Ahoy, Indie mateys...
Taking a break from studying for the monumentocious Praxis II test, for which I have to drive to Eugene on FUMES only to subject myself to a million multiple choice questions about, well, anything and everything to do with music, I decided to do a quick post about something that struck me while reading about J.S. Bach. Did you know that part of his musical training regiment was to copy manuscripts from earlier composers? He just wrote out other people's stuff note for note. That doesn't mean, incidentally, that he plagerized their music, it just means that he copied it in an effort to absorb some if it. I once saw an interview with Edward Albee in which he advocated the same method for learning how to write. Cool! So I plan to devote half an hour this afternoon to copying some piano music out in an effort to combat what is definiely shaping up to be another bout with writer's block.
I'm working on a song for the IHML called The Sailor's Cat, which is about a Sailor who loses his girl. She leaves him in Autumn, and he runs after her to beg her to stay, but she sails away in a little boat. The sad part is that she takes the cat! What's challenging about this song is that I'm trying to write it in Russian. I've been doing stuff in French, and I've always wanted to write a song in Russian. But I've never felt qualified. On the plane on the way home to California a couple of weeks ago, I read in a book of Russian poetry that Russian is a great language for poems because it is rich in pure rhyming words. By changing the case of a word, or by altering its role in a sentence, you can generate rhymes off of almost any word. So I tried it. Of course, the obstacle I ran into is that you have to have a HUGE vocabulary, which I don't. Also, in Russian words the stress only occurse on one syllable, and there aren't as many little words as in English. So, my efforts to write in Russian have resulted in this song taking way longer than I'd expected to finish. The lyrics alone took me a week. I originally had sixteen stanzas, which were going to be devided into two huge sections of four stanzas each. But yesterday, I decided that the melody was so cute and repetitious that a listener couldn't possibly stand it for more than four stanzas. So I cut the song down to four stanzas. Now I'm stuck on the music.
Aside from all of the above, I'm also self-conscious about calling the song "The Sailor's Cat" because of the reference to sailors and sea fairing and all that, which is a super trend in indie music right now. I hate the idea of following trends. But I suppose avoiding trends for the sake of being different is just the same as following trends to fit in, in that you're basing your artistic decisions on what others are doing. The reason the song is about a sailor's cat is not because I'm an indie-rock opportunist, but because if the girl in the song leaves the hero by carriage, the stress and rhyme scheme in Russian don''t work out. Rhythmically and grammatically, she must leave him by boat. So in the interest of justifying her leaving by boat, I thought the man should live by the sea. Well, having him be a sailor cuts down a lot of work for me. You see, putting the word "sailor" in the title conjures up a sea-fairing environment in the listener's mind that would take me sixteen stanzas or more to render. So, in the interests of economy, our hero became a sailor. Not only that, but I thought the fact that he's only upset about the cat, and not the girl, seems like something a gruff, bull-headed, Russian sailor type might feel. It might change. He could be a dock hand or something. Maybe even just an average Ivan who lives by a pier. Anyway, here are the lyrics in Russian, and then (roughly) translated:
Кошка Матроса
я бежал за нeё, кошка моя,
мылая кошка моя.
до ворот далеко, кошка моя.
мылая кошка моя
волны жёлтых флагax, осень тиха
мылая кошка моя.
развесилa на вязax, кошка моя
мылая кошка моя.
«уидёшь, я умру» крикнул я.
мылая кошка моя.
«не стой на ветру» ответила она.
мылая кошка моя.
eё лодка поплыла, кошка моя,
мылая кошка моя.
ax, с ней ты была, кошка моя.
мылая кошка моя.
The Sailor's Cat
i caught up with her, my cat
my darling cat
by the gate far away, my cat
my darling cat
fall had quietly strung
my darling cat
waves of yellow flags on the elms, my cat
my darling cat
"if you leave, I'll die", i shouted
my darling cat
"don't stand in the wind", she replied
my darling cat
her boat sailed away, my cat
my darling cat
oh, you were with her, my cat
my darling cat
See, the sailor is talking to his cat, who isn't there, cuz the chick left him and took the cat! Clever, huh? The whole lyric is adapted from a poem by Anna Akhmatova (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with cats. I put in the cat part). I consider copying to be part of my poetic education, like Bach above. Well, in any case, I didn't plagerize, I just paraphrased some bits that I particularly liked. If there's anyone out there who wants to correct my Russian, or wag their finger at me for my rough adaptation, please feel free. In the meantime, I have to go. The cafe I'm in started playing Rush on the musak!! Aggghhh! I'm melting...
