I could have moved the very hills - if only I actually worked on this consistently. This has got to be the longest song yet. But look - your New Year post inspired some new
progress! I am rather pleased with the "moved the very hills - death makes equal everyone" part. And I have a rough idea of what the final section would look like, so there's hope yet that I will be done in under a year...
Thinking ahead, I recall some performances at least having Finrod sing the final line ("doom fell") without any accompaniment at all, into silence - is that something you like / think is feasible?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Huinesoron
Dropping in very quickly to say I have some new birthday headphones, and needed a way to test them, soooo:
"Prison Duet" - progress 3, sung
Very rough; very very rough, I think the phones muffle my ears enough that I need to rethink how I sing. I know there's at least three lines I messed up the timing on, and my low notes are dropping out for some reason - not sure if that's me or the microphone. But I figured we needed something to start the year off. |
I say it's an excellent start to the year and a good omen of productivity... or at least persistence.
I agree about the recording quality, it seems a little weird. Especially the timing - it's almost like the whole thing is delayed by a fraction of a second, it begs to be shifted forward in bulk. What happens if you just delete a couple milliseconds at the very start? Would it align better with the music? It almost sounds like a recording delay, it's
that consistent.
As another side question - are you interested in trying to harmonize Beren and Finrod when they sing together in this one? I could do the same trick I used for the Elf-choir, ie record the melody separately for each voice separately and copy that for the singing. How do you feel about it?
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Looking over the words... I just can't get happy with some of them. I am still stuck with the "unscathed through strife" line. But there's another one that bugs me now - "Disowned by my own people's hearts". The original is "no [longer] a brother to my own people". Perhaps "estranged from my own people's hearts"? That seems to evoke more of the bitterness of estrangement, rather than grumpiness over losing a crown. And the "disowned" line just sounds odd.
Actually, maybe I do have a couple thoughts about the "strife" line. Trying to play around more with getting the concept of loyalty rather than love back into the line, and playing with some of your suggestions...
Loyalty [faithfulness?] / Is keener than the sharpest knife - I don't actually like this one, but putting it down to generate thought/discussion. Firstly, it doesn't rhyme with "But Beren". Second, it also sounds weird in a different way - it makes sense on its own but in context of the song it's a weird point for Beren to make, it sounds a bit aggressive.
Unerring / steadfastness ever conquers strife - brings back strife... I can't seem to get rid of it. It still has a bit too much certainty to it though, Beren can't possibly be so assured - it should be more of a hope thing and a mutual support/comfort thing, that maybe the fact that both were faithful to their duties might count for something in the end, that if a miracle is to happen it will happen to people who stick to their promises etc. Beren is allowed to be blindly optimistic about "love conquers all", but he can't have equal certainty with loyalty. I was going to try something like "echoes past all strife" to make it slightly less definitive, but that sounds weird again.
The only conclusion I have is that this line is
very difficult.