are familiar with Emily Dickinson, who was a famous American poet from the 19th century. Her poems got published only after her death, so she never got any credit for it in her life. She wrote about her experiences, and often time her thoughts on death and the life that follows. As a woman, she was not allowed to neither vote nor did she had access to a proper education. She was not religious or spiritual in any way. And despite all this, she kept writing and kept around 2000 poems hidden in a chest in her room. She wrote about everything that inspired her, not thinking about how to market it or how to put it on Spotify. Now you might argue, alright, there was no Spotify or anything like it at that time. You're right, and to make it worse, as a woman, it was appreciated to publish anything or have a perspective on things. But poetry was her life, so she kept writing but to save the reputation of the family, she never published anything herself.

I would call this dedication to art. If you want to have an insight into some poetry of this great poet, head over to Tumblr and search the blog to this podcast, as this month is the month of Dickinson on Songwriting Tips & Tricks.  

So songwriters are poets in a way, as we write poems in a way. But as I mentioned before, we need to find original topics to write about or incorporate to stand out and not just be one more songwriter. The most natural approach is to read poetry. Really do it every day. Ranging from ancient greek or roman poetry to modern-days there is tons of poetry or writings from philosophers that might ignite a spark of some sort and get you off that beaten track. Be the one songwriter in a room at open mic nights, that has read the most poetry and consequently has songs that carry something more. You will know how poetry works and how to build tension. Don't let the music do that, it hardly ever will do the trick on its own.

Are we authors? Well, in a way yes, as songwriters try to write a coherent story with different protagonists, and various narrative approaches. If you need more insight on this, listen to the episode "Wait, who's talking' to hear more about narrative situations. But most beginner songwriters do not think about structuring their songs beforehand. They just start writing.  Which is good of course, as we need to start somewhere. But have a look at famous songs, there is a clear structure in the plot. I am not talking about the verse, chorus or bridge, but about the introduction, central part, and the closure. It bears a close resemblance to novels sometimes. But we do not have 500 pages to get to the end, instead just 3 1/2 minutes until the end, or a minute to get to the chorus. So it is essential to know what to say when. People will need to understand immediately what the story is about and what to expect, even if the theme is new to them. Still, it is essential to surprise them at any part of the song. Structure your plot before and while you are writing. Try using a mindmap or a storyboard to help you structure. Try to know that character in detail, how she moves, how she looks, what sound her snore has and so forth. Try to find inspiration in people around you. Maybe let her say a phrase that your co-worker in your sideline in a fast-food restaurant says or have hair like a person on the train. Basing story upon facts from reality is a potent mechanism to make a story relatable. You could as well chose traits of characters from your favourite film or tv-series to adapt in your songs.

Are we playwrights? Well, that is a tough question, in combination with the previous question, I would say to some degree we are, but only while writing the song. We direct when a character is to appear and what it does. Adding the music, this is a lot more relevant. We need to know, at what point what part of the story is suited best, if the music does fit at all. You might as well want to put your favourite book or film into a song. Then it is crucial to strip it down to the key-concepts to make it fit the time frame. And when I say time-frame, this is a part that authors are less concerned with. We know that we have limited time to tell our story and we know when a change in the music happens and how it sounds. So perhaps think of yourself not as a playwright but as a songwright, as you are focussed on auditive input rather than visual input. The song is our stage, and we need to know what has to happen when, why and how.

So turning over to music. Are we musicians? Well, yes, of course. This is what got us started on songwriting in the first place, wasn't it? But think about your music education, have you been taught traditionally, or did you learn most of the stuff yourself? If you know how to play your instrument, do you play other instruments as well? Do you know music theory by heart or do you need to google all the times? Did you play in a band or know about arrangement through YouTube or other sources? How solid is your music background really? This is a question that bugs me most of the time. I taught myself how to play the guitar, and I have been singing my whole life, but I always doubt my musicianship. I'm binge-watching music theory fundamentals and teach myself other instruments to close these blank spaces that a traditional education would not have left perhaps. I even bought a midi drum set to work on micro timing with apps like melodics and co. Yes, we are musicians, but at what stage of our musical journey we are is in our own hands. It is essential to learn new things every day. If you don't, you will get frustrated. So consider taking half an hour each day to learn music theory, listen to intervals, learn fancy chords and songs that use it. Listen to new music even. Dare to make your own set of rules and break it again. This is how you grow, both in music and in writing.

So next time, when you are writing a song, use a random song and try to use the chord progression or time signature, combine songs and styles, take as much input from other as you can. Because this way, your music will always be different, but still yours. Your music will be instantly more exciting and attract audiences as it incorporates a lot of genres and styles.

So now let us talk about something, I am raving about. Painting pictures with words really is in the domain of poets, but try to imagine for a second that you were an artist and you have a blank canvas in front of you. Where would you start? What colour would you use? And in the end, what picture do you see in front of your inner eye? What should this picture invoke in the mind of an audience? Pictures might tell more than a thousand words, but the right or wrong words in context could meet or destroy expectations. Try to describe as vividly as possible, shed light on detail that was previously hidden. Dare to be the Picasso that paints melting clock. Try to be irrational in the creation and later judge what you've done. Dare to take bold turns. The song is yours, and if you do not want to share it with anybody, put it in a box like Dickinson did.

So much on what we as songwriters are. Do you have another comparison or idea, that could touch the work of songwriters? Don't bother sending any feedback or opinion you have via Facebook, Instagram, Wordpress or Tumblr. I'll gladly reply and perhaps talk about this in the next episode.

If you like the program, I'd really appreciate, if you rate and review the show or episode on the platform you are listening to right now.

Thank you again for tuning in once more and staying tuned on Songwriting Tips & Tricks.

#podcast #music #lyrics #Emily dickinson #to be or not to be #shakespeare #songwriter #songwriting #poet #poem #poetry #author #authors #playwright #songwright #musicianship #berklee #college of music #writing better lyrics #songwriting tips and tricks #songwriting tips #singer songwriter #songwritingguide #songwriting guide

[kiruuuuu]

Siegemas Day 24

Happy holidays everyone, it’s me again! I stepped in for this day :) Once again, thank you @dualrainbow​, this event is a delight 💝💝

Today, my prompt is the very first line of the fic you find below. I hope you all enjoy it, and have a wonderful time no matter what or whether you’re celebrating! ✨ (Twitch/IQ, Rating T, fluff + emotional comfort, ~2.8k words)

.

“We made… too many cookies.”

The comedic timing is impeccable, the line delivered with perfect hesitance as to imply awareness of the understatement while hiding its undoubtedly practised nature. She’s a born people person with a knack for being charmingly endearing, and IQ is absolutely and horrifically powerless.

