TLC teaches lit class?
Jorn Barger
> What is it about the poetic form (rhythm, meter, line) that gives us
> any more information or aesthetic value than the prose form?
Yikes! If you have to ask, my explanation surely won't help much.
- Language evolved step by step, from roots in the natural rhythms of
breath, etc.
- The expressive component is thus deeper than the semantic component
- Prosaic speech can emphasize the semantics, while ignoring the
expressivity almost completely
- 'Ebonics' only works if you get the expressivity
- Poetry is an attempt to reconnect with the expressivity, in writing
- Great poems have a rhythmic 'tide' that grabs you, mysteriously
- Songs usually offer only a prosaic setting for their lyrics.
- Joni Mitchell set new standards for fitting speech rhythms to music
- TLC's "No Scrubs" does the same thing, to my ears, for black rhythms.
--
"There are whole summer weekends at certain beaches in Chicago where
the promise of America is actually fulfilled, where the Mexican family
barbecues next to the black family's picnic next to a gay volleyball
tournament across from where the elderly Poles stroll." --Sarah Vowell
Bob Trosper
Jorn Barger wrote:
>
> In rab and rap, Bob Trosper <rtro...@sr.hp.com> wrote:
> > What is it about the poetic form (rhythm, meter, line) that gives us
> > any more information or aesthetic value than the prose form?
>
> Yikes! If you have to ask, my explanation surely won't help much.
Sigh. I wasn't talking about the poetic form in general, for god's
sake, I was talking about the poetic form FOR THIS PIECE!
>
> - Language evolved step by step, from roots in the natural rhythms of
> breath, etc.
>
> - The expressive component is thus deeper than the semantic component
Very arguable. Artificial separation of "expressive" and "semantic"
into "natural rhythms of break" and (I assume) meaning of words
doesn't work for me, and stating that occurring previously in time
makes something "deeper" is not convincing either.
>
> - Prosaic speech can emphasize the semantics, while ignoring the
> expressivity almost completely
And so can poetry. Your point? In what way DOES THIS PARTICULAR PIECE
AS POETRY ON THE PAGE OR SPOKEN (NOT song) emphasize expression.
(Expressivity? Is that a word?)
>
> - 'Ebonics' only works if you get the expressivity
What bullshit. Ebonics "works" as communication if you understand the
vocabulary and grammar. Ebonics works as poetry if it works as poetry.
If you're saying that there's some unique value that Ebonics has over
other dialects/languages/human speech then please be more specific. Or
is this another attempt to link Ebonics with "soul" and everything
else as "divorced from the proud pad of foot on mother earth"?
>
> - Poetry is an attempt to reconnect with the expressivity, in writing
You're going to have to describe "expressivity" as a good deal more
than the rhythms of breath to convince me of that.
>
> - Great poems have a rhythmic 'tide' that grabs you, mysteriously
Sometimes mysteriously and sometimes explicitly.
>
> - Songs usually offer only a prosaic setting for their lyrics.
This is patently ridiculous. If you're using prosaic as "ordinary or
dull", ninety percent of EVERYTHING is that way. That's why is prosaic
:=) If you're using it as opposed to poetic, the mind boggles. Songs
without rhythm, meter or line. Quite a concept.
>
> - Joni Mitchell set new standards for fitting speech rhythms to music
I like Joni Mitchell. I have a good many albums. Are you saying "new
standards in popular music" for fitting speech rhythms to music? If,
so, there's a case to be made. Otherwise, the opera and art song
people are going to thump rhythms all over your body.
>
> - TLC's "No Scrubs" does the same thing, to my ears, for black rhythms.
>
> --
> "There are whole summer weekends at certain beaches in Chicago where
> the promise of America is actually fulfilled, where the Mexican family
> barbecues next to the black family's picnic next to a gay volleyball
> tournament across from where the elderly Poles stroll." --Sarah Vowell
And what promise is that? The one where we carefully sort people by
color, sexual preference and ethnicity and "tolerate" each other? I
don't remember that promise being made anywhere.
-- Bob T.
Jorn Barger
> > - Language evolved step by step, from roots in the natural rhythms of
> > breath, etc.