I'm working on a song for the IHML called The Sailor's Cat, which is about a Sailor who loses his girl. She leaves him in Autumn, and he runs after her to beg her to stay, but she sails away in a little boat. The sad part is that she takes the cat! What's challenging about this song is that I'm trying to write it in Russian. I've been doing stuff in French, and I've always wanted to write a song in Russian. But I've never felt qualified. On the plane on the way home to California a couple of weeks ago, I read in a book of Russian poetry that Russian is a great language for poems because it is rich in pure rhyming words. By changing the case of a word, or by altering its role in a sentence, you can generate rhymes off of almost any word. So I tried it. Of course, the obstacle I ran into is that you have to have a HUGE vocabulary, which I don't. Also, in Russian words the stress only occurse on one syllable, and there aren't as many little words as in English. So, my efforts to write in Russian have resulted in this song taking way longer than I'd expected to finish. The lyrics alone took me a week. I originally had sixteen stanzas, which were going to be devided into two huge sections of four stanzas each. But yesterday, I decided that the melody was so cute and repetitious that a listener couldn't possibly stand it for more than four stanzas. So I cut the song down to four stanzas. Now I'm stuck on the music.
Aside from all of the above, I'm also self-conscious about calling the song "The Sailor's Cat" because of the reference to sailors and sea fairing and all that, which is a super trend in indie music right now. I hate the idea of following trends. But I suppose avoiding trends for the sake of being different is just the same as following trends to fit in, in that you're basing your artistic decisions on what others are doing. The reason the song is about a sailor's cat is not because I'm an indie-rock opportunist, but because if the girl in the song leaves the hero by carriage, the stress and rhyme scheme in Russian don''t work out. Rhythmically and grammatically, she must leave him by boat. So in the interest of justifying her leaving by boat, I thought the man should live by the sea. Well, having him be a sailor cuts down a lot of work for me. You see, putting the word "sailor" in the title conjures up a sea-fairing environment in the listener's mind that would take me sixteen stanzas or more to render. So, in the interests of economy, our hero became a sailor. Not only that, but I thought the fact that he's only upset about the cat, and not the girl, seems like something a gruff, bull-headed, Russian sailor type might feel. It might change. He could be a dock hand or something. Maybe even just an average Ivan who lives by a pier. Anyway, here are the lyrics in Russian, and then (roughly) translated:
Кошка Матроса
я бежал за нeё, кошка моя,
мылая кошка моя.
до ворот далеко, кошка моя.
мылая кошка моя
волны жёлтых флагax, осень тиха
мылая кошка моя.
развесилa на вязax, кошка моя
мылая кошка моя.
«уидёшь, я умру» крикнул я.
мылая кошка моя.
«не стой на ветру» ответила она.
мылая кошка моя.
eё лодка поплыла, кошка моя,
мылая кошка моя.
ax, с ней ты была, кошка моя.
мылая кошка моя.
The Sailor's Cat
i caught up with her, my cat
my darling cat
by the gate far away, my cat
my darling cat
fall had quietly strung
my darling cat
waves of yellow flags on the elms, my cat
my darling cat
"if you leave, I'll die", i shouted
my darling cat
"don't stand in the wind", she replied
my darling cat
her boat sailed away, my cat
my darling cat
oh, you were with her, my cat
my darling cat
See, the sailor is talking to his cat, who isn't there, cuz the chick left him and took the cat! Clever, huh? The whole lyric is adapted from a poem by Anna Akhmatova (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with cats. I put in the cat part). I consider copying to be part of my poetic education, like Bach above. Well, in any case, I didn't plagerize, I just paraphrased some bits that I particularly liked. If there's anyone out there who wants to correct my Russian, or wag their finger at me for my rough adaptation, please feel free. In the meantime, I have to go. The cafe I'm in started playing Rush on the musak!! Aggghhh! I'm melting...