“This is ridiculous”, she states, deadpan, not giving away how amused she is in reality – it’s not often that she opens the door to a stunning young woman with pretty cheekbones tinted pink from the cold outside, clad in a flattering deep purple coat and holding several tin boxes in gloved hands. Patterned gloves, a row of snowflakes adorning the fabric. A very familiar row of snowflakes.

“I know, and I’m really sorry, but I don’t know anyone else who’d appreciate these.” Her hair is laid in neat waves framing her pale freckled face, light make-up completing the elegant look. She could be a film star, certainly possesses the same unselfconscious attitude one would expect, even though she’s displaying embarrassment right now. Her slim figure hugged tightly by her form-fitting clothes is visible clearly despite the frankly laughable amount of cookie tins and IQ can’t help herself.

She invites her in.

Twitch is a waterfall, bubbling excitedly about how or why she came across certain recipes, casually throwing in a French or German word amidst the usual English, and it’s impossible for IQ to follow her but she smiles and nods anyway while relieving her visitor of her cargo and placing it gingerly on the kitchen table. So far, this last Sunday before Christmas – the fourth Advent, as it’s called in her mother tongue – had been almost serene, began with chores and continued with a quiet cup of coffee and a good book before slowly tilting over into planning and researching for her next chapter. A regular occurrence. As a result, IQ is mentally somewhere else still and needs a few minutes before she can concentrate on her unexpected guest.

“Good to see you”, she chimes in during a small pause (wouldn’t you know it, even Twitch needs to breathe), and the two of them hug as a greeting. Twitch always gives her a good squeeze, really presses the two of them together, which is one of the reasons IQ looks forward to meeting her every day: it makes her feel appreciated. No one else comes close to these embraces, not Blitz, her decade-old friend, or even her own siblings. In Twitch’s arms, she closes her eyes and finds peace for a brief second.

It might be the absence of her family which has left her this sentimental – normally, she’s too busy to analyse her friends, to scrutinise them to this amount, but today an odd sort of nostalgia and possible bout of loneliness has overtaken her. She did light four candles on her wreath, the first one almost burnt out completely from being lit on all the previous Sundays, yet instead of providing warm illumination, it caused subtle brooding. Their house was always lively around Christmas, bustling with fights, pretend fights, singing, louder singing, future plans yelled through the staircase, raucous laughter, and various songs on repeat trying to drown each other out.

Here, in her small apartment in England, the silence felt foreboding.

“I tried my hand at spéculoos, which Marius called a German staple, and let me tell you – the dough I had was a nightmare to work with, much too sticky. I wanted to roll it out and use Julien’s cookie cutters but it wouldn’t cooperate, so you now have small poop piles of what I think you call Spekulatius. It’s in the blue tin, right on top there. I also made vanilla… uh, vanilla croissants? Shaped like moons? They’re Dom’s favourites, apparently, and Gilles begged me to help him, but he got the recipe wrong and we got so many that he just gave me half. Elias really wanted pain d’épices, um, spicy bread? No, gingerbread, that was it. You guys have the best name for it, by the way, Lebkuchen, it makes it sound like you’re Frankenstein: live, cake!”

Twitch somehow manages to wander through the flat while babbling on, accepting a cup of lukewarm coffee IQ puts in her hands and instinctively helping to pick a few cookies from each box to create an inviting-looking decorative paper plate which IQ carries into the living room where they settle down, fingers curled around warmed ceramic and eyes gleaming in the candlelight.

“You need to try these, it’s actually one of James’ mum’s recipes. Poppyseed and chocolate, they turned out better than expected, but after Liza told that story about her acquaintance failing a drug test because of poppyseed bagels, people refused to eat more than one and I definitely can’t stomach all of these alone.”

She watches, expectantly, as IQ dutifully picks out one of the spotted cookies shaped like a flower and bites into the crumbly bakeware. Surprising no one, it’s delicious – if there’s anything Twitch can’t do, IQ hasn’t found it yet.

“Really good”, she agrees, allowing for Twitch’s instant beaming smile to tug the corners of her own mouth upwards while she chews. “Manu, these all look lovely. You know I’d die for good Christmas cookies, so thank you. Even though this is way too much for me.”

Her laugh is melodic and as contagious as her constant sunny mood. “You should see how many I still have at home. Elias claimed he needs to watch his figure, Julien should be watching his figure, Doc doesn’t really like sweets, and Gilles eats maybe one cookie a day. Which you know is illegal at Christmastime.”

“Still, this is a wonderful present and I’m afraid I have nothing to give in return.” IQ isn’t being entirely honest. Still testing the waters; maybe Twitch will manage to read between the lines and they can finally address it. The moment the Frenchwoman stepped over the threshold was the moment IQ decided they’d talk it through today. It’s been going on long enough.

“Not true, you gave me the gloves!” Twitch’s triumphant gotcha! expression is self-satisfied and smug and sweet. Sweeter than the cookies calling to IQ – they really do look fantastic, a variety of shapes, sizes and colours, all together smelling of spices and memories and Christmas.

“Someone had to, you kept complaining about your icy fingers.”

“And you were probably sick of warming them up.” Twitch hasn’t caught on yet, her tone is still breezy and carefree. “Have you written some more? Any new scenes for me to read? I need to know whether the captain really is dead or not.”

IQ laughs, half embarrassed and half delighted – when the news broke in Rainbow that she writes stories in her spare time, she expected an outcome way worse than what she ended up facing: Castle immediately expressed interest in reading them, no matter the topic, and once word got out that it was usually science-fiction-centric, even more people approached her out of curiosity. None of them as enthusiastic as Twitch, however, who dove into the narratives like an age old fan into new material, sparking an unknown productivity in IQ which has yet to subside. Knowing there’s at least one person who devours anything she dreams up has been fantastically motivating, and they’ve begun spinning yarn together now and then. Twitch is the only one whom she trusts enough to proofread for scientific errors or inconsistencies, and she’s helped develop a character into a much more compelling version of themselves several times.

The next hour is spent on discussing IQ’s research, involving frantic googling and article hopping on Wikipedia to help with finding the correct jargon – Twitch knows most of the technical terms in French, which doesn’t mesh well with IQ’s rusty school French, whereas her German accent makes it difficult for the other woman to understand her, so they try to meet in the middle somewhere by using English, despite the laborious process involved.

They’re on one wavelength. Always have been, from the moment they came across each other in Rainbow’s workshop, when Twitch still dyed her hair auburn and IQ barely spoke a word with the other operators: a friendly smile, an engineering-related question, a brief introduction, and they were a house on fire. Inseparable at work.

