There’s a songwriter lurking somewhere inside you, peeking around corners, wondering if it’s safe to come out. Now it is. This course is an invitation to let your inner songwriter step into the sunlight. All it takes is a simple “yes” and you’ll be climbing that windy hill, marveling at the view. If you haven’t written any or many songs, this course will show you an efficient, effective process for tailoring songs to express your ideas and emotions. If you have, you’ll look at your process differently, taking control of aspects of the process you may have not noticed. The course will start by examining the tools available to you, all revolving around the essential concept of prosody. You’ll learn to use your tools to enhance your message—to work compositionally at the same time you’re developing your ideas. You’ll be working both lyrically and musically, though musically it’s not necessary that you either read music or play an instrument. If you play, great, and you’ll be encouraged to play and record your musical responses to the assignments. If you don’t play, the course offers you a number of musical loops to work with. All you’ll have to do is sing your melodies over the loops. Assignments will ask you to post something for peer review—sometimes lyric lines or sections, sometimes melodies, sometimes both. None of it has to be polished. The course is about writing, not performing. Most important, you’ll have a lot of fun.
Harmonic Function of Speech
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來自 Berklee College of Music 的課程
Songwriting: Writing the Lyrics
274 個評分
從本節課中
Crossing the Finished Line
By the end of this lesson, you will understand the role of phrasing to create the body language of your song, using the relationship of your phrases to musical downbeats to create stability or instability. Then you’ll put the finishing touches on your song from lesson 5.
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Pat PattisonProfessor
I suppose this is a silly question, but maybe it's not.
How do you know how you feel? How do you know how you feel?
I mean, sort of in general you know how you feel.
But when we're talking about, should this line be stable or unstable?
How do you know? Well, you can try it some ways, but there
may be an easier way to figure that out. Back to Leonard Bernstein again, so sort
of the source where All things flow from. Okay, sort of the source from which all
things flow. In his lecture on musical phenology, in 1
of those 6 lectures at Harvard. Bernstein said that in every culture
people whine and tease in Minor thirds. [NOISE] Now, I don't know if he's right
or not. But he's Lenny so of course he's right.
But that started me thinking. And I started wondering well if it's
true. That whine and T's and minor thirds.
It must be a minor third from something. That is it must be three half steps away
from some kind of root or tonic that we've established.
So I started wondering if we establish a kind of tonic when we talk and so I
started listening to conversations, listening for pitches, listening to how I
pitched my voice, when I was feeling like I was telling the truth, when I was
uncertain, and so on. And came to the conclusion that, yes
indeed, we seem to establish some kind of a tonic, some kind of a Tonal platform
from which all of our language evolves. we express atonic,[SOUND] my doe happens
to be an a that's, that seems to be my tonic.
an A, at least, today it seems to be a tonic.
When I'm talking in my tonic as I am right now, you may not believe a word I'm
saying. But you know that I believe what I am
saying because I expressing a tonic. How do I do that?
What actually expresses my tonic? It seems to me that m grammatical
functions which we've already talked about in this course.
My gramatical functions, that is to say My articles, the, the, the; my personal
pronouns, I, I, I, I; my, my conjunctions I want, and, and; and my prepositions,
at, to, in, on; that my grammatical functions sort of set the velvet piece of
cloth from which the gems of my meaning Are displayed, and displayed by arrays,
by array, by array, hmm hmm hmm by arrays and pitch.
And that typically our stressed syllables move up the scale from our tonic a third
When we empha, when we empha, when we emphasize perhaps a fifith so that what's
happening when I am on my tonic is that I am literally arpeggiating my tonic with
my stressed and my emphasize syllables. So if we whine in minor
thirds,[INAUDIBLE] we're happy in major thirds, in major, in major third, we're
happy in major thirds. We ask questions in fifths.
Don't we? Yes.
that's fairly interesting. So that's autonic function.
That's our home function. That's our stable function.
Alright, so what if I'm talking to you right here.
What if I, what if, what if I'm,[SOUND] do.
Re, me, fa, fa. see if I'm talking to right here, on the
fourth degree of my scale, here I am on my, if I were talking about harmony,
which I am, if I'm talking about harmony, then this would be the fourth degree of
my scale. Which is an unstable harmonic function.
