Discussion»Statements»Rosie's Corner» Don't composers of symphonies have to know how to play all those instruments in order to write the music for them? How is that possible?
It's easier to get the diction right if you don't know the language - I know from experience. I sing perfect unaccented Italian, can't speak a word of it. However, I do manage a little German with an Austrian twang - my teachers were a Salzburger and a Viennese - and ironing that out to get the enunciation right for singing Höch Deutsch was much harder.
This post was edited by Slartibartfast at July 28, 2020 1:58 AM MDT
Interesting observation! I must admit I'd have thought it easier when taught by natural speakers of the language. I have heard a "Language Coach" named among the credits after opera broadcasts; but perhaps what's more important is as you suggest, is correct diction not accent. Especially if a mis-pronounciation has unfortunate results, or just makes the words nonsense.
Perhaps native speakers of any language tend to flavour their speech with their own regional accents and dialects, so don't necessarily pronounce words the "book way".
Comparing their voices between performance and interview, I have the impression many singers' natural accents fade when singing, probably because they are concentrating on accurate pronunciation. Also because for sopranos especially, it is physically impossible to enunciate some letters at the top of their range, and those parts of the aria becomes more a sound-picture than narrative.
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I once heard a cover by an American soprano of Fairport Convention's Who Knows Where The Time Goes. Obviously she would have been musically spot-on but it didn't quite work. It sounded strange, I think because she was trying a bit too hard to sing in a natural voice similar to that of its originator, Sandy Denny, rather than in the stretched style of high-art singing. Singers, of both sexes, in operatic and similar genres have long used a rather plummy delivery for folk-songs arranged with a "classical" touch, so can sound contrived. So perhaps she was trying to avoid that trap whilst avoiding the opposite, far worse, trap of trying to sound rustic - even more contrived! That song is not geographically set anyway - it applies wherever you live.
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An acquaintance teaches English in Italy. She is from the county of Lancaster in the North-West of England, and because she has that region's strong, distinctive accent and dialect, her friends reckon it's not English she's teaching, but Lancastrian!
Amira, when she sings in English, has a very strong Dutch accent. That's how she learned it. When singing Puccini, the accent disappears - she has never learned Italian, so she's concentrating on the sounds rather than the words. Had I learned German from Germans, the difficulty may not have arisen. However, the Austrian dialect is distinctive.
Thank you for your very thoughtful comprehensive and informative reply Durdle. I appreciate that you give a lot of your time when you reply to my questions. I think you are a very meticulous person who enjoys sharing what he knows/thinks with others. My favorite kind of folks. You know I never once thought about the ones who sing. I just always took them for granted. I think those with incredibly beautiful voices are a thing apart though. When I hear them they seem to be "other-worldly". How is it that some voices can be so magnificent they move us to tears with their sheer beauty? The dedication and skill and difficulty of learning operas in languages not your own and giving the proper emotion in the proper places so that they are not laughed off the stages when they sing in the language of the locals is amazing. Who invented music? Who invented singing? Who invented dancing? The things in life that bring beauty to it? I wonder constantly "who was the first to do this?" whatever that "this" is. Imagine a world without those things? I cannot. You and the family doing well under the circumstances? Take care and Happy Tuesday! STAY SAFE! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at July 28, 2020 3:32 PM MDT
Well, we will never know who invented anything musical but archaeologists have found hints of it from prehistory.
One French archaeologist who had been studying some of the finest Stone Age cave-art realised it was in chambers with reverberant acoustics particularly good for speaking and singing; supporting the theory that the art was of ceremonial or other social purpose. Another talking about this on the radio, saying she experimented with a simple pipe in one of these caves - and the effect moved most of her audience to tears.
Sometimes the signing does not need words either, such as the mystical 5/4-time "aah-ah" in the Neptune movement of Holst's The Planets Suite; and the soprano passages in the modern, very strange Sleep, by Max Richter.