Twitch made sure it bled into their private lives as well, even if it took considerable effort. IQ never asked, but she’s sure her friend secretly celebrated that one day when she finally said yes to one of her suggestions of meeting up.

.

And it’s exactly why it hurts so fucking much to think -

.

“Manu.”

Twitch stops talking mid-sentence, probably caught off guard by her serious tone of voice. “Yes? Is everything alright?”

It might be. She hopes it will be. Her fingers stray to a loose thread peeking out of the seam of her trousers, picking at it. “We’ve been friends for a while now.”

Several years, in fact, an unimaginably long time. Not that IQ hasn’t been able to keep friendships alive for this long, but never one this close. The level of intimacy usually kept declining after a certain point, usually prompted by nothing, sometimes spatial distance, sometimes emotional. There aren’t many people who keep up with her over a long time, and even fewer she keeps up with – Blitz is a great friend, but he just doesn’t share her passions.

“And you’re one of the most generous people I know. Your first instinct when you have too many cookies is to give them away. I’ve always admired this about you.”

Twitch is listening intently. She knows something is up, yet can’t put her finger on it. Her brows are furrowed. IQ knows this from a brief glance before her gazed drops back down to her restless fingers.

“Julien and I had a conversation about you, not too long ago. And some of what he said was… unexpected.” Rustling; Twitch is beginning to fidget as well. “Unrelated to that, Dom overheard you voicing your frustration about your being single and mentioned it to me. I didn’t know you were that unhappy. You never said anything.”

She really likes you. Yeah, don’t wave me off. I’ve never seen her fawn over someone like this. You get special treatment all the time.

And then, more poignant: At this point, I’m basically ready to fuck anything that moves.

The second quote echoes in her mind as if she’d heard it herself instead of it being delivered second-hand. Both of them made her look back at the past months and re-evaluate some events. Showed them in a very different light.

Twitch is radiating anxiousness. It’s easy to pick up.

“I realise now that I’ve received a lot of special attention from you, and… I just have to wonder.” It’s harder and harder to push the words out, her throat closing up. “Wonder whether your present today is cookies and friendship, or cookies and a confession, or cookies and an expectation. Whether there’s some kind of motive attached.”

Her entire life, there’s never been anyone outside her family who understood her better. Being a woman in a male dominated field is difficult enough, especially as a competitive one, and her experiences aren’t easily conveyed to her guy colleagues – Twitch understands, of course, has faced the same obstacles and prejudices. Seeking patterns everywhere, striving for excellence, despising complacency, the overwhelming need to reverse engineer anything new or remarkable, exploring new places, wanting to always keep moving and improving – Twitch understands, has had a similar upbringing and equivalent goals.

They share almost everything at this point, have been on holidays together, mastered several projects with each other’s help, stayed up till sunrise because sleep was the inadequate alternative to exchanging ideas and pushing each other further than they’d go by themselves. Others have always tried to slow IQ down, force her to relax, take her mind off something she enjoyed chewing on, and it was infuriating.

All Twitch does is encourage her. Which paradoxically calms IQ more than any massage or empty-brained film ever could.

She doesn’t want to lose all this. Her chest hurts with the pressure of potentially losing someone this dear to her. But at the same time, she doesn’t want Twitch to get the wrong idea.

When silence is all she receives, she looks up to find Twitch fighting for composure – wide eyes filled with moisture and lip quivering. It’s a stab in the guts. IQ has never seen her cry.

“I don’t -”, Twitch chokes out, adding more quietly: “This isn’t -”

IQ sits next to her, reaching out but retreating when Twitch shakes her head, so all she does is take her hand. As always, her fingers are cold, so IQ closes her own around them. This isn’t at all what she intended, but she needs to know.

“Your friendship means the world”, comes a much more composed statement after a minute. “You should know this.”

She nods. She does know.

“And – and yes, if there was more, I’d be happy. Even happier than I am now. But there doesn’t need to be.” Twitch is speaking faster now, rushing the words, her melodic French accent thickening. “I’m fine with everything staying the way it is. I love being around you, no matter how, so if you’re not okay with – with anything else, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’ll get over it, no worries.”

“Manu. Breathe.” Seeing the other woman in a panic is a rare sight and IQ doesn’t enjoy knowing she’s the cause. “I love being around you, too. You’re my best friend, by far. But… I don’t want anything casual.”

Twitch needs a moment to digest this and IQ readies her responses: she’s had bad experiences with it in the past, and as far as she knows, arrangements like friends with benefits tend to make everything messy and awkward. Staying friends is the better option.

“Yes. Me neither.” A beat. Their eyes meet, Twitch’s still glistening.

There is an even better option, as far as IQ is concerned. And it seems to slowly dawn on the nearly perfect woman next to her.

“And… what about something not casual? But still more?”

Oh. The pressure begins to lift off her chest with every passing second, with every second that Twitch stares at her, hopeful, unsure. Slowly, she clarifies: “You mean – cookies and a confession?”

The nod is nearly imperceptible, and IQ probably almost breaks her fingers by squeezing so hard. The next thing she knows is she’s leaning forward and pressing their lips together, tasting the saltiness of perceived rejection as well as the disbelieving smile of actual acceptance, and then Twitch is laughing as well, crying in between relieved giggling, almost hysterical, and IQ joins in, and before they know it, they’re a mess on the sofa, hugging, seeking physical contact, pressing kisses to temples and hair and cheeks and lips again, wrapping arms around warm bodies.

Her heart is singing because while she so fiercely hoped, she barely dared to, was used to disappointments and therefore expected the worst, even ascribed traits to her best friend in the whole world who’d never stoop so low as to demand something from her she wasn’t ready to give. No, Twitch understands her and vice versa. Even so, it took them an embarrassingly long time to get to this point. In their shared joyousness, they barely manage to finish their sentences:

“What Dom heard me say wasn’t, I mean, I was just -”

“Yes, I figured, but it still got me thinking -”

“I was having a bad day, I’m not that frustrated -”

“Oh? That’s a shame, you know, I was actually looking forward to -”

“Monika!”, Twitch exclaims, scandalised even though they’re both aware IQ is joking, and by now they’re laughing like mad, especially because Twitch only uses her full name when she’s done something, so IQ resorts to tickling her in retaliation or maybe to distract her, and they both yelp when Twitch’s foot shoots up, gets caught on the rim of the cookie plate peeking over the coffee table’s edge, and catapults its contents everywhere. One manages to hit IQ in the face, the rest is scattered all over the floor, which sets them off again after a second of total silence.

“It’s fine, it’s fine”, Twitch gets out in between breaths, “I really do have tons more at home.” Which IQ believes her in a heartbeat.

Even though she’s pretty sure she got the lion’s share of the leftovers.