> > - The expressive component is thus deeper than the semantic component
>
> Very arguable. Artificial separation of "expressive" and "semantic"
> doesn't work for me,
Simple experiment: Replace each syllable in a poem with a meaningless
phoneme. If it still conveys something, that's not semantics.
> and stating that occurring previously in time
> makes something "deeper" is not convincing either.
This is a truth about neural evolution, but if you don't see it, I don't
think I can convince you without more effort than it's worth to me just
now. (Maybe in a day or two, if I ponder it some more.)
> > - Prosaic speech can emphasize the semantics, while ignoring the
> > expressivity almost completely
>
> And so can poetry.
Bad poetry, sure.
> Your point? In what way DOES THIS PARTICULAR PIECE
> AS POETRY ON THE PAGE OR SPOKEN (NOT song) emphasize expression.
> (Expressivity? Is that a word?)
I don't know any song where the poetry works as poetry on the page.
(Have you heard the TLC song?)
> > - 'Ebonics' only works if you get the expressivity
>
> What bullshit. Ebonics "works" as communication if you understand the
> vocabulary and grammar.
If I turn to the black kids on the CTA and say, "Hey, bro, wutz
happenin?" I guarantee they'll look at me like I'm from Mars.
> Ebonics works as poetry if it works as poetry.
> If you're saying that there's some unique value that Ebonics has over
> other dialects/languages/human speech then please be more specific. Or
> is this another attempt to link Ebonics with "soul" and everything
> else as "divorced from the proud pad of foot on mother earth"?
It's an observed ( -by-me) fact. Why do you think 90% of modern
American slang is ebonics-derived?
> > - Poetry is an attempt to reconnect with the expressivity, in writing
>
> You're going to have to describe "expressivity" as a good deal more
> than the rhythms of breath to convince me of that.
I know noble accents
and lucid, inescapable rhythms...
> > - Great poems have a rhythmic 'tide' that grabs you, mysteriously
>
> Sometimes mysteriously and sometimes explicitly.
If it's not mysterious to you, please explain it to me!
> > - Songs usually offer only a prosaic setting for their lyrics.
>
> This is patently ridiculous. If you're using prosaic as "ordinary or
> dull", ninety percent of EVERYTHING is that way. That's why is prosaic
> :=) If you're using it as opposed to poetic, the mind boggles. Songs
> without rhythm, meter or line. Quite a concept.
As soon as a poem succumbs to a fixed meter, it dies, I think. This is
the problem with lyrics.
> > - Joni Mitchell set new standards for fitting speech rhythms to music
>
> I like Joni Mitchell. I have a good many albums. Are you saying "new
> standards in popular music" for fitting speech rhythms to music? If,
> so, there's a case to be made. Otherwise, the opera and art song
> people are going to thump rhythms all over your body.
I bet you're just kowtowing to reputations, not speaking from real,
personal esthetic experiences.
Jorn Barger
> And so can poetry. Your point? In what way DOES THIS PARTICULAR PIECE
> AS POETRY ON THE PAGE OR SPOKEN (NOT song) emphasize expression.
> (Expressivity? Is that a word?)
Maybe the answer you want is line by line?
Here's a 3mb MP3, if you want to follow at home:
ftp://ftp.sonic.net/pub/users/rmorita/mp3/music/(TLC)-No Scrubs.Mp3
> A scrub is a guy that thinks he's fly
> And is also known as a buster
The rhythms in these lines are radically cool, and not at all
mechanical/metronomic.
> Always talkin' about what he wants
> And just sits on his broke ass
This is much, much weaker.
> So (no)
> I don't want your number (no)
> I don't want to give you mine and (no)
> I don't want to meet you nowhere (no)
> I don't want none of your time and (no)
This is probably my favorite part, gorgeously fitting speech rhythms to
emotion to music.
> Chorus:
> I don't want no scrub
> A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me
Difficult challenge, fitting in all those syllables, beautifully
executed.
> Hanging out the passenger side
> Of his best friend's ride
> Trying to holler at me
Just okay.
