Thank you for your comments. Please see below.
On Nov 26, 1:44 am,
synthius2...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Good for you. These songs are pretty singable, and many like this one
> have no political content. This one may be the most popular due to the
> "Battle of the Bulge" movie.
Actually, I don't know what first interested me in this song, but the
clip from TBOTB certainly piqued my interest. I did see TBOTB when it
was in the theater but I had forgotten this scene. What I remembered
was Patton directing traffic!
> Since you want honest criticism (what a rarity!), I'm afraid the way
> it scans for singing isn't quite what I'd like.
>
> Ob es sturmt oder schneit.
> one two Threee four five six.
>
> is pretty short and moves quickly. Remember the singers are probably
> marching, feet hitting the ground at;
> Ob es sturmt oder schneit.
> ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Well, yes. Let me explain. My musical background is piping, and pipers
tend to sing their tunes (certainly for the sake of memoraztion as the
bagpipe does not have a lyre) but mostly with syllables, not with
words. Tunes make more musical sense when the rythm is regular, and I
was focused much more on the tune and the meter rather than the words.
This tune seemed to me to fit regularly into dactyl tetrameter with an
upbeat for lines 1, 2, and 4. Therefore, my target was:
1. ' / ' ' / ' ' / ' ' /
2. ' / ' ' / ' ' / ' ' /
3 (omitted)
4. ' / ' ' / ' ' / ' ' /
I worked very hard to fit my adaptation into this rythm, and the only
real problem is the last line, where I force the second 'our' to be
pronounced in two syllables.
The third line is iambic, and I consider this change in meter as
horrible, but it probably adds much to the effectiveness of the song.
English naturally fits into iambic meter so this was easy.
I also fiddled with the tune a wee bit, but none of the recordings or
written scores I had access to were consistent, so that doesn't bother
me.
> I'd be tickled pink if a bunch of folks bat this around for a bunch of
> months, coming up with progressively better versions. I didn't get
> very far by myself when I was in the army, and I couldn't talk anyone
> into helping. I like to say that the war wasn't really over until the
> movie "Valkyrie".
You could probably get a pretty close literal translation in prose but
it wouldn't be singable. You can get very singable tunes in English,
but they probably would not be close to the original. The problem is
getting a very close literal translation in singable English.
> Ironic that the original German is so short, compared with yours an my
> translations. A guy in my DLI German class said; "now I know why they
> lost the war, whith these big words, it took them all day to say
> anything."
I am familiar with a few war and military songs from different
cultures, and what strikes me is the differences between the cultures.
For example, compare the emotional content of the songs, the sense of
the words, and the mood of the melody, with the following:
ACW (South)-- Dixie, Bonnie Blue Flag, Goober Peas, Yellow Rose of
Texas
ACW (North)-- Battle Cry of Freedom, Tramp Tramp Tramp (In the prison
cell I sit), Marching Through Georgia, Battle Hymn of the Rebublic
British-- Rule Brittiania, British Grenidiers
Irish-- Wearing of the Green, Minstrel Boy, The Orange Sash
German (WW2)-- Watch on the Rhine, Horst Wessel, Panzerlied
Welsh-- Men of Harlech (possibly the most blood-thirsty and stirring
of them all)
Russian-- I know a few but I can't think of the names at the moment, I
recall them to be mostly in minor keys.
I think it would be interesting to do a cross cultural analysis of the
war songs of different cultures, both words and music, for what it
could tell us about the different cultures
> Nils K. Hammer
CC