And just a second before they notice that the napkin on which the cookies were presented has caught fire, IQ thinks about how she dreaded spending Christmas at Hereford without her family – and she realises now she’ll be in great company regardless.

#rainbow six siege #twitch #iq #twitch/iq #fanfic #oneshot #siegemas #this is the last couple perfecting my quartet of german/french ships #check out their new bios btw #in my head they fit so so so well together #I'm looking forward to reading all the entries I've missed!! #I hope I'll have more time after Christmas

[audiohut]

Are you persistent in your craft? Here are some things that might inspire some ideas in your next session.

I’m going to continue to post these every other day as i have found myself with outside obligations relative to this. It gives me time to put my learning to work and come back with some hands on experience for you.

What do you find yourself writing when it comes to creating good lyrical themes? As i talked about before, there are a wide spread of topics you can chronologically lay out that appeal to many people and again, i want to talk about lyric production and song structure to help bring power to your song and meet your existing warm audience as well as cold audiences.

One thing i read about earlier this morning was creating timeless lyrics. Lyrics that are still captivating and interesting even over a long period of time. That time frame can be within the amount of time it takes to listen to your song, or lyrics that are simply unforgettable. One way you can help get these lyrics stuck in your head is by applying a catchy melody or series of harmonies within your song. Obviously this is the goal, but if you are approaching a hook/chorus you will want this to be the part that brings the listener in even more so and if done right, can be unforgettable or timeless in a sense.

For examples of timeless lyrics and incredible song writing, check out “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. These bands wrote handfuls of timeless songs and had lyrics that are emotionally captivating and interesting even decades later.

When you are drafting your lyrics whether it be digitally composing or the classic pen to paper, lay your lyrics out on a staff if possible and ensure that each syllable is tied to a note. This is where you will be able to play with your melodies, skips and steps as we talked about a bit in the last posting. Even if you plan on assigning the same tones over eighth notes, sixteenth notes or single syllables it helps to make sure every one of your syllable is rhythmically and melodically established to your song. Otherwise the effect may sounds out of key or off tempo discerning the listening and could create a lack of interest. Although many applications of flats and sharps come into play, it helps to know a bit of theory to work around what might add a little extra color to your song.

One thing we have not talked about yet is bass lines. In artists like Tame Impala, Oliver Tree and say Yellow Days you will notice their bass lines are a huge player in the flow of the song as it drives the low end of the song providing more feeling and creates something more immersive than if you were to have the tones from only your kick/808’s delivering your low end tone. The bass line does not need to be anything technical, but should be found as the root or fundamental notes of the chords and keys your strings or synth instruments are being played in sort of grounding and gluing your song together. When your bass line as well as synth instruments or strings are all together it could bring more opportunities to your table melodically hen it comes to the production of your lyrics and where they fit in tone and melody.

One way to add texture to your melody in your song is add rise and fall in your tonal and note movement. This can again, be done with any instrument you choose to have laying over your bass line but in all dynamic changes in volume and velocity will add more character to your production. This is heavily noted in many Saxophone players who use velocity in hard how the notes are being played to contour the emotion and make it hit more effectively to the listener.

Another thing to note when writing is to use engaging major chords as these are more compelling and have been noted in top hits more than minor chords. Like i have said before, produce your progressions and harmonies with whatever taste is needed in your song. For example you have Tadow by Masego and FKJ. This song features a wide variety of Minors and Majors creating a very harmonious and archetype sound production. Good Major chords that are used very often are as follows: C – G – Am – F ; D – A – Bm – G ; A – E – F#m – D ; G – D – Em – C ; and E – B – C#m – A.

When it comes time to captivate, bring in new instruments or change the dynamics of already existing instruments in your production. Most songs derive from no more than seven instruments including vocals as it can become quickly muddied up and create incoherence when listening to it. Seven may seem like a small number but remember that each instrument can be used in different manners to bring in what could feel like a new environment with each section of your song i.e: Verse, Chorus, Pre Chorus etc.

Because music can be fickle especially when writing you may want to record your practice sessions or keep a note book handy when ideas pop up. You never know when a new idea will pop and you will never know how quickly you can lose until its gone. Be creative and experiment with new sounds. From personal experience i have ran into accidental melodies, harmonies and riffs that blow my own mind.

And finally, when you are creating you need to be persistent. Many song writers have an enormous pack of songs before they finally hit the billboard. You need to practice your writing skills to 1. Develop and ear for what it is you know you are good with and 2. Get the bad songs out the way. Not every single thing you write and produce is going to be good. It will take plenty of trial and error before you discover a sound that suits your skills set and is enjoyable by others. Again, most artists write for upwards to a decade before they create something that is incredible and even then, they write songs they would not put out into the world. patience and persistence will always be the bread winner.

I hope this thought was insightful and brings to light some new methods or ideas for you and your creative process. If you are in need of some more thoughts and tips, follow my space and look back on previous postings! Thanks for the read.

-Andrew Giordanengo

-Audiohut

#songwriter #songwriting #writing #singersongwriter #songstructure #song lyrics #new song #musician #musical #writingmusic #musicprojects #rap #rapper #hiphop #audioengineer #mixingengineer #beatproducer #sounddesign #collab #foodforthought #thought #tips #tricks #inspiration #consistency #patience

[fictionadventurer]

3. How has the WIP changed between starting it and where it is now? 13. Are there scenes that you cut already? 17. Post the last line you wrote in your WIP aaand... 18. Give a brief character description of your main characters.

3. How has the WIP changed between starting it and where it is now?

I haven’t even started drafting yet and it has changed so much. I had the basic idea about a year ago, when I realized that the Fanny Price/Henry Crawford dynamic from Mansfield Park would make an interesting addition to a Cinderella retelling (she sees that “Prince Charming” has a lot of flaws and she’d rather stay with her horrible stepfamily than marry him). Then I decided to set it in my “Lost Library” universe (a world like Edwardian-era Europe, except that a mysterious calamity several centuries ago fractured the continents and left them floating far above the ocean so people had to invent flying machines to get around). This gave a lot more scope for development, and a lot of details have changed as I’ve been hammering out the plot. Such as:

I thought it was going to be a basic Cinderella situation--her parents both died and left her in the care of a terrible stepmother. Now, the Cinderella character is in a bit of a Phyllis Keeble situation, where she was orphaned and left in the care of a stepfather who remarried another woman. Except the stepfather died, and since the house went to the stepmother, Cinderella has no biological connection to anyone who ever owned the house she’s now living in. Which puts her in a much more precarious position in the household. Especially since Cinderella was born on a foreign island and her stepmother’s xenophobic.

