The morgenseiten of Katharsisdrill 21 - voices

katharsisdrill (71)in #morgenseiten • 6 years ago (edited)

A lot of my writings (and yes, I write because I have a hard time working these days :) have been about music. I blame @slobberchops, who besides writing very funny about his years in the the now defunct discount supermarket, Kwiksave, also is a music aficionado who nominated me for one of these internet challenges! I also blame @roused who is the Bavarian "good ole boy" who keep coming up with musical ideas that gets my head spinning with thoughts. I also owe this post to @shortcut who yesterday wrote about the German eighties band BAP

The newest thought I got is this: we treat instrumental music and the music of the human voice very differently. Instruments takes practice, but we all have a voice, and that voice is used for so much else than music. So it seems to me that regional differences are much more apparent in the way we construe singing than playing.

I will just come with a lot of examples as my brain already is boiling from the hot weather....

The German ballad tradition with its sudden reciting parts in the middle of the song. Something daringly ugly about it (shortcut's post was what started me :)

Scandinavians are very fond of the youthful and almost bell like female voice preferably a capella or with a single simple instrument as harp or fiddle. The Norwegian singer Sissel Kirkebye is a good example. We share this with the Irish I think. I have often heard it described as cold by people from other countries, others worship it out of proportions :)

The incredibly soft male voice in South American music. I had to get used to it :) Think about how João Gilberto was not the one who went on tour with US musicians. Instead they took his wife Astrud Gilberto who was not a great singer at all. She just had a charming voice that fitted the North Americans better.

Batourouba Diabaté from Guinea (as far as I have been able to gather) I first heard her when buying this album on bandcamp. West African singing seems to tire many Westerners with its repetitive patterns and different scales. I love it.

Shakira is interesting as she both sings in English as an international star and in Spanish as the greatest star in the Spanish speaking world. Often she makes both a Spanish and an English version so you can compare directly. The Spanish versions are deeper in timbre. More beautiful.

The French have this enormous contrasts between laid back phrasings and then suddenly going into very forced phrasings that sounds like they suddenly have to tell you something important. I have heard people call it affected.

I am not really suited to say much about Persian singing. I have been listening a lot to the maybe most beautiful flute in the world, the ney, as I am playing my PVC shakuhachi myself, but these guys! Anyway middle eastern singing is the one I have heard most negative remarks about. People hear cats and terrorists. Never understood why.

This is more of a cultural than a regional divide, but still same principle. Most people are able to take in classical music, relax at least when hearing it - harder is it when the singers start. Not the easiest piece admittedly.

My friend @shortcut has started to write some posts every morning - #morgenseiten he calls it - morning-pages. Here is his explanation of the project:

It goes like this: you shall each morning write from the soul, anything going through your head.

He writes a lot more, but this is the essence :) (Read his first morgenseiten post here)

I have decided to try the same. I write from the top of my head every morning or late morning if I have been sleeping late. I only correct typos and make a headline afterwards. Else everything is left as written. Expect some of it to sound like stage directions.

#rant #streamofconciousness #music #voice

6 years ago in #morgenseiten by katharsisdrill (71)

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shortcut (70) 6 years ago

Great examples!

So it seems to me that regional differences are much more apparent in the way we construe singing than playing.

I agree, cause singing does not only add (verbal) meaning to the song (which the singer interprets in his/her unique way), but we're also very much shaped by the first voices, we already start to hear in the womb and human voices are often a lot more emotional than sounds of instruments.

I guess, the difference between regional languages also helps us to figure out, who belongs to our tribe and who is a stranger. Maybe that's part of our ancient survival tactics.

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katharsisdrill (71) 6 years ago

Indeed. So much of your identity is in the voice... not that much in your violins.

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slobberchops (74) 6 years ago

The Kwiksave Chronicles will resume soon, but for now there's something else on the agenda :)

Shakira is great, I love that depth in her voice which I picked up on in 'Underneath Your Clothes' on first listen.

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katharsisdrill (71) 6 years ago

My girls simply adored her when they were small. One day my youngest who was only three or four asked me if we could hear the Shakira song where she has her diaper changed. You will understand at about 3:00

Looking forward to the Kwiksave disruption

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slobberchops (74) 6 years ago

:) Caught it just before the 3 mins mark.

'Looking forward to the Kwiksave disruption' - probably not as its Magic the Gathering related, a topic generally nobody knows about, but I still persist in writing in anyway.

However you will be delighted to know that the Chronicles will be returning tomorrow with more exciting Mort content.

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katharsisdrill (71) 6 years ago

I know about it :) I have even played it.

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roused (66) 6 years ago

I prefer the Bavarian "good ole boy" ;-) Southern Melting Pot Magic

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katharsisdrill (71) 6 years ago (edited)

Damn that was good!

I didn't include any blues as we all have learned to love it through the cultural dominance of the USA, but back in the twenties and thirties it was actually the singing that would have shocked the Bavarians most.

P.S. They also loved it. Blues was the revolution in 20th century music.

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roused (66) 6 years ago

It terms of modern music, it seems to me that the sins of the Europeans (my ancestors included) who settled America before it was even the USA, unintentionally created something truly magical. The basic underpinning of European musical structure, along with the influence of Irish and Scottish folks music, the Cajuns, and all of that was fused with the fantastic musicality of Africa. Jazz, gospel, blues, bluegrass, and country are a testament to the power of music to unify. Despite all the mistake that were made, imagine a world without the jazz, rock, and blues as we've come to know them. For a while, at least in terms of music, it was a great melting pot.

Like John Lee Hooker sang, "Blues is a Healer." Long live the blues.

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katharsisdrill (71) 6 years ago

History has been pretty full of injustices, and all countries are built on blood. But beautiful things happened on the way. Blues is one of them.

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newhyt (44) 6 years ago

Lol...the word "blame" obviously takes appreciative meaning here. I know you ~~blame~~ like them for nudging you into something you really like doing. I like music too. It adds great vibes to life.

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katharsisdrill (71) 6 years ago

Music has somehow always been my artistic control group.

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ocrdu (71) 6 years ago

May I add that voices need practice too?

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katharsisdrill (71) 6 years ago

For singing, yes. For shouting at the children, the cyclists, the churchgoers, the politicians and the people who play loud music, most people can just use what they learned at the age of 3-5 year.

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