Lesson Six....The Finish Line or a New Beginning?

Interesting six weeks...and tough going, especially in lesson five, when we actually had to not only create the lyric, but provide a melody to one of the loops provided...and sing it. Oh, that was difficult. At least for me. Painful.

Background on the lyric....I turned back time to my teenage years, and tried to remember how it was when I first fell in love with my husband. How he consumed all my thoughts. Now, songwriting doesn't have to be accurate, so I devised a story line about how the singer is infatuated with her best friends' steady boyfriend. Now she's conflicted, because she can't steal from her very best friend, yet all her emotions cry out for this special guy. So, she has to remind herself to concentrate on her school work, concentrate on anything and everything...except his lips, his hands, his eyes. Name of the song - Concentrate.



Once I had the lyric, I thought well why not try to set it in a hip hop type song...a little rap, a little  singing...a sorta blend. Well, I've never approached this type of genre before, and as my sense of timing is skewed, at best....let's just say that I jumped into rapping with all the gusto of a one year old toddling on his short legs, trying his darnest to walk.

And Pat had this funky loop that I just had to try out. Oops.Very disconcerting. Fell flat on my face a couple of times. Kept going. Okay,  so I'm still stumbling and falling on my face, but I went ahead and submitted week five anyway; although I admit I felt more than a couple of tinges of pity for my peers who are going to evaluate the song. 


But no worries, as I sailed into lesson six. I got that hip hop song out of my system, and now I could move onto something new. Not quite! In fact, now we had to re-do that same song. Only now, we had to concentrate on the phrasing. Front end or back end phrasing, depending on the emotion of the song. Of course the phrasing has to then match up with the strong and/or weak beats and/or bars, for prosody.

What? I can barely count out the 1,2, 3, 4 time. More tries than I can count, and still the timing and phrasing don't seem to match. Front heavy, back heavy. Good to go on the page. Not good to go when I try to rap it or sing it with the beats of the loop. Oh joy. If I could only turn back time. Why didn't I pick out a nice ballad in lesson five??

So, I try to confuse the listener. How about if I add some harmony. Some sections in two part harmony, some in three part harmony. My straight ahead rap type voice, with a higher and lower voice, harmonizing along at times. Confused, yet? Yeah, me too. Do I have a hip hop song? Who knows?

It's kind of a mess. But Pat's loop just keeps looping around with the beat. At least the beat is funky. Maybe my evaulators will focus on that, and forget about my rap/singing. Fat chance. They'll probably pass around the popcorn, and invite their friends over for a good laugh.


So back to the drawing board, so to speak. Back to foot stomping, and hand clapping. I need to hone up on rhythm. How hard can it be to keep track of 4/4 time? Well, apparently for some of us, like me (well at least I hope that I'm not the only one), it can be a challenge.

Darn you, Pat Pattison. From lyrics, I now have to learn more about melodic flow, and especially rhythm. Look what you started!