An Adjunct To I'm Doing A Course.

[Lisa Gates]

Yes it was quite hard and can you imagine how long it will take to do the peer reviews! Ugh!

I have now submitted it so I'm glad it's done.

Post your stress chart here and i'll check it for you.

I had to get someone to check mine then after I recorded it we decided a couple of stresses were wrong so I had to adjust it. Anyway done!! done done!!!

Oh and i've just checked assignment 3 I got 25 so that's OK. Two people got pernickety about the notes. It's our job to analyze the song. Two people liked the recording

no accounting for taste. It was horrid but i couldn't be bothered fixing it. Now I think its better as a week four thing. 

 

Cheers

 

Gary

Gary,

For week 3 assignment, I only got two comments from peers and both were positive. One actually liked the fact I put notes in as it showed understanding of the assignment. I wasn't able to change the mistake of putting an additive rhyme in my notes but luckily they didn't notice... yikes!

I will work on week 4 assignment and definitely post it here for your eyes to review. thank you!!!!!!

Lisa

[Lisa Gates]

(8 SYLLABLES) When somebody’s heart is hurting   

-/--/-/-

(5 SYLLABLES) They lash out at you  

-/---

(8 SYLLABLES) Their pain makes them feel uncertain 

-/---//

(5 SYLLABLES) They can’t see the truth 

--/-/

 

(6 SYLLABLES) Everybody feels pain

////--

(6 SYLLABLES) Everybody feels hurt 

////--

(3 SYLLABLES IN MELODY) Sometimes

/-

(9 SYLLABLES) Nobody wants to feel that again

/--/-/-/-

(9 SYLLABLES) Nobody wants to play a lead part 

/--/---//

(3 SYLLABLES) Break the ties 

/--

(4 SYLLABLES) Hard to be strong

/--/

Gary, I don't feel confident at this one bit. One word HELP

this is what I have gotten so far (and I have changed them back and forth several times to get to this point) and still feel it is not a good job.

[Kel]

Hey Lisa,

 

What you are covering in the course this week is the same "nit" I was talking about in your challenge song: where the natural accents or stresses are in your lyric.

 

Now you'll see what I meant. See, even Pat Pattison agrees with me! LOL!!!

 

Kel

[snabbu]

Hi Lisa

 

An important point i learned this week that is that it is not the syllables that determine line length it is the number of stressed syllables. So you can have a line 

ten syllables long with only three stressed syllables this is going to fit into the same musical space as three stressed syllables ie one and a half bars. Because each of the stressed syllables should be on beats 1 and two and unstressed syllables should not. 

 

OK This is my best take on this but I will have to admit I was staring out the window when we did this in school, in catatonic boredom. God save me, when is any of this going to be relevant to me?Wrong! but it has taken some time.

 

Single words

Nouns are stressed.(naming words)

Verbs are stressed. (doing words)

Adjectives are stressed (describing words)

Pro nouns he she us them etc are not stressed

Conjunctions are not stressed. and but when etc.

Verbs to be are not stressed, is am unless making a point.

Articles the a those these etc are not stressed.

Adverbs I cant remember I'l have to look in my notes.

Prepositions are not stressed. I didn't quite get the multi syllable thing with prepositions like into are they both unstressed or is it stress unstressed. 

 

Multi syllable words

You just have to say it like you normally would and determine the stresses.

 

Now some words like when can be a conjunction or an adjective so they can be stressed or unstressed this is the bit that does my head in.

I have two choices either bone up on parts of speech, boring! Or simply say the line three times fast without concentration then slow it down and listen to what I am saying and take the stresses from there. So if you look at the first line below it has a dam when! So the method I used to determine stress was, when I'm not sure leave it. somebody is a multi so say it and stress it as you naturally would. heart is a noun easy stressed is, is the verb to be unstressed easy, hurting is a multi stress it like you say it. Then I just said the line over to check it and decided when was a conjunction and so not stressed. 

 

 

 

  -          -     /   -        /      -   /   -

When somebody’s heart is hurting   (conjunction) (multi syllable) (Noun) (Verb to be) (multi syllable)

  -         /    /     -    -

They lash out at you   (in this case out is stressed which surprised me because I'm thinking preposition but it no in this case its an adverb, I think so maybe that answers the adverb question. This line I did only lash stressed and then said it like that it sounded weird so i did the three times thing. Discovered that out was not a preposition in this case and should be stressed.

 

So I think for you if you just try the next line below and see if you can do the parts of speach and stresses. We can then talk about that to make sure you have it in your head what to do. Like their is a pronoun, pain is a noun, Makes is a verb them is a pronoun feel is a verb uncertain a multi.

