You know the song, I know the song, even little schoolchildren know the song. But pretend for a moment that you've never heard it before, but you can read musical notation. How would you sing this song? If you don't read music, there are plenty of people who do. The Twitter thread has at least a dozen singers trying to follow the notation, which makes the song a pain to hear. (via Metafilter)This is your formal invitation to comment with a video of you singing the first two lines *as written,* good luck! pic.twitter.com/egWpIZyT4b
— Threatening Music Notation (@ThreatNotation) November 21, 2022
That's the difference between singing it as it was written, and singing it the way you've heard someone else singing it. Take the second phrase (the fire is so delightful)... it's written so the words 'the' and 'is' are the words that are held, as opposed to the squintillion times we've heard it sung with the words 'fire' and 'so' getting the extra time. And then there's the word 'delightful', which is written here so the melody goes down two tones on the middle syllable and then up one on the third, instead of the orderly three note step down we're all used to.
ReplyDeleteWhich makes me wonder. We've all heard some people sing "The Star Spangled Banner" and take... well, let's say, "liberties" (pun intentional) with the melody in certain spots, usually followed by a chorus of voices claiming that the performer is disrespecting the song and that they should have "sung it like it was writ!!" It might be fun to get one's hand on a copy of the original music of "To Anacreon in Heaven" (the name of the drinking song from where the melody came) and see just how the original WAS written.
-"BB"-