> But a scrub is checkin' me
> But his game is kinda weak
> And I know that he cannot approach me
> Cuz I'm lookin' like class and he's lookin' like trash
> Can't get wit' no deadbeat ass
Much lamer, but passable.
> If you don't have a car and you're walking
> Oh yes son I'm talking to you
Gorgeous!
> If you live at home wit' your momma
> Oh yes son I'm talking to you (baby)
Nice.
> If you have a shorty but you don't show love
> Oh yes son I'm talking to you
Still works, improbably.
> Wanna get with me with no money
> Oh no I don't want no (oh)
Crosses over into Michael Jackson land, but what the heck, it still
works.
> No scrub
> No scrub (no no)
> No scrub (no no no no no)
> No scrub (no no)
> No
Lovely.
Jorn Barger
quoting me:
> > Simple experiment: Replace each syllable in a poem with a meaningless
> > phoneme. If it still conveys something, that's not semantics.
>
> Branches tapping on windows, ripples on water, ashes blowing in the
> wind. Once you attach some MEANING to it, which "convey" seems to
> imply, you're into semantics. You seem not to note that communication
> requires a sender and a receiver and something to convey.
I don't get the feeling that you're trying to understand my point;
rather you're trying to assert your ego.
[...]
> > I don't know any song where the poetry works as poetry on the page.
>
> Then perhaps you haven't heard Joni Mitchell's setting of Yeats
> "Slouching Towards Bethlehem",
You're cheating, there.
> or "Sounds of Silence" by Paul Simon,
> or a good many other songs on that album.
> Hello darkness, my old friend,
> I've come to talk with you again,
> Because a vision softly creeping,
> Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
> And the vision that was planted in my brain
> Still remains
> Within the sound of silence.
Absolutely not a good poem on its own, imho.
> In restless dreams I walked alone
> Narrow streets of cobblestone,
> 'Neath the halo of a street lamp,
> I turned my collar to the cold and damp
> When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a
> neon light
> That split the night
> And touched the sound of silence.
>
> And in the naked light I saw
> Ten thousand people, maybe more.
> People talking without speaking,
> People hearing without listening,
> People writing songs that voices never share
> And no one dare
> Disturb the sound of silence.
>
> "Fools" said I, "You do not know
> Silence like a cancer grows.
> Hear my words that I might teach you,
> Take my arms that I might reach you."
> But my words like silent raindrops fell,
> And echoed
> In the wells of silence
>
> And the people bowed and prayed
> To the neon god they made.
> And the sign flashed out its warning,
> In the words that it was forming.
> And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
> are written on the subway walls
> And tenement halls."
> And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.
Back in the late 60s high school English texts tried to include stuff
like this among the poems. Never worked for me, but that's not saying
it couldn't work.
> > > > - 'Ebonics' only works if you get the expressivity
> > > What bullshit. Ebonics "works" as communication if you understand the
> > > vocabulary and grammar.
> > If I turn to the black kids on the CTA and say, "Hey, bro, wutz
> > happenin?" I guarantee they'll look at me like I'm from Mars.
>
> And your point is? That you're the wrong color? That you won't get the
> rhythms right? What?
Chill OUT, dude...
The same thing is true for most languages, I think-- just knowing the
vocab and grammar may not help if you don't have the rhythms. With
ebonics this is even more necessary, because it's so rhythmic.
> > [...] Why do you think 90% of modern
> > American slang is ebonics-derived?
>
> 90% of American slang is ebonics-derived, eh? Whose slang? Where does
> this number come from? It's not 90% of everyone's slang.
I made it up. (Duh!)
> > > You're going to have to describe "expressivity" as a good deal more
> > > than the rhythms of breath to convince me of that.
> > I know noble accents
> > and lucid, inescapable rhythms...
>
> Are you equating expressivity SOLELY with rhythm?
Just about. Rhyme and alliteration don't seem that important to me,
though a nice variety of vowel sounds and consonant sounds are good, and
there's an onomatopoeia factor, too.
[...]
> > As soon as a poem succumbs to a fixed meter, it dies, I think. This is
> > the problem with lyrics.