Whatever the motives or direct purposes for particular works, creating beautiful things seems to be almost an instinct in humanity. I have seen Bronze-Age metalwork and pottery, in museums, and their styles and decoration would look good in a modern jeweller's or potter's studio. Sometimes you spot a finger-print preserved in the pot walls, reminding us it was created by the brain and hands of an unknown artist perhaps 3000, 4000, years ago.
No, I can't imagine a world without art and culture either, although we have seen those who hate such things try to drive them out of their countries.
Yes - our family are fine thank-you - I hope yours are!
We are doing remarkably fine under the terrible circumstances of living in California which is spiking surging AGAIN! AARRGGHH! We love to watch the Science Channel and the History channel. I get goosebumps when the episode is about ancient times and ancient things. There seems to be evidence that some great knowledge we used to have is no longer available to us since we can't figure HOW humans did some of the things they did without machinery or weapons or any apparent means of doing them. I wonder how much knowledge was lost because of the fires at Alexandria? Didn't the Library there house all the books ever written and was a treasure trove of where we'd been and where we were and how we got there? How sad is that? Also many invading forces destroy the existing treasures of the lands they invade. I have never understood why that is. I think I'll ask. Are we much less than we used to be thousands of years ago? How will we ever KNOW? I will share something weird. Are you familiar with the Acropolis and the Erechtheum? The Porch of the Caryatids specifically? I had a Greek pen pal many years ago whose name was Gregory. He sent me a small book titled "A Concise Guide to THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS". It was inscribed and dated July 1955 Athens. When I came upon the Caryatids I got GOOSEBUMPS. Never knew of its existence nor seen it priorly. But I swear I felt I had been there watching them build it. I will never know WHY? My dad did live on the island of Crete for several years but never made it to Athens to my knowledge. Now maybe long ago I saw a travel show that covered the Acropolis. If so I don't remember it at all. Not one bit. How could I have a "memory" of something I could not possibly have witnessed? Beats me. :)
This post was edited by RosieG at July 29, 2020 3:35 PM MDT
Thank you Rosie - I am afraid I don't know a great deal about Greek ancient-history. I have heard of the Acropolis, perhaps the most famous monument there, but don't know its details.
How ancient people created what they did is a problem that has occupied archaeologists for years, and it is easy to assume some mysterious bank of long-lost knowledge but that's only a reflection of our modern society always wanting to complicate life! It's only fairly recently that archaeologists have managed to come up with likely solutions, by experimenting with possible methods. These show nothing complicated, but it did rely on sheer hard work by large work-forces, using very simple tools; and what is more significant is that it shows large, stable, well-organised, well-fed societies able to think a long way ahead.
It's popular to imagine the labourers were slaves, and that may have been so for the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians but not necessarily true for all ancient societies. We don't know how Neolithic and Bronze-Age, NW European societies organised themselves, only what they could make and trade.
Invaders and sometimes internal revolutionaries destroy their victims' property usually to try to impose their own dogmas on the country. I think the Romans were one of the few who did not do that very much. They tried to crush Christianity very cruelly when it first appeared in their Empire, but by and large seemed to have left the indigenous people to their own ways.
By chance, I have just heard an interview with one of the researchers, on how they have now traced the source of the sarsen stones on Stonehenge. Conservation work on the monument in the 1950s involved drilling holes in a sarsen that had fallen down, and the drilling company allowed one of the operators to keep a core of the rock. He retired to America, taking it with him, but two years ago his son decided to return it to English Heritage, the Government body that looks after sites like Stonehenge. EH had its chemistry analysed by a geomorphologist who has studied the rock type across Southern England and in other countries, and this allowed him to pin-point the source to about fifteen miles from the site.
How the builders 4000 years ago managed to haul the stones across country to Stonehenge and erect them, is another matter, but the most likely technique was tree-trunk rollers, ropes, wooden levers and lots of strong men! Possibly with an earth ramp to raise the stones to the tops of the uprights. These pillars are not ever so high, and the builders just might have discovered or learnt the lifting A-frame principle, using tree-trunks and ropes and more strong men, but whose modern expression is that on skip-trucks and survey-ships.
