Authored songs
Canção à espera de palavras (MARO)
SONG WAITING FOR WORDS
SONG WAITING FOR WORDS - provisional title for a song waiting for your poems.
In order to take part in this creative challenge, let's first listen to and get to know the song that MARO has composed for us.
After warming up our voices (and here's a great way to do it), we'll listen and learn the melody, feeling the rhythms that transform it into a desire to sing.
The words, with their syllables, will then take shape in everyone's imagination.
So let's listen... and let ourselves be inspired!
Melody waiting for a voice
This song has a regular sequence of melodic phrases, each punctuated by a short pause.
Each musical phrase is matched by a verse of the lyrics, making up the various stanzas.
These phrases can be learnt in sequence (or separately) with the help of the musical excerpts below.
To internalise and memorise them, let's listen to the guiding voice and then repeat it, imitating it.
Here's the first phrase of the first stanza of the song, which we'll call phrase a1:
The second phrase of the first stanza has a similar melodic movement, but with different notes.
Phrase a2:
Starting at a higher point we'll descend with small jumps.
That's phrase a3:
At the end of this stanza, the confirmation of the return to the tonic note, where it all began.
It's the end of the stanza and it will be the end of the song when we return to these phrases at the end of the song.
Here's phrase a4:
From the point of view of the melody, the second stanza is a repetition of the first.
From the point of view of the lyrics, they could be different.
The third stanza, if you've chosen not to repeat the lyrics of the first stanza, is the centrepiece of the song's structure.
Now the melody will lead us to different destinations, but always for a short time.
Thus begins phrase b1:
Now, phrase b2:
The phrase that reaches the highest heights, phrase b3:
And the last phrase of the third stanza, which leaves everything hanging in the balance, phrase b4:
This central section concludes with a short stanza of two very similar verses, as if to introduce an idea of returning to the starting point of this song.
The phrase c1:
At the same time as ending a phase, preparations are being made to return to the song's starting point.
This is phrase c2:
Before ending, the song returns and repeats, from a musical point of view, the phrases with which it began: a1, a2, a3 and a4.
In this musical recap, there is the interesting possibility of not repeating the lyrics of those first two stanzas.
The decision is in your hands.
And so, the various phrases that make up this song have been presented and learnt.
Now on to the words!
Melodic rhythm... more syllables than notes?
When writing the verses of each musical phrase, it may be necessary to subdivide the rhythm of some notes in order to adapt it to the number of syllables/words we want to sing.
This gives us greater freedom for poetic creativity.
Dividing notes to multiply syllables? Let's do it!
Creativity with words
Now that you've been inspired, it's time to create a poem, to make this song your own.
Discuss ideas and choose a theme, real or imagined.
Listen to the words that grow in your imagination when you hear the song.
The rhythm of the melody and the sound of the words discovering each other.
Hands on? Here are some practical things:
- in this document (in word format), you can write your verses for each stanza of the song and
- on the musical staff (in word format), and under each note, you can distribute the syllables of each word in your poem,
- and we share the audio files here so you can download and edit your performance.
Once you've created your poem, it's time to sing!