>
> Well, that lets out Shakespeare, Dante, Wordsworth, Milton and all
> those other hacks, I guess. Free verse uber alles. Songs are not
> required to have a fixed meter so it isn't even necessarily a problem
> with song lyrics.
(Please stop frothing or I'm going to give up. Nothing is gained if you
look for the _least_ likely interpretation of my words.)
Stephen Hero, p25: "Verse to be read according to its rhythm should be
read according to the stresses; that is, neither strictly according to
the feet nor yet with complete disregard of them."
The tune pushes a lyric further towards the former error. Great poets
can keep the poem alive within the form, though.
> > > > - Joni Mitchell set new standards for fitting speech rhythms to music
> > > I like Joni Mitchell. I have a good many albums. Are you saying "new
> > > standards in popular music" for fitting speech rhythms to music? If,
> > > so, there's a case to be made. Otherwise, the opera and art song
> > > people are going to thump rhythms all over your body.
> > I bet you're just kowtowing to reputations, not speaking from real,
> > personal esthetic experiences.
>
> What in the HELL are you talking about? As mentioned above, it seems
> your knowledge of Mitchell is lacking, and it would seem you're
> implying that I have no real knowledge of opera or art song either and
> that I'm incapable of a personal aesthetic experience. If so, you're
> wrong on all counts.
It should have been pretty easy, then, to cite a particular innovative
art-song-or-opera that anticipated Joni. But I notice you haven't.
Bob Trosper
starting to think the whole thing was either a troll to start with or
we've gotten into the positions of Thurber's couple where the husband
ended up defending Donald Duck as the greatest living cinema artist.
I'm not sure which one of us is backing the Duck.
I don't agree with your assertions on rhythm, communication, Ebonics,
how one does or does not read a poem, whether song lyrics need rhythm
or meter and all the rest of it, and I see no illumination from your
examples. If TLC's effort is poetry and Sounds of Silence is not, if
citing Mitchell's adaptation of Yeats is "cheating" then I just don't
think we have enough common ground to stand on. Go with god.
-- Bob T.
Bob Trosper
Amanda Rachelle Warren wrote:
>
> This is a stupid and pointless conversation. All language is inheirently
> rhythmic...that's called syllables...go figure. With ebonics, as with any
> vernacular, or colloqual or cultural variation of any language stresses
> are placed on different syllables at times, and different and distinct
> grammatical rules, from the "standard" (gahd how I hate that word!)
> formation apply. Singing, rapping, etc...of course has rhythm, cause they
> are built of words. Songs are like poems...most of them are like bad
> poems, but there is no accounting for taste.
Yes indeed.
>
> > > > [...] Why do you think 90% of modern
> > > > American slang is ebonics-derived?
> > >
> > > 90% of American slang is ebonics-derived, eh? Whose slang? Where does
> > > this number come from? It's not 90% of everyone's slang.
> >
> > I made it up. (Duh!)
> >
>
> This kind of crap will weaken whatever arguement you are trying for
> here...what the hell are you arguing about again?
This one seemed to start as an argument over whether communicating
with "expressivity", whatever that is, was impossible for someone who,
for some reason or another never stated, didn't have rhythm. I think.
>
> > > > > You're going to have to describe "expressivity" as a good deal more
> > > > > than the rhythms of breath to convince me of that.
> > > > I know noble accents
> > > > and lucid, inescapable rhythms...
> > >
> > > Are you equating expressivity SOLELY with rhythm?
> >
> > Just about. Rhyme and alliteration don't seem that important to me,
> > though a nice variety of vowel sounds and consonant sounds are good, and
> > there's an onomatopoeia factor, too.
> >
> > [...]
>
> The above makes you an idiot...go listen to drum solos then, the big
> eighties hair bands were SO expressive. (this is sarcasm) Internal rhythm
> and alliteration are extremely important to the music of a song or poem.
> And do you know what onomotopoeia means? It means Wham, Bam,
> Kapowie...those are great words yaar. (this too is sarcasm)
Well, I agree there too. The "idiot", in this case, wasn't me, though
I wouldn't characterize him that way.
>
> > > > As soon as a poem succumbs to a fixed meter, it dies, I think. This is
> > > > the problem with lyrics.
