[Smt-talk] Looking for bad text settings

[Ditto, Charles]

And then there's the Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night," which contains
the persistent line with the same scansion: "Girl, I want to be with you
all of THE time."

Charles Ditto
Texas State University

On 8/22/14 10:43 AM, "Jeffrey Ensign" <jeffreysensign at yahoo.com> wrote:

>A recent example is Katy Perry's "Unconditionally." There are several
>places in the song, but most notably the chorus. The first accented both
>uncondiTIONalLY and unCONditonally.
>
>Jeffrey Ensign
>PhD Candidate
>University of North Texas
>
>> On Aug 21, 2014, at 8:18 PM, "Steven L. Rosenhaus"
>><srosenhaus at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Dear Justin,
>> 
>> There is a well-known example in musical theater frankly admitted by
>>none other than Stephen Sondheim: In writing lyrics for Leonard
>>Bernstein¹s music in ³West Side Story² Sondheim wound up putting the
>>ac-CENT on the WRONG syl-LA-ble in ³Somewhere.² The lyrics are:
>> 
>> There's a place for us,
>> Somewhere a place for us.
>> Peace and quiet and open air
>> Wait for us 
>> Somewhere.
>> 
>> In reading them out loud the natural tendency is emphasize the word
>>³place² and, to a lesser extent, ³us² in the first line. But the highest
>>note of the first musical phrase winds up being on the word ³a² as in
>>³There¹s *A* place for us². It never seemed to bother most people
>>though, probably because the word ³place² is on the downbeat of the next
>>measure.
>> 
>> Steven (not ³Stephen²)
>> 
>>> On Aug 20, 2014, at 11:06 AM, Justin London <jlondon at carleton.edu>
>>>wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dear collective wisdom,
>>> 
>>> For a unit on rhythm, meter, and text setting, I am on the looking for
>>>examples of especially awful text setting‹that is, mis-matches between
>>>poetic scansion and the musical rhythm that are especially jarring or
>>>awkward.
>>> 
>>> While we will enjoy seeing these sent on the list, I promise also to
>>>produce a collated list‹perhaps we can have a contest(!)
>>> 
>>> All best, and thanks in advance,
>>> Justin London
>>> 
>>> *************************************************
>>> Justin London
>>> Professor of Music (and other stuff), Carleton College
>>> Department of Music
>>> One North College St.
>>> Northfield, MN 55057 USA
>>> +1 507-222-4397
>> 
>> -------------------------
>> Dr. Steven L. Rosenhaus
>> E-mail: srosenhaus at earthlink.net
>> Tel: 718-268-8906
>> URL: https://files.nyu.edu/slr3/public/
>> 
>> 
>> 
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