How to learn a song in another language?

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 06:53 PM

Haruo, I now believe, with a high chance of accuracy, that the language is Sinhala, an Indo-Aryan language spoken widely in Sri Lanka.

This I discovered by simply clicking thru to the YouTube library of goonewj, who archives music that was broadcast on the Sinhala Commercial Service in the early 70's. Los Caballeros turn out not to be Cuban, but Sri Lankan. As to what goonewj and guitarmanaruna had to say, you may click thru to their YouTube libraries and contact them directly. One is in London, the other in the US, and both speak English fluently.


Morwen...-What kind of accompaniment are you looking for?

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: Haruo
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 07:02 PM

I imagine you're right, I just don't think of Sinhala as romanized (though if it had been romanized Hindi I'm sure I would have recognized it)...

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 07:02 PM

An MIDI accompaniment. I found one, but it's a bit wonky. The link is on the 4.30 AM post. Could you help me figure it out? I heard you say there were minor-key sections? Which ones are those?

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 07:04 PM

*Note: "you" is Stim.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 08:25 PM

I tried that link, and Google says it isn' there yet, whatever that means. I'll see if I can find something. When you say "wonky", what does that mean? The rubato at the beginning could be a bit of a problem in midi, because midi fovors even tempos, and you have to use tricks to get it to come out right. Other stuff can be just cut and pasted or swapped out.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 10:53 PM

It's actually an archive link
I can't recognise the tune.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: Haruo
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 11:10 PM

Try this link. The problem with the 4:30 post link's archive link was that the final period was included in the URL. This is where it was supposed to take you.

Haruo

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 11:34 PM

@Stim: What minor sections are you talking about? Where are they in the song?

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 21 Aug 12 - 02:24 AM

The midi file that is listed above is in the key of Ab. The beginning is in F minor, and starts on an Fminor chord. Then it opens to a B minor chord which resolves to the F minor--it does that a couple of times. Then it modulates to the Eb7 chord which eventually resolves to the Ab. It does that a few times. The babalu aye part is bounces from Eb7 to the Ab.

I am fooling around with the midi above, which, thanks to Haruo, I got.
I am mostly editing the voices so it doesn't sound so dippy. The instrumental parts themselves are actually really good

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 Aug 12 - 02:46 AM

Thanks, Stim! Could you show me where to download it when you're done, please?

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 Aug 12 - 02:49 AM

Note: I meant "send it to me."

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 21 Aug 12 - 11:07 AM

I think this will get you to it, and I set it so you could download it.
Babalu Sound File

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 21 Aug 12 - 07:17 PM

Thanks, Stim.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 22 Aug 12 - 01:31 AM

Morwen, I find this helpful for learning songs in languages that I don't speak:
I print a copy of the lyrics, then listen to a recording of the song and underline all the stressed syllables.

And with Spanish lyrics, the most difficult thing for me is to remember not to pronounce the h's, so I cross them out in the print-out.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Tony
Date: 22 Aug 12 - 01:36 AM

Oh, I just remembered; you're a calypsonian, aren't you? That's actually where I first used that underlining technique – in learning to sing old calypsos. Even when they're in English, I need the underlines because the tempo is usually so foreign to me.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 25 Aug 12 - 10:10 PM

Just found out that it's apparently "Una negra bembona'' (a thick-lipped woman) not "una negra muy santa".

Tony: Not a real calypsonian yet.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 25 Aug 12 - 10:45 PM

Descriptions of people (Especially women) in racial terms are common in Caribbean cultures. For English examples, there's "Brown Girl In The Ring" , "Brown Skin Girl", "My High Brown." The woman being "thick-lipped" is a way of saying she's Black.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 25 Aug 12 - 11:21 PM

I just listened, and I think that's right. Other lyrics seem a bit off, too. I think that the first line of the verse sounds more like " Et en pensando ya velorio", though I don't speak Spanish, so that might not even be a real sentence. That's what it sounds like, though.

I don't hear "Que le hacemo a Babalu", it sound more like "Que me se la Babalu" which might not be a Spanish sentence either.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 25 Aug 12 - 11:42 PM

A more accurate translation might be this:

The vigil is starting
And what's to be done with Babalu?
Give me seventeen candles
To put in the shape of a cross.

And give me a cigar, Mayenye,
And a glass of brandy.
And give me a little money, Mayenye,
To bring me luck.