>
> I am confused with the cutting and pasting here, which one of ya'll said
> this...stupidity is unbecoming.
Um, that was Jorn :=). I thought it was nonsensical, too.
> > >
> > > Well, that lets out Shakespeare, Dante, Wordsworth, Milton and all
> > > those other hacks, I guess. Free verse uber alles. Songs are not
> > > required to have a fixed meter so it isn't even necessarily a problem
> > > with song lyrics.
> >
> > (Please stop frothing or I'm going to give up. Nothing is gained if you
> > look for the _least_ likely interpretation of my words.)
> >
> > Stephen Hero, p25: "Verse to be read according to its rhythm should be
> > read according to the stresses; that is, neither strictly according to
> > the feet nor yet with complete disregard of them."
> >
>
> Yeah, internal rhythm. Plah, twits.
>
> > The tune pushes a lyric further towards the former error. Great poets
> > can keep the poem alive within the form, though.
> >
> > > > > > - Joni Mitchell set new standards for fitting speech rhythms to music
> > > > > I like Joni Mitchell. I have a good many albums. Are you saying "new
> > > > > standards in popular music" for fitting speech rhythms to music? If,
> > > > > so, there's a case to be made. Otherwise, the opera and art song
> > > > > people are going to thump rhythms all over your body.
> > > > I bet you're just kowtowing to reputations, not speaking from real,
> > > > personal esthetic experiences.
> > >
> > > What in the HELL are you talking about? As mentioned above, it seems
> > > your knowledge of Mitchell is lacking, and it would seem you're
> > > implying that I have no real knowledge of opera or art song either and
> > > that I'm incapable of a personal aesthetic experience. If so, you're
> > > wrong on all counts.
> >
> > It should have been pretty easy, then, to cite a particular innovative
> > art-song-or-opera that anticipated Joni. But I notice you haven't.
> >
> >
>
> What the hell is art song? Phillip glass?
Schubert, Kurt Weill for two. Glass gives me gas, mainly. Don't care
much for serialism, I'm afraid I fall asleep.
>
> Tired of silly people trying to look smart,
> Amanda
Well, yes, me too, which is why I've given up on this thread as per a
coming post. I think both Jorn and I had gotten to that point, and I'm
giving up first.
-- Bob T.
Amanda Rachelle Warren
This is a stupid and pointless conversation. All language is inheirently
rhythmic...that's called syllables...go figure. With ebonics, as with any
vernacular, or colloqual or cultural variation of any language stresses
are placed on different syllables at times, and different and distinct
grammatical rules, from the "standard" (gahd how I hate that word!)
formation apply. Singing, rapping, etc...of course has rhythm, cause they
are built of words. Songs are like poems...most of them are like bad
poems, but there is no accounting for taste.
> > > [...] Why do you think 90% of modern
> > > American slang is ebonics-derived?
> >
> > 90% of American slang is ebonics-derived, eh? Whose slang? Where does
> > this number come from? It's not 90% of everyone's slang.
>
> I made it up. (Duh!)
>
This kind of crap will weaken whatever arguement you are trying for
here...what the hell are you arguing about again?
> > > > You're going to have to describe "expressivity" as a good deal more
> > > > than the rhythms of breath to convince me of that.
> > > I know noble accents
> > > and lucid, inescapable rhythms...
> >
> > Are you equating expressivity SOLELY with rhythm?
>
> Just about. Rhyme and alliteration don't seem that important to me,
> though a nice variety of vowel sounds and consonant sounds are good, and
> there's an onomatopoeia factor, too.
>
> [...]
The above makes you an idiot...go listen to drum solos then, the big
eighties hair bands were SO expressive. (this is sarcasm) Internal rhythm
and alliteration are extremely important to the music of a song or poem.
And do you know what onomotopoeia means? It means Wham, Bam,
Kapowie...those are great words yaar. (this too is sarcasm)
> > > As soon as a poem succumbs to a fixed meter, it dies, I think. This is
> > > the problem with lyrics.
I am confused with the cutting and pasting here, which one of ya'll said
this...stupidity is unbecoming.
