[Bards] Throwing one to the Lions...

[iainmacc at juno.com]

On Sat, 4 Aug 2001 13:37:42 EDT Fitzmorgan at cs.com writes:
> > surprize are important in comic verse.  I'm guessing that fourth
> line is
> prouably your biggest laugh.  Endings are also important in any
> poetry but

        It's certainly the biggest "straight" laugh. I get response all
the way through that is about equal, but after the first line it's mixed
in with groans and "oh no"'s.

> >
> >         She had her a figure I have to admit,
> >         Not unlike some fighters I know.
> >
>        This line seems a little awkward to me, but onbly a bit.  It
> doesn't
> really flow off the tounge.  Most of the lines in the poem have a
> rythem of a
> stressed sound followed by two or more unstressed sounds.  The
> pattern tends
> to be.  TUM ta ta TUM ta ta TUM.   This line starts a pattern of TUM
> ta TUM
> TUM and those back to back stressed syllables tend to break up and
> hinder the
> flow of the line, a bit like tapping your breaks while driving down
> the road.

        In performance, I leave a "dead space" for a single beat at the
beginning of the line. That way the accenting of the pair is:
        ta TUM ta ta TUM ta ta TUM ta ta TUM
        ta TUM ta ta TUM ta ta TUM

        The first accent of the second line is on the syllable "un".


        Thank you very much. I've already found this piece to be
effective, so I doubt I'll change it. But as I said, the point to me is
to learn WHY I am making the choices I make. Often I have had something
in my head that just won't come out properly, and when I try to explain
to someone else what the trouble is, I lack the words. "It just doesn't
work, it's clumsy" doesn't satisfy.


                      Iain MacCrimmon