So have a go at a couple of lines. 

 

Cheers

 

Gary

 

Their pain makes them feel uncertain 

 

They can’t see the truth 

 

Everybody feels pain

 

 Everybody feels hurt 

 

Sometimes

 

Nobody wants to feel that again

 

Nobody wants to play a lead part 

 

Break the ties 

 

Hard to be strong

Edited August 16, 2013 by snabbu

[Kel]

Good observation, Gary.

K

[snabbu]

Hi Kel

 

I've just looked at the ask for week five and its getting tougher every week.

This is sort of revision doing a whole song with all the elements we've learned.

Thus far. This is not going to be six hours of course work. It's going to take an hour to do five peer reviews with all that syllable stuff.

Plus writing and recording a song. With all the elements.

 

Cheers

 

Gary

[Kel]

You should reap the benefits though! I missed the start, I wanted to do that course too.

 

Start another (paid) one on 25th. Looking forward to that one. Lots of ASA winners in the student files.

 

Cheers,

Kel

[Lisa Gates]

Kel, Gary, it's Satutrday morning? what are you doing up at this hour?!!! LOL will look at whats above in a sec...

[Lisa Gates]

Hey Lisa,

 

What you are covering in the course this week is the same "nit" I was talking about in your challenge song: where the natural accents or stresses are in your lyric.

 

Now you'll see what I meant. See, even Pat Pattison agrees with me! LOL!!!

 

Kel

Yes, I was a little surprised to see you on topic! Good timing Kel!

[Lisa Gates]

 

Hi Lisa

 

An important point i learned this week that is that it is not the syllables that determine line length it is the number of stressed syllables. So you can have a line 

ten syllables long with only three stressed syllables this is going to fit into the same musical space as three stressed syllables ie one and a half bars. Because each of the stressed syllables should be on beats 1 and two and unstressed syllables should not. 

 

OK This is my best take on this but I will have to admit I was staring out the window when we did this in school, in catatonic boredom. God save me, when is any of this going to be relevant to me?Wrong! but it has taken some time.

 

Single words

Nouns are stressed.(naming words)

Verbs are stressed. (doing words)

Adjectives are stressed (describing words)

Pro nouns he she us them etc are not stressed

Conjunctions are not stressed. and but when etc.

Verbs to be are not stressed, is am unless making a point.

Articles the a those these etc are not stressed.

Adverbs I cant remember I'l have to look in my notes.

Prepositions are not stressed. I didn't quite get the multi syllable thing with prepositions like into are they both unstressed or is it stress unstressed. 

 

Multi syllable words

You just have to say it like you normally would and determine the stresses.

 

Now some words like when can be a conjunction or an adjective so they can be stressed or unstressed this is the bit that does my head in.

I have two choices either bone up on parts of speech, boring! Or simply say the line three times fast without concentration then slow it down and listen to what I am saying and take the stresses from there. So if you look at the first line below it has a dam when! So the method I used to determine stress was, when I'm not sure leave it. somebody is a multi so say it and stress it as you naturally would. heart is a noun easy stressed is, is the verb to be unstressed easy, hurting is a multi stress it like you say it. Then I just said the line over to check it and decided when was a conjunction and so not stressed. 

 

 

 

  -          -     /   -        /      -   /   -

When somebody’s heart is hurting   (conjunction) (multi syllable) (Noun) (Verb to be) (multi syllable)

  -         /    /     -    -

They lash out at you   (in this case out is stressed which surprised me because I'm thinking preposition but it no in this case its an adverb, I think so maybe that answers the adverb question. This line I did only lash stressed and then said it like that it sounded weird so i did the three times thing. Discovered that out was not a preposition in this case and should be stressed.

 

So I think for you if you just try the next line below and see if you can do the parts of speach and stresses. We can then talk about that to make sure you have it in your head what to do. Like their is a pronoun, pain is a noun, Makes is a verb them is a pronoun feel is a verb uncertain a multi.

So have a go at a couple of lines. 

 

Cheers

 

Gary

 

Their pain makes them feel uncertain 

 

They can’t see the truth 

 

Everybody feels pain

 

 Everybody feels hurt 

 

Sometimes

 

Nobody wants to feel that again

 

Nobody wants to play a lead part 

 

Break the ties 

 

Hard to be strong

 

Most helpful!