> >
> > Well, that lets out Shakespeare, Dante, Wordsworth, Milton and all
> > those other hacks, I guess. Free verse uber alles. Songs are not
> > required to have a fixed meter so it isn't even necessarily a problem
> > with song lyrics.
>
> (Please stop frothing or I'm going to give up. Nothing is gained if you
> look for the _least_ likely interpretation of my words.)
>
> Stephen Hero, p25: "Verse to be read according to its rhythm should be
> read according to the stresses; that is, neither strictly according to
> the feet nor yet with complete disregard of them."
>
Yeah, internal rhythm. Plah, twits.
> The tune pushes a lyric further towards the former error. Great poets
> can keep the poem alive within the form, though.
>
> > > > > - Joni Mitchell set new standards for fitting speech rhythms to music
> > > > I like Joni Mitchell. I have a good many albums. Are you saying "new
> > > > standards in popular music" for fitting speech rhythms to music? If,
> > > > so, there's a case to be made. Otherwise, the opera and art song
> > > > people are going to thump rhythms all over your body.
> > > I bet you're just kowtowing to reputations, not speaking from real,
> > > personal esthetic experiences.
> >
> > What in the HELL are you talking about? As mentioned above, it seems
> > your knowledge of Mitchell is lacking, and it would seem you're
> > implying that I have no real knowledge of opera or art song either and
> > that I'm incapable of a personal aesthetic experience. If so, you're
> > wrong on all counts.
>
> It should have been pretty easy, then, to cite a particular innovative
> art-song-or-opera that anticipated Joni. But I notice you haven't.
>
>
What the hell is art song? Phillip glass?
Tired of silly people trying to look smart,
Amanda
> --
> "There are whole summer weekends at certain beaches in Chicago where
> the promise of America is actually fulfilled, where the Mexican family
> barbecues next to the black family's picnic next to a gay volleyball
> tournament across from where the elderly Poles stroll." --Sarah Vowell
>
>
"The time has come" the walrus said,
"to talk of many things, of shoes,
and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages
and kings, and why the sea is boiling hot,
and whether pigs have wings."
L.Carroll
Jorn Barger
This is the earliest great poem I know, from 1648, by Robert Herrick:
Lovers How They Come and Part
A gyges ring they bear about them still,
To be, and not seen when and where they will.
They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall,
They fall like dew, but make no noise at all.
So silently they one to th'other come,
As colours steal into the pear or plum,
And air-like, leave no pression to be seen
Where'er they met, or parting place it has been.
Among Joni lyrics, this comes pretty close:
Blue, songs are like tattoos
You know I've been to sea betore
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey Blue, here is a song for you
Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty space to fill in
But it really doesn't make it all the way *on the page*.
Lately my favorite poems (from the daily offerings at poems.com) have
been by Joe Salerno:
Poetry Is the Art of Not Succeeding
Poetry is the art of not succeeding;
the art of making a little ritual
out of your own bad luck, lighting a little fire
made of leaves, reciting a prayer
in the ordinary dark.
It's the art of those who didn't make it
after all; who were lucky enough to be
left behind, while the winners ran on ahead
to wherever it is winners
go running to.
O blessed rainy day, glorious
as a paper bag. The kingdom of poetry
is like this - quiet, anonymous,
a dab of sunlight on the back of your hand,
a view out the window just before dusk.
It's an art more shadow than statue,
and has something to do with your dreams
running out - a bare branch darkening
on a winter sky, the week-old snow
frozen into something hard.
It's an art as simple as drinking water
from a tin cup; of loving that moment
at the end of autumn, say, when the air
holds no more promises, and the days are short
and likely to be gray.
A bland light is best to see it in.
Middle age brings it to flower.
And there, just when you're feeling your weakest,
it floods you completely,
leaving you weeping as you drive your car.
Joe Salerno
_Only Here_
Ars Poetica
And the best poem of all time, imho (by Wallace Stevens):
Of Mere Being
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze distance.
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
tejas
> Well, yes, me too, which is why I've given up on this thread as per a
> coming post. I think both Jorn and I had gotten to that point, and I'm
> giving up first.
He'll tell you if you make his kill file.
