Barabas is coming...
Lyrics, lyrics...
I’m not quite sure how, but I seem to have taken it upon myself to become a song writer. Actually, that’s a joke; I have two friends who are brilliant singer-songwriters and I know how difficult it is and have the greatest respect for a job I’d never have the guts (or skills) to do. But I’ve been experimenting with song lyrics for BARABAS.
Some time ago, when Phil and I were starting to map the musical complexion of our play, we had an instinct that whilst they are not written in to the original text, song would play and important part in our production.
I was hugely disappointed when I looked up the definition of ‘song’. According to the encyclopedia, a song is a musical composition, containing vocal parts that are performed, 'sung,' and generally feature words (lyrics), “commonly followed by other musical instruments”.
I fared slightly better with scat singing (common in vocal jazz) which is described as ‘vocal improvisation with nonsense words and syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.’ It sounds, and feels, dangerously attractive...
Then there is the word 'Lyric', derived from the Greek word for ‘a song sung by the lyre’, "lyrikos”.
This rather fruitless research prompted me to dust off my reference books and I’ve since discovered that ‘no songless people has ever been discovered’. It is thought that even if a tribe exists without instruments, they still tend to have well-developed songs. And often, our first childhood memory is connected with song or with melody.
Song’s a powerful emotional tool. It’s a way of people coming together (on stage or otherwise) of changing a mood, and of celebrating (think carnival, think football matches). It’s thought that song originated when man discovered how to combine rhythm and speech. A bit like inventing the wheel. An innovation at the time. And it’s true that song is a natural and instinctive means of self-expression, and it’s universal – many can share.
So we’re bringing songs into BARABAS. We have a cast of strong singers, and our live band of four are proficient, too, so we are already full of ideas about solo song (using Saharan alto melodies as an inspiration), call-and-response, and processional, collective song.
But where to find the lyrics? Marlowe didn’t write any – although I think he would approve – and even though there is little reference to music in any of his plays, if he was a ‘living’ playwright one of the questions that I would first ask him dramaturgically is where song might be positioned to enhance the fluctuating moods of the play.
Phil and I were in the middle of a complicated planning exercise (where we try to create a ‘musical map’ of the play by noting all the places where music, incidental, underscore or featured, might appear on a special chart) when I had two thoughts.
Marlowe was a talented poet.
If they are to work, song lyrics, to a degree, must scan.
So I started to lift short sections from Hero and Leander, Ovid and of course The Passionate Shepherd and see if they made sense as isolated ‘chunks’, and see how whether they sounded any good when spoken out loud. An interesting observation is the number of times ‘gold’ is mentioned in these poems!
We have since begun a process of translating the extracts into different languages, not only to open up different rhythms (Phil is particularly set on songs in 7-8), but to be consistent with our multi-national, polyglot approach to presenting the play.
Here’s a four-line extract from Marlowe’s own translation of Ovid’s Elegia that I’m working on (apologies for any mistakes in the literal translation):
Significo no defender los scapes de cualesquiera,
o justifico mis vicios que son muchos.
Para mí confieso, si eso pudo merecer favor,
aquí yo exhibo mi comportamiento lascivo y flojo.
Eu significo não defender os scapes de alguns,
ou justifico meus vices que são muitos.
Para eu confess, se aquele puder merecer o favor,
aqui mim indico meu comportamento lewd e frouxo.
A prize for the first person to identify the languages, and present the correct translation…and identify which ‘book’ of the Elegia it comes from, of course!
Some time ago, when Phil and I were starting to map the musical complexion of our play, we had an instinct that whilst they are not written in to the original text, song would play and important part in our production.
I was hugely disappointed when I looked up the definition of ‘song’. According to the encyclopedia, a song is a musical composition, containing vocal parts that are performed, 'sung,' and generally feature words (lyrics), “commonly followed by other musical instruments”.
I fared slightly better with scat singing (common in vocal jazz) which is described as ‘vocal improvisation with nonsense words and syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.’ It sounds, and feels, dangerously attractive...
Then there is the word 'Lyric', derived from the Greek word for ‘a song sung by the lyre’, "lyrikos”.
This rather fruitless research prompted me to dust off my reference books and I’ve since discovered that ‘no songless people has ever been discovered’. It is thought that even if a tribe exists without instruments, they still tend to have well-developed songs. And often, our first childhood memory is connected with song or with melody.
Song’s a powerful emotional tool. It’s a way of people coming together (on stage or otherwise) of changing a mood, and of celebrating (think carnival, think football matches). It’s thought that song originated when man discovered how to combine rhythm and speech. A bit like inventing the wheel. An innovation at the time. And it’s true that song is a natural and instinctive means of self-expression, and it’s universal – many can share.
So we’re bringing songs into BARABAS. We have a cast of strong singers, and our live band of four are proficient, too, so we are already full of ideas about solo song (using Saharan alto melodies as an inspiration), call-and-response, and processional, collective song.
But where to find the lyrics? Marlowe didn’t write any – although I think he would approve – and even though there is little reference to music in any of his plays, if he was a ‘living’ playwright one of the questions that I would first ask him dramaturgically is where song might be positioned to enhance the fluctuating moods of the play.
Phil and I were in the middle of a complicated planning exercise (where we try to create a ‘musical map’ of the play by noting all the places where music, incidental, underscore or featured, might appear on a special chart) when I had two thoughts.
Marlowe was a talented poet.
If they are to work, song lyrics, to a degree, must scan.
So I started to lift short sections from Hero and Leander, Ovid and of course The Passionate Shepherd and see if they made sense as isolated ‘chunks’, and see how whether they sounded any good when spoken out loud. An interesting observation is the number of times ‘gold’ is mentioned in these poems!
We have since begun a process of translating the extracts into different languages, not only to open up different rhythms (Phil is particularly set on songs in 7-8), but to be consistent with our multi-national, polyglot approach to presenting the play.
Here’s a four-line extract from Marlowe’s own translation of Ovid’s Elegia that I’m working on (apologies for any mistakes in the literal translation):
Significo no defender los scapes de cualesquiera,
o justifico mis vicios que son muchos.
Para mí confieso, si eso pudo merecer favor,
aquí yo exhibo mi comportamiento lascivo y flojo.
Eu significo não defender os scapes de alguns,
ou justifico meus vices que são muitos.
Para eu confess, se aquele puder merecer o favor,
aqui mim indico meu comportamento lewd e frouxo.
A prize for the first person to identify the languages, and present the correct translation…and identify which ‘book’ of the Elegia it comes from, of course!
Add a Comment
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Comment by Anna Coombs on August 7, 2008 at 12:02pm - The prize is yours, Emma.
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Comment by Emma Spurgin Hussey on August 7, 2008 at 11:17am -
Spanish.
Portuguese.
'I mean not to defend the scapes of any
Or justify my vices being many;
For I confess, if that might merit favour
Here I display my lewd and loose behaviour.'
Number 4.
What do I get?
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