Part song

“ Clearly I call, keeping the melody, An old evening-singer unceasing in song, To earls in their houses I bring great bliss; When I chant my carols in varying strains, Men sit in their dwellings silent and still. Say what I’m called who mimic so clearly The songs of a jester, and sing to the world Many a melody welcome to men. ”

“ I heard a Stock-dove sing or say
His homely tale, this very day.
His voice was buried among trees,
Yet to be come at by the breeze:
He did not cease; but coo'd—and coo'd;
And somewhat pensively he woo'd:
He sang of love with quiet blending,
Slow to begin, and never ending;
Of serious faith and inward glee;
That was the Song—the Song for me! ”

“ One hundred songs and eighty-five
Are found in songbooks, perfect, pure,
With all accessories complete,
Unblemished in their phrasing sure.
On earth is nothing nobler found,
Nor yet in heaven, than vocal song ”

“ An old hymn tune, or an old song, a turn of phrase, a scent in the garden, a tone of voice, a curve in the path—everything comes to us weighted with its own treasures of memory, bitter or sweet, but always significant. ”

“ In short, the mystery of the whole is, that a marginal note is wisely thrust into the text: the song being design'd to be sung by a single voice, and the stanzas to close with a burden to be sung by the whole company. ”

“ Observe, too, how all passionate language does of itself become musical,—with a finer music than the mere accent; the speech of a man even in zealous anger becomes a chant, a song. All deep things are Song. ”

“ And if we are singing to gain a better use of voice we must, in every sound we make, have our thoughts exactly upon what we are doing. This is Concentration. If, on the other hand, we are trying our skill on a song, we shall have, in addition, to be careful to give the right expression, to sing not only the tones clearly, but the words, to feel the true sentiment both of the poem and of the music, and to express from our hearts as much of the meaning of poet and composer as we understand. All these things are more particularly required of us if we are singing in parts. ”

“ What a gentle, mystical song resounds from among the willows, as of a nightingale endowed with a human voice in order to sing to the listening night in coherent rhymes the song of his love and his melancholy rapture. ”

“ But of every species of poetry none are so rife with life and beauty as the song. It conjoins music with words, and brevity with sweetness. There is no position in which man does not sing,—in joy to express it, and in woe to relieve it: in company in chorus, and alone for companionship. ”

“ Such differences are to be expected in the case of a collection of songs, some admittedly in dialogue form, all concerned with the common theme of the love of man and woman, and without any external indication of the transition from one song to the next. ”

“ It is almost impossible to make them idealize the words through the elocution of singing; and yet in the artistic rendition of a song, a ballad, or a dramatic aria, the words are often of more importance than the music. The singer should study the story of a song by reading it aloud upon the highest plane or level of emotional or dramatic expression. ”

“ Let somebody sit in a room next to yours and sing a single verse of a certain song, sing it endlessly, without ceasing, sing it through and begin again; tell me—would this not drive you crazy? Where I live there is such a person, a tailor; he sits and sings and sews, and his singing is unceasing. ”

“ At such a time it is made to sing a song, which, readily awakening the sympathies of the soul, causes the listener to recognize and feel the effects of the intonations of pathos, of passion, of deepest melancholy, or those of lightsomeness and wildest joy. ”

“ Tears, laughter, complaints, sighs, defeat and triumph, blessing and cursing, all these mean for them song, melodious song, and the spring of emotion flows into a phrase that carries the voice to perfection, and sustains and favours the expansion of its peculiar beauty. ”

“ Through their singing runs a distinct strain of the minor. Its strangely sweet cadence, learned in many an hour of pain, runs as an under-chording through the song of triumph that now fills their hearts and mouths. ”

“ In right merry chorus the spirits then laughed;
At length the musician in person stepp’d aft:
“I’ve sung my own song, friends, demurely,
“That charming song’s at an end;
“When the heart is once broken, why surely
“The song may homeward wend!” ”

“ So much difficulty has been introduced into the study of the first developments of song, by confusing these distinct sorts of composition under the name of popular poetry, that it may be well, in writing of a poem which occupies a middle place between epic and ballad, to define what we mean by each. ”

“ The tendency seems to be more toward satisfactory sound impression than for spontaneous feeling expression as in the older spirituals. Meaning and words in general are often sacrificed in the effort to make rhyme, to make the song fit into a desired tune, to bring about a satisfying rhythm, or to give prominent place to a single well-sounding word or phrase. ”

“ The singing that haunts us, which becomes part of our life, which fills the memory with tender and happy images of other days and scenes, is not necessarily that of the finest voices, but of that mingling in music of voice and skill and feeling which weave an enchanted spell. ”

“ The speech of my heart will be carried on in murmurings of a song. ”

“ The tone of the romance is monotonous, and we dare not affirm that this song, receiving the honors of written notation, could satisfy the dilettante and the melodrama. But its charm, or, if you will, its enchanting grace, consists in the modulations of the voice in singing, as it were to cast out certain notes, to blend them, to balance them, so to say, very softly, in raising or lowering the tone, in swelling it or allowing it to die. It is thus that the romance, composed of a number of notes strongly bound, presents the great difficulties of expression, and the purity of execution. ”

“ In a song where some particular phrase or sentence seems difficult to you, sing the entire phrase or sentence on one sustained tone, pronouncing the words distinctly until you have gone down several tones below and several tones above the pitch in which it is written, singing it over and over on the one sustained tone in all the keys of your range. ”

“ The hands are clasped together, and often lifted, and the head often shaken with foolish vehemence. The tone of the voice is canting, or sing-song lullaby, not much distant from an Irish howl, and the words godly doggrell. ”