It's the subdominant function, it's motion away from tonic.
So that when I'm on my fourth degree of my scale it feels like I'm going
somewhere, it feels like I'm moving somewhere.
Like I'm trying to get someplace but you don't know where I'm going to go.
There is no real target set up here. So when I'm on my sub dominant, brethren
and sisteren I want you to, so that it's sort of a preacher thing.
Or it's an auctioneer kind of thing, or it's just really excited and I really got
to tell you this. So that I'm feeling unstable on that
fourth degree of my scale. And once again, my grammatical functions,
my articles, my pronouns, my conjunctions and my prepositions Are setting that
gourth degree tonality and my stressed and emphasized syllables are moving
arrpegiating thirds and fifths and so on away from that tonic and creating the
harmonic function of that fourth degree. [MUSIC] Do, re, mi, fa, so.
There's the 5th degree of my scale. When I'm on the 5th degree of my scale,
the 5th degree of my scale here. It feels a little bit more aggressive.
It feels, it's, it's, it's,[INAUDIBLE] harmony.
It would be the dominant function. The dominant function.
The function that says, I need to go back to the tonic, that one there.
The one that we get a little irritated on.
The one that we get a little angry on. The dom-, I'm dominating you.
it's, they call it the dominant function for a reason.
And, and there it is with, once again. The fifth degree of my scale.
That's the place where my grammatical funcitons are setting it and then I'm
arpeggiating until I finally go back to my tonic.
We threaten each other on the dominant function that is the fifth degree of the
scale below the tonic. Don't you talk to me like that again.
And I remember my I did a tour of New Zealand, and my my guide Chanel Davis,
who has a very, very heavy foot on the accelerator, we're driving down this
street in Auckland, and there was a big red light at a big cross-street, and she
was just barreling along, and and I I knew she hadn't seen the light, so
I[INAUDIBLE] and, and she said I got it, I got it, and she stopped.
And then we, we sole fished were I was, and we figured out I was on the 7th
degree of my scale. The least stable degree that we've got.
The I don't want to die degree. So that this whole sense of listening to
the pitches that your on, is an index, is a key to deciding, line by line, how
you're feeling in that line. How your saying it, with feeling, say it
with feeling, and then see where you are. So as I did in the last in the last
segment. I hear you out there crying.
I hear you out there crying. I hear you out there crying.
I hear you out there crying. That feels like I'm in the subdominant
function, like I'm feeling unstable. I hear you out there crying, begging.
Let me in. You make your way between the cracks I
know your moan, I know your laugh. And so it feels like I'm on[UNKNOWN]
there, that's something I know, that's a fact and so in making phrasing decisions.
That I made for the verses. For at least the first verse.
One, bah dat a da dat da da. Bom bag and let me in.
For one you make your way between the cracks.
I know your moan. I know your laugh.
[INAUDIBLE] So that the the fact, the statement in the fourth line, I know your
moan, I know your laugh. I know your laugh feels stable because I
said it on my tonic. The other lines, I said in my
sub-dominate, that in motion kind of thing.
So that the whole sense of the harmonic functions of language, that is listening
to where your pitches are. Seems to me to be a very, very helpful
way of saying your lyric, saying it aloud, feeling it, saying like you mean
it. And then listening to where your pitches
are. How are you feeling about that?
Did you like that movie? Yeah, did you like that movie?
Yeah, you don't need to go any further. Once you say, yea.
You know, what the answer is. Yea, yea Subdominated the movie.
You subdominated the movie. You don't have to tell me.
You can tell me why you didn't like it. But don't tell me yeah and you're
subdominate. Yeah, with reservations, a lot of
reservations. and so, really listen to the pitches.
So when we talk about. Phrasing, being the body language of your
song. We can talk about tone of voice that is
that 35% of our meaning, not only in terms of the tambor of your voice[NOISE]
or[NOISE] but also the literal pitches that you're on as an index to
discovering. Just very simply, how to phrase.
Back heavy, front heavy, stable, unstable.
If you're on the fourth or fifth degree of your scale.
The harmonic functions of language.