The Prince Charming character was always going to reform into a man worthy of Cinderella, but I thought it would come about because he had a social/financial fall. Then I realized it would be much more fun if he came about that character development by getting a job. And since this is a world where flying ships replace sailing ships, he’s going to become a pilot! Turns out, he has some decent traits for the job, but getting into a position where skill matters more than charm (and where he’s constantly in danger of dying) helps him to adjust his priorities and change some of his behavior.

Cinderella was going to be a fairly static character--she was always in the right and he had to reform to become worthy of her. But now she’s going to get more character development. She starts as a timid people-pleaser (though with more of a backbone than I’d initially planned), but once her stepfamily throws her out (turning down a prince’s marriage proposal is the last straw for this ungrateful child), she’s forced to get more courage and confidence in herself. By the time they meet up again, they’re both very different people.

The stepfamily was going to disappear from the later half of the story, but I thought it would make a more coherent (and fun) story if they come back into her life at around the same time the prince does.

I wanted to avoid the Cinderella retelling cliche of having one mean and one nice stepsister. But if the stepfamily’s going to come back in the second half of the book, there needs to be at least one member of the family that Cinderella wants to be around. At least I’m making the elder stepsister the nice one (the younger stepsister usually tends to fill that role).

Cinderella’s gonna get a dog! She’s decided she wants to live up to the Disney princess cliche of loving all animals. (At least I hope it’s a bit less sickly sweet than the trope usually tends to be). 

Lots of other little changes, but those are the big ones.

13. Are there scenes that you cut already?

Like I said, I haven’t started drafting yet, but there’s been some scene-cutting. The biggest change is that I scrapped my idea for an in media res prologue. Since there are so many Cinderella retellings, I thought I should start with the scene where it diverges from the plot--she’s fleeing the ball, and we find out it’s because the prince has just proposed to her, and she hates him and this is a tragedy--and then flash back to the stuff that led up to that moment before continuing with the story. However, as I’ve developed more details of the universe and the characters’ backstory, the first half is becoming a less generic Cinderella retelling, and I think I’d prefer to do everything in chronological order.

17. Post the last line you wrote in your WIP.

Haven’t started the draft yet (for once, I’m trying to develop a detailed plot, characters, and world before I dive into the drafting process). But the last line I wrote in the brainstorming document is probably: “There’s a market for gray hair dye among late-grayers.” (It’s a worldbuilding/character note that’ll make more sense after I describe Cinderella below).

18. Give a brief character description of your main characters.

Note: Names subject to change (especially the prince’s because I’m not sure I like it). Along with all other details. But it’s strange for me to have so many details developed this early in the process.

Lisette Paget: My Cinderella character. About nineteen when the story starts. A little below average height, willowy build. Speaks softly but has a pleasing, melodic voice when she speaks up. Has wavy light brown hair with several obvious streaks of gray. (People of the Laterran Isles--especially on her home isle--tend to get their first streaks of gray not long after puberty. These “cinder stripes” are a symbol of adulthood there. But she’s living in the Empyrean Isles, which were recently at war with Laterre, so her “cinder stripes” are a blazing sign marking her as One of The Enemy). Tends to look at the ground when talking to people, especially after her obviously Laterran gray eyes start making her a target of vitriol. Adores dancing and moves very fluidly even when just going about her daily tasks. Can speak the languages (and understand most dialect variations) of her birth and adopted isles fluently and is interested in learning other languages.  Has an artistic side that she lets out through paper sculpting and gardening; loves all animals. Doesn’t like the way her stepfamily treats her, but her life experiences have taught her that suffering is something you endure rather than avoid, so she just makes the best she can of the life she has.

Calum Hartwell: My Prince Charming character. Probably early twenties when the story starts. A bit on the short side for a man, not a great build but he hides it thanks to the talents of a good tailor. Golden-brown hair with a bit of a curl. Has one blue eye and one green eye. (People are either fascinated by it or repelled, and if he finds out you’re uncomfortable with it he’ll make a point of keeping eye contact). Honestly pretty average in looks, but he positively exudes confidence, and that presence is what gives him his heart-throb reputation. (He’s attracted and discarded a fair number of admirers). Speaks rapidly, laughs easily (and does more than he should of both). The term social butterfly was probably coined to describe him. Very detailed-oriented, very tidy habits. Athletic, talented in several sports deemed appropriate to men of his rank. The seventh son of the local prince, he has no official duties, and sometimes thinks he’d he’d like an active pursuit (his father’s pushing him to take up an occupation), except that it sounds like an awful lot of work, and he’s got a very good life as it is. He’s the classic extrovert, but feels for those less comfortable in company, so when he first notices Lisette in the background at family gatherings, he attempts to draw her out--and is perplexed when his overtures aren’t appreciated.

#thanks for asking! #that got a lot longer than i anticipated #but for some reason i feel like sharing all the details of this wip #so you're getting all of them #adventures in writing #ask games #answered asks #awesomebutunpractical #lost library

[michael-radi-the-glamorous-life]

Take It To The Chorus

What is a chorus? And for that matter, what is a verse?

These seem like fairly general music terms that we all know, but do we?

I’m pretty sure that most people could at least tell you that they’ve heard of the terms chorus, verse, and bridge before, and could most likely give you a general definition.

Well, at least as far as pop music goes.

But in musical theatre, these things have a slightly different meaning. And it has dawned on me slowly over the past several years that there are many creatives in the industry (directors, performers, etc., and yes, some writers) who are not exactly sure what these terms mean when applied to musical theatre music.

So, what do they mean?

Song Form

Most pop music of the past 40 years has a very specific and formulaic song structure, and it’s one that is extremely familiar to us. It goes something like this:

Verse

Verse

Chorus

Verse

Chorus

Bridge

Chorus

Chorus

There might be some variations to this theme - for instance, a lot of more recent songs include a Pre-Chorus before the Chorus comes back. Or perhaps there’s fewer Verses, or there aren’t 2 Choruses at the end of the song.

Either way, this is a tried and true song structure for pop music, and an excellent formula for anyone looking to write in the genre.

What about theatre music? Is it just as formulaic?

Well, yes and no.

“Thanks, Michael. What a clear and concise answer.” Hold on, dear reader!

Musical theatre doesn’t have an all-permeating full song structure because songs in a show can do work in a thousand different ways. And the structure of the song changes depending on what kind of work the music is doing.

“Huh?”

As a very basic example, music in theatre can be (very generally) either a “song” or a “musical scene.” A “song” is more self-contained and generally does work for one character or a small grouping of characters, whereas a “musical scene” might be a more all-encompassing number that goes back and forth between sung lines and dialogue, and likely includes a large group of singers or the entire ensemble.

And just based on that information, you can see how you wouldn’t want to structure a “song” and a “musical scene” the same way.