 

let's try:

 

-        /      /         -        /      -/--

Their pain makes them feel uncertain 

 

-          /          /     -       /

They can’t see the truth 

 

-/-/                 / /

Everybody feels pain

 

-/-/               /      /

 Everybody feels hurt 

 

/-

Sometimes

 

-//              /    -   /       -    /-

Nobody wants to feel that again

 

-//          /        -     /    -   /     -

Nobody wants to play a lead part 

 

/           -      /

Break the ties

 

/      /  /     /        Noun adjective verb 

Hard to be strong

 

Any better? I feel better about it as I can explain the stress by the grammatical reference you reminded me of from the video lecture. Duh! Lisa, check your notes!!!!

Let me know if something is catching your eye that is really wrong. I sure appreciate the second set of eyes!

I was thinking of using the drum loop 4/4 time to back up my stresses. What do you think? I could re-do my music loop from last week to emphasis the stresses?

Lisa

[Kel]

Kel, Gary, it's Satutrday morning? what are you doing up at this hour?!!! LOL will look at whats above in a sec...

 

I know it's Saturday, I slept in till nearly 6 AM!

[Kel]

Lisa,

 

I haven't heard your melody, but these are the natural stress points for my accent. As I've said before, local accents may change how words are pronounced in different areas...

 

 

 

Their pain makes them feel uncertain 

They can’t see the truth 

Everybody feels pain

Everybody feels hurt 

Sometimes

Nobody wants to feel that again

Nobody wants to play a lead part 

Break the ties

Hard to be strong

 

Gary may see/hear this differently to me though. Though Australia isn't as accent-oriented as US seems to be, there are minor differences even across cities!

 

Cheers, recording to do!

Kel

[Guest]

It makes me feel so good to see the topic of accents ---or syllable stresses--- being discussed recently. An excellent lyricist must ---IMO--- master the nuances of stress.

 

Whenever I've been asked to explain lyric stress to someone, I expose them to this little example I made up (using a bit of a song that everybody knows, Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean").

 

NOTE: Both lines use the exact number of syllables, both use three-syllable names of females, and the lines are roughly similar in content... (And though "Billy Jean" is not what I'd call a stellar example of good stress, it is certainly satisfactory, IMO.)

 

Here it is...

 

 

First, SPEAK the original line... "Billy Jean is not my lover..." A simple sentence... Nothing wrong with it...

 

Now SPEAK the substitute line... Melissa never did come back... Again, a simple sentence... And again, nothing wrong with it...

 

Conversationally, these lines are equals.

 

Now... SING the famous line...

 

Bil-ly Jean is not my lov-er

 

Great... Feels good... Sold to umpteen millions...

 

Now sing my replacement line to the same melody....

 

Mel-is-sa nev-er did come back

 

 

Screech!!! Positively awful! I doubt even MJ could've sold that.

 

The stress pattern of the second line is in diametric opposition to the music. The speech of the line says...

 

Mel-is-sa nev-er did come back

 

But the music forces it to sing...

 

Mel-is-sa nev-er did come back

 

EXACTLY opposite...

 

 

Just a simple example to show that "You can't just slap words on top of notes."

 

Edited August 17, 2013 by Skylark

[Kel]

nice. Poor Melissa.

K

[snabbu]

Hi lisa

Whatever you do do not leave this weeks course work until too late there is a mountain of it.

To come back to the stresses. The only thing I disagree with is you have no stress on "Part" which is a noun.

Make sure when you put in your assignment that you line them up exactly above the syllables. You know what we are dealing with here. 

So when you start setting which is your next step for this. You need to start on the fourth beat of the bar. A weak beat.

 

 

4        4.5    1   2      3      4  1    2

When somebody’s heart is hurting 

So your durations are half, note half note, then all full notes the lat note can be a little longer depending on what's coming next.

To chant it to your loop you count one to three "when some" Then body on the down beat of the next bar. 

What I did was this I had a single note melody in midi format and I just moved the notes about altering the phrasing to make sure all the accents were on 1 and 3 and all the unstressed were on 2 and 4. For me it would have been much more difficult to do this by ear chanting it to a loop. But that might be just me. But you need to hurry up because week five is quite a thing. A bit like your first week trying to heard chickens there is stuff everywhere.

 

First take you metaphor, turn the oven on get out your thesaurus and your dictionary. Strumming and caterwauling seems quite attractive right now. 

 

I am fortunate I get up when I'm awake and go to sleep when I'm tired so if I am awake at 5 or 4 or 2 I get up, obversely if I have had a bottle of red with lunch I may sleep through the afternoon. Freedom:-)

 

Cheers

 

Gary

[snabbu]

It makes me feel so good to see the topic of accents ---or syllable stresses--- being discussed recently. An excellent lyricist must ---IMO--- master the nuances of stress.

 

Whenever I've been asked to explain lyric stress to someone, I expose them to this little example I made up (using a bit of a song that everybody knows, Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean").