Actually, lifting techniques were not that much more advanced for the Mediaeval cathedral-builders, or even the engineers who erected the huge steam-powered beam-engines that came into use in the 18 and 19C. The big, heavy components were raised by simple winches and blocks-and-tackle slung from temporary timber derricks or from lifting-beams installed in the building itself. According to an old engineering text-book I have, the engine parts were bolted together by the manufacturers' skilled fitters, but lifted into place by gangs of labourers who were often former sea-men accustomed to using ropes and pulleys to operate and repair sailing-ships at sea.
One theory that I'm sure you've heard is that they used "LEVITATION". Which of course is a very mystical thing to imagine. That by whatever means they were able to harness it these enormously heavy stones were moved by use of levitation. There are some who believe we humans are capable of so much more than we know but for whatever reason cannot "remember". I'm open to anything and everything. A three-dimensional world? Pish tosh. It could be ten dimensions or 20. We can't know what we are unable to access. Doesn't mean it isn't out there. Ever read "Scientific American"magazine? Way back in May of 2003 the cover read "Infinite Earths in Parallel Universes Really Exist". The article began on P.41 and ended on P. 51. I have a friend who subscribed to the magazine and gave me that particular issue because he knew of my fascination with Quantum Physics. 4 multiverses. Level 1 through Level 4. Then there is that awesome thing called Quantum Entanglement that is so amazing. I fascinate easily I guess. But it sure makes life a lot more exciting. Every new thing or new way of looking at thing in the world of physics floats my boat. Yours too? Thank you for your reply Durdle! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at July 31, 2020 9:44 AM MDT
I know it's just a trick but when you see a magician make a prone body rise how is that done? I don't think for minute it's based on science. I just wonder if you have a clue how they give that illusion?
There was guy named Yuri someone long ago who could make spoons bend without ever touching them. Ever hear of him? I don't know if he could levitate anything but I always thought that was a really nifty trick and how in the heck did anyone ever pull it off? Thank you for your reply Durdle and Happy Friday! :)
C'mon Durdle! "supposed to" surely doesn't stop you from opining does it? Unless YOU ARE A MAGICIAN AND YOU DON'T WANT TO SPILL THE BEANS. I wonder what happens to a magician who does? Thank you for your reply and the last name of the spoon bender. I remember Uri! :)
I can't opine on stage magic techniques because I don't know them - I am not a magician. :-)
A magician who gave the game away on purpose would be very unpopular with his or her fellow-magicians, and would probably lose bookings because the revelation would be unprofessional and spoil it for the audience. Of course we know it's all done by clever mechanics, sleight-of-hand and mild psychological manipulation, but we usually want to suspend that while watching the acts. Same as watching a play or film, really, when it's the characters we see and hear, not the people impersonating them.
I believe one magician who did reveal the acts are trickery was Harry Houdini, but in order to expose the "séance mediums" fashionable in his time as the cruel hoaxers they were.
I do have a book given to me when I was about 8, with one chapter describing several simple conjuring tricks suitable for home performance, but giving a glimpse into the skill.
I thought that not long ago you said you want some things left mysterious!
You remember correctly. It was when our company took us to Disneyland one year and the owners of the company had a close friend who was a Disneyland Bigshot. It was a very nice evening. We had dinner at that secret restaurant you enter though an unmarked door above the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN ride. We took a tour with him later and at one point he was going to describe HOW they do the holograms in the Haunted Mansion. I excused myself and told him I didn't want to know. I didn't want the "magic" to disappear. But I would like to know about the levitation. That always blows my mind. An entire prone body rises. Now how can that be what EVERYONE sees in an audience? Is mass hypnosis or mass suggestion that total? I'm unable to be hypnotized. I read once it is because I will not cede control over myself to anyone. Had a friend who tried it when I was trying to lose weight many years ago and I did not want to take pills. He tried. I trusted him. He was our dentist and a long-time family friend. It just didn't happen. So that's why I can't grasp mass anything. Even though you are NOT a magician you are one smart cooky. I thought perhaps you ,ight have an opinion on how it's done. No worries. Thank you for your reply Durdle! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at August 2, 2020 1:35 PM MDT
Durdle 