But that’s just one example of many ways that musical theatre music can differ in structure, based on the kind of work it is doing in the show.

“So, how does this relate to Verse and Chorus terminology?”

Excellent question.

Verse

In pop music, the Verse is the part of the song where the music repeats, but the words change.

Here’s an example from Adele’s “Hello”:

Hello, it’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet…

Hello, can you hear me? I’m in California dreaming about who we used to be…

Same melody (basically), but different lyrics. And these come before the first Chorus, though she also does another Verse later on. (Hello, how are you?…)

Now, in theatre music, a Verse does similarly come before the Chorus and does a lot of introductory work in the song, but we generally only hear that music one time.

It comes before the song proper and sets up what we’re going to sing about in the rest of the song. It also helps go from dialogue into singing less jarringly than suddenly belting face in the middle of a spoken line.

A classic musical theatre example would be from “If I Loved You” in Carousel. Julie leads into the song proper by singing:

“When I worked in the mill, weaving at the loom, I’d gaze absent-minded at the roof. And half the time the shuttle’d tangle in the threads and the warp’d get mixed with the woof. If I loved you…And somehow I ken see, jest exactly how I’d be…”

She sets up for us that she’s gotten lost in thought in the past about what it would be like to be in love with someone, before she then sings a song describing what that would be for her or mean to her if she were in love.

So, the Verse is the introduction. What’s the Chorus?

Chorus, Hook, and Refrain

Let’s start with the Hook. Both pop and musical theatre songs have them. What is it?

Hook - A musical and lyrical idea, often a phrase, word, riff, or passage, that encapsulates what the song is about and repeats in a way that catches the ear of the audience.

So in “Hello” that would be both:

Hello from the other side…and

Hello from the outside…

And in “If I Loved You” it would be:

If I loved you…

As you can see, in musical theatre, the hook and the title are also often the same.

What about the Chorus itself?

Well, like the way that the Hook is repeated throughout a song, in Pop music we actually repeat the entire Chorus every time we sing it. Usually, when the Chorus comes back, we sing the entire thing again - both music and lyrics.

So the Chorus of “Hello” is really:

Hello from the other side I must've called a thousand times To tell you I'm sorry For everything that I've done But when I call you never Seem to be home

Hello from the outside At least I can say that I've tried To tell you I'm sorry For breaking your heart But it don't matter, it clearly Doesn't tear you apart anymore

And because the entire Chorus repeats in a pop song, we can also simply call it the Refrain. It’s something that repeats and that we all can sing together.

Theatre music has a different usage of Chorus altogether.

In order to give more information about the characters and move the plot forward, theatre music cannot waste valuable music time repeating itself as often as pop music does. Sometimes we can and we do, especially in big ensemble songs and musical scenes, but not nearly as often.

Instead of having an entire Refrain every time the Chorus rolls around, theatre music relies on the Hook alone to do the full repetition work. The rest of the words are there to continue the storyline of the show, which is why we go to the theatre after all - to see and hear stories being told.

Now, there will be melody repetition in the Chorus, but it’s usually based on one of two structures.

AABA and ABAC

“What is this strange conglomeration of letters, Michael?”

These are the most common structures for a Chorus in musical theatre.

In theatre, we generally refer to this as a “32-bar Chorus” - meaning that there are approximately 32 measure over which the music of the Chorus is written.

And we break those 32 bars down into 4 distinct 8-measure sections - either structured as AABA or ABAC.

Let’s look at AABA, since it’s the most commonly used and it fits with our example of “If I Loved You.”

The A section is the 8-measure section that contains the Hook and helps further the meaning of what the song is trying to say.

The first A section of “If I Loved You” is:

If I loved you, (HOOK) Time and again I would try to say All I'd want you to know.

So now we’re talking about some more specific information of what would happen if she did love Billy. It’s not just the hook, there’s more to it. But that’s not quite enough information yet, so we have to expound upon the idea more with another A section:

If I loved you, Words wouldn't come in an easy way Round in circles I'd go!

Okay, now we’re learning more. And the music is almost identical to the first A section, even though we have different lyrics now.

Then we get to the B section, which takes the song in a slightly different direction. B sections do not contain the hook and they usually represent some type of opposite idea to the A sections in order to give more depth and contrast.

Longin' to tell you, But afraid and shy, I'd let my golden chances pass me by!

The A sections so far have been about how Julie would feel if she were in love, but the B section talks about how that would affect her actions. Along the same lines as the A sections, but a slight change to the main idea.

Then we finish with a final A section:

Soon you'd leave me, Off you would go in the mist of day, Never, never to know how I loved you If I loved you.

Now we talk about the consequences of the A and B sections to bring the entire Chorus to a conclusion of some kind. The music is similar to those first two A sections, but it changes slightly, extends a little past 8 measures, and reaches a melodic climax. And if you notice, the Hook is still there, but it got moved to the end of the section to help provide that sense of conclusion.

And that would be the structure of a musical theatre Chorus. 32ish bars, AABA.

ABAC is a similar structure that does slightly different work, but I won’t go into those specifics today. Today I simply wanted to show that there is a difference in the terminology usage of Verse and Chorus between pop music and theatre music.

So?

Why is this important?

Well, perhaps to most people it is not. But for creatives in the theatre industry, knowing this terminology and its differences can not only help you be confident in what you’re talking about, but these structures can help you decipher the intentions of the writers. And with that, there are clues to character development and plot devices that are useful in putting on a show.

Perhaps we will discuss more about song structure in the future, but I hope you enjoyed today’s beginner crash course!

Cheers!

#glamorous life blog #glamorous life #song #structure #song structure #AABA #ABAC #Pop music #theatre #theater #theatre artist #musical theatre #musicals #melody #verse #chorus #bridge #hook

[thesinglesjukebox]

IDINA MENZEL & AURORA - INTO THE UNKNOWN

[5.83]

[Knock, knock, knock-knock, knock] Do you want to build a sequel?

