[lit-ideas] Cucumber Tenor
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:13:59 EST
"Scansion problem leads to unwarranted repetition"
This is the claim in an online site for the classification of lyrics into
good or bad. The above is a mark of a bad lyric.
I would be interested to discuss the issue.
My focus would be opera tenor arias:
disprezzo, disprezzo il fato
sings the tenor in Bellini, "I Puritani". Is it _necessary_ to repeat the
'disprezzo'. There are two ways out. One is to lengthen the 'e' of
'disprezzo' and sing
dispre-e-e-e-ezzo il fato
(I do that).
Another is to add what Geary calls a 'filler':
disprezzo assolutamente il fato.
There may be other ways out.
In general, the mark of a good lyric is "Gricean", i.e. not repetitive. Not
for nothing one of his conversational maxims is "Do not be repetitive".
When a tenor keeps repeating, I call it a 'cucumber'.
JLS
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