 

NOTE: Both lines use the exact number of syllables, both use three-syllable names of females, and the lines are roughly similar in content... (And though "Billy Jean" is not what I'd call a stellar example of good stress, it is certainly satisfactory, IMO.)

 

Here it is...

 

 

First, SPEAK the original line... "Billy Jean is not my lover..." A simple sentence... Nothing wrong with it...

 

Now SPEAK the substitute line... Melissa never did come back... Again, a simple sentence... And again, nothing wrong with it...

 

Conversationally, these lines are equals.

 

Now... SING the famous line...

 

Bil-ly Jean is not my lov-er

 

Great... Feels good... Sold to umpteen millions...

 

Now sing my replacement line to the same melody....

 

Mel-is-sa nev-er did come back

 

 

Screech!!! Positively awful! I doubt even MJ could've sold that.

 

The stress pattern of the second line is in diametric opposition to the music. The speech of the line says...

 

Mel-is-sa nev-er did come back

 

But the music forces it to sing...

 

Mel-is-sa nev-er did come back

 

EXACTLY opposite...

 

 

Just a simple example to show that "You can't just slap words on top of notes."

 

Exactly  

[Lisa Gates]

Hi lisa

Whatever you do do not leave this weeks course work until too late there is a mountain of it.

To come back to the stresses. The only thing I disagree with is you have no stress on "Part" which is a noun.

Make sure when you put in your assignment that you line them up exactly above the syllables. You know what we are dealing with here. 

So when you start setting which is your next step for this. You need to start on the fourth beat of the bar. A weak beat.

 

 

4        4.5    1   2      3      4  1    2

When somebody’s heart is hurting 

So your durations are half, note half note, then all full notes the lat note can be a little longer depending on what's coming next.

To chant it to your loop you count one to three "when some" Then body on the down beat of the next bar. 

What I did was this I had a single note melody in midi format and I just moved the notes about altering the phrasing to make sure all the accents were on 1 and 3 and all the unstressed were on 2 and 4. For me it would have been much more difficult to do this by ear chanting it to a loop. But that might be just me. But you need to hurry up because week five is quite a thing. A bit like your first week trying to heard chickens there is stuff everywhere.

 

First take you metaphor, turn the oven on get out your thesaurus and your dictionary. Strumming and caterwauling seems quite attractive right now. 

 

I am fortunate I get up when I'm awake and go to sleep when I'm tired so if I am awake at 5 or 4 or 2 I get up, obversely if I have had a bottle of red with lunch I may sleep through the afternoon. Freedom:-)

 

Cheers

 

Gary

Gary,

thanks for the input and the warning...dum dum dum dum duuuuuuum (dramatic music playing loudly) I can see week 5 is going to be a tough one. Grin and bear it? Nah, I'm gonna take a big chomp out of it! Yeee Hawwww!

I'm a little like you in that I used to go to bed when I was tired but since the stress of my brother's cancer has my brain occupied too much, I can only sleep when I'm completely exhausted so, it's a good time to write, record, or goof off online. BUT I am always up by 7am no matter what time I go to bed. That internal clock thing.

Lisa

[Lisa Gates]

Hey Gary,

My Peers didn't do so badly this week. I thought it was going to be so hard but most of us got it....

how did yours go?
Lisa

[snabbu]

Hey Gary,

My Peers didn't do so badly this week. I thought it was going to be so hard but most of us got it....

how did yours go?

Lisa

Mine were all good too I think the dross has probably dropped out.

I am up to putting this weeks to music but I am not sure i will get it finished.

This has made song writing quite hard work.

Man there were a lot of videos something is wrong with the second quizz I got 9/8 for it. Wierd.

Cheers

Gary

[Lisa Gates]

Mine were all good too I think the dross has probably dropped out.

I am up to putting this weeks to music but I am not sure i will get it finished.

This has made song writing quite hard work.

Man there were a lot of videos something is wrong with the second quizz I got 9/8 for it. Wierd.

Cheers

Gary

Ha Ha! I got 9/8 too. then I looked at the answers I got wrong and went back to correct them...then I got 17/8!! I am awesome!! lol

I went to the discussion forum and everyone was in an uproar about it. The challenge with this weeks quiz was to know if you were in the major or minor part of the chords...really opened my eyes. I haven't finished this weeks assignment. I have a melody but none of the loops match it so far. I'm still trying.

This has made writing hard. Taking the tools (not rules) and making them all come together is going to make it well worth the hard work don't you think? When things come easy I am too likely to take it for granted but if I work hard for it and actually get something out of my hard work then, BAM! it is worth it.!