Jessica Doyle: Given Disney's current reputation for nostalgic repetition, I was pleasantly surprised to find Frozen II full of ideas -- in fact so full of ideas that almost none of them actually get developed with any coherence. (Whose voice was it again? And why is Olaf suddenly obsessed with aging? And how was a troop of Arendellian soldiers going missing without a trace for three decades not an issue? Et cetera.) "Into the Unknown" is as good a preview of the incoherence as any, as the song makes no sense narratively, psychologically (having spent all but the last six months of her life being taught decorum and self-distrust to the point of pathology, Elsa is ready to flee Arendelle because she... hears a voice?), or musically: the build-up to the chorus is repeatedly off-puttingly paced, most clearly in the "How... do I... follow... YOUUUUU" climactic line. But then again, I can say all this with authority because my older daughter, who was well finished with the first movie, is insisting on playing the soundtrack on the way to school. Maybe stuffing your sequels full of ideas and not worrying too much about the implications is more profitable than Bob Iger is willing to admit. [4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: It's impossible to discuss "Into the Unknown" without discussing the massive success of "Let It Go." "Let it Go" was the rare type of cultural touchstone whose power was almost universal: it sold 11 million copies the year after the movie came out, won an Academy Award and Grammy, reached top five on the Billboard Hot 100, was translated into 44 different languages, and arguably paved the way for Disney to release a second movie and Broadway musical. Winter 2013-2014 when the movie came out, I remember singing this song in French during French class; in 2020, I'm putting on a musical production of Frozen with my students in China and every one of them -- inexplicably, even the ones who really don't speak English -- knows the words to the chorus. This is all to say: expectations for the second Frozen soundtrack were sky-high, and thus, "Into the Unknown" has been sold as the new "Let It Go" almost since before the movie was even released. (I'd argue that "Show Yourself" is a better thematic follow-up, but never mind me.) So does "Into the Unknown" live up to the hype? Not exactly; but to no fault of its own. The song works perfectly well as a way to advance the character development of Elsa and is gorgeously sung. Idina Menzel sells trepidation, fear, and excitement convincingly, and harmonizes with Aurora beautifully. It pays tribute to its listeners too; if "Let it Go" is a child's anthem about becoming the person you have always been despite what others think, "Into the Unknown" is the adult version of that, a song about escaping the comfortable life you've built in hopes of finding something new about the world and yourself. The song is doomed to live in the shadow of its predecessor, but is still excellent in its own right. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: "Let It Go" was, for all its power, an introspective ballad that turned on the first Frozen's theme of the liberating wonder of self-discovery. Its successor, "Into the Unknown," is tasked with maneuvering great wedges of plot into position, meaning it has to be the film's showstopper as well as taking on narrative weight that "Love is an Open Door" and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" bore first time around. (The piano flurries that form the intro deliberately invoke the latter.) Aurora's four-note motif, the sinuous call that leads Idina Menzel's Elsa out of a resolved story and the security of her home of Arendelle, is appropriately otherworldly, but the song needs far too much to be overwhelming to allow that delicate melody the space it needs to be as entrancing as it is supposed to be. But "Into the Unknown" does eventually manage to be more than stage-setting; "Are you someone out there who's a little bit like me/Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be" is a couplet that speaks to that deep-seated sense of strangeness Elsa sees within herself and which has made her movies more than a toddler-sized-blue-dress dissemination mechanism. Something else helps: Menzel's horizon-shattering wail when she hits "unknown." The voice that defied gravity on "Defying Gravity" has the heft to move these big wedges of plot to where they need to go. [7]

Katie Gill: Whereas "Let it Go" was "Defying Gravity" reskinned, "Into the Unknown" is every musical theater "I want" song reskinned. Elsa wants to see how far she'll go, she's gotta find her corner of the sky, and for once it might be grand to have someone understand. As such, it's something we've heard before. A decent re-interpretation of something we've heard before with downright beautiful harmonies near the end, but something we've heard before nonetheless. "Into the Unknown" also fails in the job it's supposed to do: be inoffensive and singable enough that five year olds or my drunk ass can sing it through all the way without disaster happening. That last "into the unKNOOO-OOOOO-OOO-OOOOOWN" is very nice and very powerful and is comprised of notes that six-year-old girls and my exceedingly alto range cannot hit. But, like "Let it Go" before it, this is a song that Disney has carefully crafted and reverse-engineered and is putting so much pressure to be an actual hit. Of course it's going to be decent. Not as amazing as "Let it Go," which is easily a [9] on a good day and a [10] when I'm drunk, but a solid song nonetheless and one that I won't mind hearing when Idina inevitably performs it at the Oscars or when my five-year-old second cousin starts happily talking to me about Frozen at the next family reunion. [7]

Jackie Powell: Although Elsa doesn't build an ice castle at the conclusion of this power ballad, "Into The Unknown" doesn't need to be accompanied by gigantic visuals for it to be a much more complex and fascinating song than its predecessor. This track soars and it uses a potent string section, predictable but equally fun percussive cymbal crashes and Aurora's eerie dies irae gregorian chant as a counter melody. There's a certainty in "Let It Go" and that must be one of the reasons why it caught on as much as it did. But the difference in "Into the Unknown" is its obvious ambiguity in subject matter and tone. It's not sure of itself, but I don't think that detracts from its quality. That's why I don't think it's really all that comparable to "Let It Go." Its goals and motives are different. It's more mature in lyrical plot and composition. "Into the Unknown" takes leaps and breaths just as Elsa does when she's contemplating her next move. That's the beauty of the track, which composers Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez have addressed. Each line in each chorus is symbolic. In every "Into the Unknown" within the refrain, Idina Menzel takes a leap sonically. First, she travels an octave higher, which is a relatively safe interval, but then that is followed by the much more difficult intervals as the chorus ends. Menzel's voice goes up a ninth followed by an eleventh. Vocally she's out of her comfort zone, which pushes Elsa to do the same. The melody is clearly a bit choppier. It also bounces especially on the couplet of alliterations: " I'm sorry, secret siren, but I'm blocking out your calls." Its dynamics are much more defined and that's credit to Menzel, who wanted to sell the track as more than a "Let It Go" B-side. The extended queer metaphor that Elsa represents is able to flourish under "Unknown." Although it really shows itself much more later in the soundtrack. [7]

Edward Okulicz: Yeah, look, Frozen II: Heterosexuality Reclaims the Throne of Arendelle gave me plenty of feels too, but I always preferred "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" to "Let It Go," so this wasn't one of the Primary Feels Sources. The use of Aurora's four note call as a leitmotif is pretty clever melodically, but forcing this song and its narrative pivot kicking and screaming into being an "I Want" song (subclassification: "I Must," which if it doesn't already exist, it, well... should) is unbecoming. The asides ("which I don't") feel unnatural away from the cinema, and while Menzel surely blasts with those notes I don't feel moved when I replay. [6]

Brad Shoup: It's quenching when, in the second half of the second verse, Menzel dips into some jump-blues phrasing. There was no way this thing was going to stay an Arctic tone poem, so I'm grateful for moments like that. Toss out the movie and have Menzel reel in the asides, and you'd have a fantastically mysterious piece of piano-pop. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: I've never seen either of the Frozen films, but I recall how annoying I found "Let It Go," from the first film. This is better (though still, of course, a big Broadway-style ballad); I appreciate how this song will likely speak to theatre kids who feel like the weirdos in their schools -- songwriters Kristin Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, obviously, have a knack for this kind of thing. Having Broadway queen Idina Menzel sing it helps, as does the clever move of having Norwegian singer Aurora sing the part of the siren. Judged for what it is, rather than as a basic pop record, this is solid. [6]