--
TBSa...@richmond.infi.net (also te...@infi.net)
'Do the boogie woogie in the South American way'
Hank Snow THE RHUMBA BOOGIE
Lewis Mammel
> Lately my favorite poems (from the daily offerings at poems.com) have
> been by Joe Salerno:
>
> Poetry Is the Art of Not Succeeding
[...]
>
> It's the art of those who didn't make it
> after all; who were lucky enough to be
> left behind, while the winners ran on ahead
> to wherever it is winners
> go running to.
I think we all know the answer to this one!
Lew Mammel, Jr.
Lewis Mammel
> Crosses over into Michael Jackson land, but what the heck, it still
> works.
I was always fascinated by a background line in the video for FAT,
the Weird Al Yankovic spoof of Michael Jackson's BAD. One of the fat
guys is trying to console him with a DING-DONG, and thrusts it at him
saying, "Yo, DING-DONG man, DING-DONG. DING-DONG, yo." I hope that's
right. I set great store on the exact wording, but I did have trouble
with it.
"What tho' on hamely fare we dine"
Lew Mammel, Jr.
SubGenius
Jorn Barger (jo...@mcs.com) wrote:
: > Very arguable. Artificial separation of "expressive" and "semantic"
: > into "natural rhythms of breath" and (I assume) meaning of words
: > doesn't work for me,
: Simple experiment: Replace each syllable in a poem with a meaningless
: phoneme. If it still conveys something, that's not semantics.
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
Including the qualifier `meaningless' makes this quite a beg of the
question.
At any rate, you underestimate semantics. Jazz vocal improvisation
obviously has both vocabulary (nary an alveolar click, for instance)
and a syntax (the listener can distinguish between skillful and inept
improvisation). Although the sounds Satchmo uses in, say, `All Of Me'
on the _Ambassador Satch_ album[1] are devoid of semantic content
in spoken English, they clearly do convey meaning and that meaning
is dependant on both their context and their composition. If you hold
that this isn't semantics, I would suggest you don't know what the
term means.
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
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SubGenius
Your Humble Narrator (su...@atheist.tamu.edu) wrote:
: Although the sounds Satchmo uses in, say, `All Of Me'
: on the _Ambassador Satch_ album[1] [...].
+---------------------------------SubG------------------------------------+
The omitted footnote (and Your Humble Narrator but recently invoking
the name of R.F.B., at that) was something to the effect of:
1 Which album Your Humble Narrator was recently pleased to discover
as an (imported) CD. Why is it that all essentially Amurrrican
Art forms are best found in the custodianship of nonamurrrican
agencies?
Yours etc.,
SubGenius
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Bedrock
Jorn Barger <jo...@mcs.com> wrote in article
<1dqcvdf.60...@207-229-149-69.d.enteract.com>...
> Bob Trosper <rtro...@sr.hp.com> wrote:
> > Your point? In what way DOES THIS PARTICULAR PIECE
> > AS POETRY ON THE PAGE OR SPOKEN (NOT song) emphasize expression.
> > (Expressivity? Is that a word?)
>
> I don't know any song where the poetry works as poetry on the page.
(Nervous clearing of throat) Emmm, how about Schubert's "Wanderers
Nachtlied II"? The words were written by a guy called Goethe. Sorry, I'll
go back in my hut now.
> > > - Joni Mitchell set new standards for fitting speech rhythms to music
> >
> > I like Joni Mitchell. I have a good many albums. Are you saying "new
> > standards in popular music" for fitting speech rhythms to music? If,
> > so, there's a case to be made. Otherwise, the opera and art song
> > people are going to thump rhythms all over your body.
>
> I bet you're just kowtowing to reputations, not speaking from real,
> personal esthetic experiences.
Because everybody knows that it's completely impossible, these days, to
enjoy that shit. Completely impossible. _Completely_. Et cetera.
If you're looking for words to a piece of music that work as poetry on the
page and happen to fit the rhythms of natural speech, there's always
Schoenberg's "A Survivor from Warsaw". But I must be deluding myself that
I think it's great because of my unfortuate tendency to kowtow to
reputations.
Alex