I want to ask
That my black woman love me.
And that she have money
And that she not die.
Ay! I want to ask Babalu
That my thick-lipped black woman
Have no other black man
So that she not leave.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 25 Aug 12 - 11:49 PM

The first line is talking about the vigil for Babalu Aye. People who practice Santeria with Catholicism hold the vigil on St. Lazarus' feast day. The male narrator is saying- wondering out loud- what's to be done with the statue. He asks for a cigar, a glass of brandy, and seventeen candles to put in the shape of a cross.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 02:27 AM

That makes much more sense. It would be good to get the Spanish lyrics that correspond to one of the videos we have. I am now invested in learning this song, and, after repeated listenings, I can approximate most of it, but there are a couple places where I can not get it at all. It's making me nuts. Plus, I found an article from the local paper about a San Lazaro/Babalu ritual they've started doing every year on 12/17, and I am thinking about going. Do you see what you've done to me? I hope you're happy:-)

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: Fossil
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 08:31 PM

While the last few posts on this thread have been devoted to just one song in Spanish, there might be a bit more to be learned in taking a more general approach.

Personally, I had exactly this problem last year when I sang with the NZ Anthem Choirs for the Rugby World Cup. As a choir singer for four of the matches, I had to learn anthems in "foreign" languages for two counties - Wales and South Africa. And not only learn the words, but the bass parts as well.

In both cases I found the only way to do it was to write down the words phonetically. We had been given the music and words for each anthem, but written Welsh misleads, as it is not pronounced in the same way that you would if reading English. And the South African national anthem contains lines in five different languages, three African tongues, Afrikaans (basically Dutch) and English. The latter I two I could cope with, since I speak some Dutch and I am a native English speaker. The African languages again had to be learned phonetically. Fortunately, the NZ Choral Federation had anticipated this problem and they provided pronunciation guides for all the anthems on their website.

In both cases, I also found that looking up the Wikipedia pages for each anthem was useful as they gave an English translation, so I was able to get the idea of what was being sung, which in an indefinable way helped to get the emotions across.

Having got the phonetics and the music, it was just down to hard work and practice. The Welsh anthem "My henlad..." is a glorious song to sing anyway and the bass part just fell into place. The African words seemed to make a kind of sense and both anthems came out beautifully when we sang them on the pitch.

Fortunately, Wales got into the quarter-finals so I got two chances to sing their anthem. A great experience which improved my sight-reading considerably.

The general point seems to be that if you want to sing anything in a language foreign to you, do a lot of work on pronunciation, understand what you are singing about and then go for it!

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 09:12 PM

That's a perfect way to do it, Fossil. And our problem here is that we can't seem to find the right words to the song.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 26 Aug 12 - 09:23 PM

Stim: Actually my main interest is Trinidadian calypso, but calypsonians sing songs from other traditions frequently.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 08:21 PM

As an addition to the post where I mentioned racial description, there's also Wilmoth Houdini's "Black But Sweet". "The sweetest women in this world are black."
Nice.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 08:58 PM

This, I think, is the point at which you throw in the towel:

Anthem of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechen_language

Between 40 and 60 consonants, 44 vowels, all kinds of other phonetic weirdness, 8 cases and 6 genders.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 04 Sep 12 - 09:02 PM

@Jack: Wow...

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 05 Sep 12 - 03:44 AM

There are two ways to learn - one method is through imitation, ie listening to a recording over and over and over until it sticks in your head. I have memories of this from the school choir having to sing in
German and Latin.

To learn from text/sheet music etc it is a big help to learn the alphabet of the language - ie difference in pronunciation. - phrasebooks often provide an English equivalent to how words are pronounced, but that is only an approximation, so it is worth the effort to learn the proper pronunciation.

Subject: RE: How to learn a song in another language?
From: GUEST,iNSaNeoTAkU
Date: 22 Aug 15 - 12:43 PM

I would suggest reading the lyrics without the music accompaniment, and work through the song at your own pace. Try practicing one verse at a time, starting slowly, then each time you sing it sing a bit faster until you can sing it close to the original speed. Once you've done that try to find a lyric video (or a video of the song and open another tab with the lyrics) and practice with the music. Listen to the song till you can remember the tune and that's all the advice I could think of, hope this helps!