Ashley Bardhan: As a recuperating former theater kid, I hoped this strange collaboration would be everything I wanted but couldn't admit. Unfortunately, it turned out to be nothing I wanted, which I feel comfortable admitting. I'm not sure what Aurora is meant to do on this track other than supply wordless, ghostly ooo-ing, which opens you to a sense of mysterious possibility that goes absolutely nowhere. Idina Menzel is a powerhouse and typically good at convincing us that we are in her character's world, but even she sounds bored at the incongruously triumphant swelling of orchestra during the chorus. She calls out from the overblown composition, "Into the unknown! Isn't it cool that I'm hitting this E-flat in chest voice?!" Yes, it is very cool, but less so that the last 40 seconds of this song is essentially musical theatre sacrilege. A money-maker high-note chorus into a painfully loud bridge that conveys absolutely no mood other than "me and Aurora are both singing right now," only to end with a very embarrassing, ham-fisted belted note? And they had the audacity to let Idina put a slide in there? No, no. No, no, no. No. [3]

Alfred Soto: No, no, I mean -- let me go. [3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Even more than the first installment, Frozen II was lacking in songs that were memorable in and of themselves. "Lost in the Woods," for example, is really only notable for the animation that accompanied it: a montage riffing on '80s music videos that proved unexpectedly entertaining. "Into the Unknown" is the film's best song, but the music doesn't quite match what the lyrics are trying to convey: Why is the first chorus so bombastic when Elsa's not yet convinced to follow this siren's song? At least "Let It Go" knew how to accomplish a sensible narrative arc with its use of dynamic range. "Unknown" doesn't come together as neatly as "Let It Go" either, which found a lot of meaning in the evolving delivery of "the cold never bothered me anyway." The complaints could go on but at the end of the day, I can't really hate something that finds Aurora using kulning -- Scandinavian herding calls -- as a narrative tool. [5]

Tobi Tella: I was 13 when the first Frozen came out, and despite the fact that I probably should've been too old for Disney princess movies by the unspoken middle school social construct standards, I dragged my dad to see it in theaters. That probably should've been his first inkling that I was gay, and as clear as Disney's attempts to play on my emotions were as a shy insecure gay kid, the introverted, uncomfortable princess Elsa was the most accurate representation I had really found of myself in a kids movie. "Let It Go" was not only a cultural moment but a formative one and even though looking back as an adult I know that Frozen has flaws, I can't help but be empowered by it now. This song was set up to fail by its positioning it as "Let It Go II," and the seams of this one are far more clear; the chorus is literally just one phrase repeated and the lyrics are prime "leave nothing to the imagination or subtext and explain all your feelings." But I still feel an intense connection to this; maybe it's Menzel's strong and evocative vocal performance, maybe it's nostalgia, and maybe it's the feeling that even as a 19 year old my experience with my identity is not even close to over, the fact that there will always be unknowns which are horrifying yet intriguing (hello adult gay dating!). I'm not sure if this is a great song, or even a good one, but for a sequel with impossibly huge expectations it managed to evoke the same intense reaction that "Let It Go" did, so I guess Disney and their manipulations win this round. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Idina Menzel #Aurora #Frozen II #Disney #pop #music #music review #movie

[ladybuvelle]

So I was having a discussion with a friend who raised an interesting point.... how would you feel about a Sona VO update that actually made her mute/replaced all her lines with musical cues?

// It’s a difficult question, honestly.

In a related sort of way it reminds me of the debate of roleplaying as Sona; do you have her never ever speak, or do you allow her some quicker form of communication? Neither choice is fully ‘right’, because on the one hand the character is mute and you want to keep true to that representation and all the challenges that come with that because they are very real and worth talking about. But on the other hand it’s not as if a mute person is completely out of other options to communicate. They can write, they can learn sign language, and in the case of a fantasy setting one could even develop telepathy or ‘communicate’ through music.

Just as being blind or deaf or paralyzed or having a mental or behavioral disorder, or any other disability, shouldn’t prevent people from living their lives and enjoying their lives and doing great things - and being champions in League - so should Sona have her limits but also her work-arounds.

So on the subject of voice overs, I think it would be a bad idea to replace her current VO with only musical sounds. For a few reasons.

“BUT JUDY” I hear someone cry out, “BARD DOESN’T TALK AND ONLY HAS SOUNDS AND HE’S FINE!”

First of all, Bard is some kind of god/spirit. They are not presented as human in any way, shape, or form. They are not presented as having a life or personality beyond purpose; Bard is intentionally a mysterious entity of unclear intent not meant to be so simply understood by mortal minds - or at least that’s my interpretation. And for all we know Bard can talk - they either just choose not to, or it’s a language we don’t understand.

Hard-setting Sona into a category of “SHE CAN’T TALK OR COMMUNICATE OR ANYTHING EVER” would be offensive and cruel. She is, as far as outside appearances go and her role in society, a human. She needs human connections just like every other person does. We’re just a bunch of apes. As I said she can write, sign, etc. But most importantly perhaps is she can think.

So my proposal, if Riot wanted to redo her VO, would be one of two choices:

A - Make her fully telepathic. Make it clear and distinct that it’s not her ‘real’ voice, and add in plenty of accompanying elements like musical sounds, shifts in breath, etc.

B - Present Sona’s voice as her own thoughts that the player is privy to by playing as her. Same as above, just slightly different context.

Though there is a third option here:

C - Give her a hybrid of the Jhin VO. While playing Jhin, his voice is accompanied by a chorus of melodic voices to represent his own delusions or personal euphoria (depending on your interpretation), while other players can’t actually hear that chorus. They only hear his voice through the mask.So with that in mind, it might be interesting to see that technique used on Sona in creative ways. Make it so only the player can hear her thoughts but other players would only hear musical cues. Or make it so only certain other champs can pick up on her telepathy for one reason or another, making it an interesting Easter Egg or subtle storytelling.

From the standpoint of someone playing League and not having an interest in the lore at all, I also think it would be a bad idea to completely take away her ‘voice’. Again, you’d be severing a lot of her human connection. It’s too late in the game to change her like that. She’d be in danger of becoming an unrelateable and boring character - especially these days with champs having more voice lines than ever. Yes, you’d be ‘cheating’ to some extent by making her mute but also giving her telepathy - but it’s a fantasy world. I think it’s forgivable, and her disability and the limits that come with that, as I said, are still there and very real otherwise for those who care.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#league stuff #somethingwittyandweird