“ The singer must feel the mood of each song, and must sing as he feels, if he is to perform with real expression. This is a much more vital matter in song interpretation than the mere mechanical observation of tempo and dynamic indications. ”

“ But approximately defined, a lyric may be said to be a poem—short, vivid, and expressive of a definite emotion, appealing more to the eye than with any ultimate view of being set to music; a song, as a composition appealing more to the ear, wherein the sentiments are more leisurely expressed, with the intention of being accompanied by music. ”

“ It is this that the choruses supply; the old men or women who take no active part in the drama, the undifferentiated voices who sing like birds in the pauses of the wind; who can comment, or sum up, or allow the poet to speak himself or supply, by contrast, another side to his conception. ”

“ In the following poem a lover bids adieu for ever to an unworthy woman, who has betrayed him. This is a remarkable specimen of the songs written for a complicated melody. The first eight lines seem set to one tune; in the next four that tune is slightly accelerated, and a double rhyme is substituted for a single one in the tenth and twelfth verses. The five concluding lines go to a different kind of melody, and express in each stanza a changed mood of feeling. ”

“ The meaning of the third stanza is clearer if we put it into prose as follows: Let music swell grandly on the breeze, and let the sweet song of freedom ring from all the trees; let every human being sing the song; let all living things join in the chorus. Let even the rocks break the silence and prolong the music with their echoes. ”

“ To confirm the true foundation of all good singing, by the purest enunciation, and the most precise intonation of the scale, was the study of her life, and the part of her voicing upon which she most valued herself. ”

“ "New voices come to me where'er I roam, My heart too widens with its widening home: But song grows weaker, and the heart must break For lack of voice, or fingers that can wake The lyre's full answer; nay, its chords were all Too few to meet the growing spirit's call. The former songs seem little, yet no more Can soul, hand, voice, with interchanging lore Tell what the earth is saying unto me: The secret is too great, I hear confusedly. ”

“ None the less, however, must every song possess not so much a revelation of the personality of the singer as a certain community of sentiment, which meets with response from all sides; which excites in others a like emotion and so, too, passes from mouth to mouth. Songs which are not generally current as such in their time are seldom of the genuine stamp. As an essential distinction in the composition of song I will merely emphasize two main aspects which I have already referred to. ”

“ If longing for home fill the mind, the dear scenes that cluster there are painted in many a song. Requiems to the loved departed are also here. Indeed, almost every scene to which the chequered life of man is subject is here made the refrain of song. ”

“ Many such poems survive in our ballad literature.
p. xvThe material of the ballad may be either romantic or historical. The former class is based on one of the primeval invented situations, one of the elements of the Märchen in prose. Such tales or myths occur in the stories of savages, in the legends of peasants, are interwoven later with the plot in Epic or Romance, and may also inspire ballads. Popular superstitions, the witch, metamorphosis, the returning ghost, the fairy, all of them survivals of the earliest thought, naturally play a great part. ”

“ "There comes to me out of the Past A voice, whose tones are sweet and wild, Singing a song almost divine, And with a tear in every line; ”

“ At intervals all the performers stop and yell at the top of their voices. Sometimes a person on the outside of the circle will take up the strain on a long-held note of the singers. This song also serves for festive occasions, such as weddings. ”

“ Any strong emotion, and more particularly any pleasurable excitement, might result in song. Singing, like any other sort of play, is due to an overflow of energy, which is discharged in “unusual vivacity of every kind, including vocal vivacity.” ”

“ Among the “miseries of human life,” a most touching one is spoken of—the being obliged to listen to the repetition of a badly sung song, because some well-wishing, but not over discreet friend of the singer has called loudly for an encore. ”

“ The foregoing facts sufficiently prove that what we regard as the distinctive traits of song, are simply the traits of emotional speech intensified and systematised. In respect of its general characteristics, we think it has been made clear that vocal music, and by consequence all music, is an idealisation of the natural language of passion. ”

“ No, my complete master; but to jig off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humour it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, as if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose, as if you snuffed up love by smelling love; with your hat penthouse-like o’er the shop of your eyes, with your arms crossed on your thin-belly doublet like a rabbit on a spit; or your hands in your pocket like a man after the old painting; and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. ”

“ Lend me your song, ye nightingales! oh, pour
The mazy-running soul of melody
Into my varied verse! ”

“ When a person singing a song has to stop up because he forgets the next verse, he says (mostly in joke) 'there's a hole in the ballad'—throwing the blame on the old ballad sheet on which the words were imperfect on account of a big hole. ”

“ When anyone puts his ear to me and listens, he hears the reflection of his own heart's music, singing; so, you see, while I say that I am singing all the time, in reality I sing only when someone full of happiness hears his own singing as if it were mine. ”

“ You can ask them to sing such or such a song, and they will always sing it exactly as they sang it before. All songs are sung in a subdued voice, as the melancholy and suspicious character of the people prevents all loud demonstrations of mirth.... ”

“ That was the first sound in the song of love! Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate. We hear The voice prophetic, and are not alone. ”

“ Heart of my heart, the world is young;
Love lies hidden in every rose!
Every song that the skylark sung
Once, we thought, must come to a close: [Pg 93]
Now we know the spirit of song,
Song that is merged in the chant of the whole,
Hand in hand as we wander along,
What should we doubt of the years that roll? ”

“ The quest may lead you far into the field of Aesthetics, and unless you are accustomed to psychological processes you may find yourself in a maze from which escape is difficult. Let us remember that in studying the construction of a song we are dealing with states of mind. A song is the product of a certain mood and its direct aim is to awaken a similar mood in others.
It is a well established fact that sound is the most common and the most effective way of expressing and communicating the emotions, not only for man but for the lower animals as well. ”