In that Rhymes and Reasons are songs, not poems, I’ve left them in the accepted patterns necessary to set them to music. There may be some repetition but rare is the song sang in its entirety without repeating verses or choruses especially, what is now considered the chorus. The earlier songs were primarily AABA or ABAC patterns which were the norm back then. As patterns evolved into the more contemporary verse-chorus mode, I’d suspect that happened because repetition of the chorus allows for more rousing concert finales in which audience might be tempted to sing along.
In Why Lyrics Last, the internationally acclaimed critic Brian Boyd turns an evolutionary lens on the subject of lyric verse. He finds that lyric making, though it presents no advantages for the species in terms of survival and reproduction, is “universal across cultures because it fits constraints of the human mind.” An evolutionary perspective— especially when coupled with insights from aesthetics and literary history—has much to tell us about both verse and the lyrical impulse. Boyd places the writing of lyrical verse within the human disposition “to play with pattern,” and in an extended example he uncovers the many patterns to be found within Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Shakespeare’s bid for readership is unlike that of any sonneteer before him: he deliberately avoids all narrative, choosing to maximize the openness of the lyric and demonstrating the power that verse can have when liberated of story. In eschewing narrative, Shakespeare plays freely with patterns of other kinds: words, images, sounds, structures; emotions and moods; argument and analogy; and natural rhythms, in daily, seasonal, and life cycles. In the originality of his stratagems, and in their sheer number and variety, both within and between sonnets, Shakespeare outdoes all competitors. A reading of the Sonnets informed by evolution is primed to attend to these complexities and better able to appreciate Shakespeare’s remarkable gambit for immortal fame.
Performing Advice from Broadway's Premiere Audition Coach Bob Marks has spent more than 90,000 hours coaching singers, including cast members of nearly every current Broadway musical, cabaret performers, students winning positions at prestigious university programs, and actors of all ages. For more than four decades, singers from all over the world have turned to Bob Marks to hone their voices and nail auditions, including stars such as Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Britney Spears, Ariana Grande, Nikki M. James, Laura Bell Bundy, Ashley Tisdale, and Debbie Gibson. In this book, Bob provides 88 short, simple steps for successful singing auditions, including how to: Build confidence and presence Care for your voice and use it effectively Select music which enhances your unique style Put your best musical foot forward in any situation "Bob was instrumental in helping me book the role of Ed the Hyena and the covers of Timon and Zazu in The Lion King."-Wayne Pyle, Broadway Performer "If it weren't for Bob, my daughter would never landed the role of Gretl in NBC's live production of The Sound of Music." -Tara Kennedy, Broadway Performer "I wish I knew half of what Bob Marks knows about music, nuance, performance, and industry standards." - Elizabeth Lecoanet, International Voice Specialist "An invaluable resource for performers of any age. This is a concise, simple, and pragmatic book that I can recommend to my students." -Denise Simon, Author of Parenting in the Spotlight "Bob Marks knows how to help you be your best-prepared self in the audition room.!" -Stephanie Lynne Mason, Broadway Performer
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
Novelist and critic Alexander Theroux analyzes the pop song. National Book Award nominee, critic and one of America’s least compromising satirists, Alexander Theroux takes a comprehensive look at the colorful language of pop lyrics and the realm of rock music in general in The Grammar of Rock: silly song titles; maddening instrumentals; shrieking divas; clunker lines; the worst (and best) songs ever written; geniuses of the art; movie stars who should never have raised their voice in song but who were too shameless to refuse a mic; and the excesses of awful Christmas recordings. Praising (and critiquing) the gems of lyricists both highbrow and low, Theroux does due reverence to classic word-masters like Ira Gershwin, Jimmy Van Heusen, Cole Porter, and Sammy Cahn, lyricists as diverse as Hank Williams, Buck Ram, the Moody Blues, and Randy Newman, Dylan and the Beatles, of course, and more outré ones like the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Patti Smith, the Fall (even Ghostface Killa), but he considers stupid rhymes, as well ― nonsense lyrics, chop logic, the uses and abuses of irony, country music macho, verbal howlers, how voices sound alike and why, and much more. In a way that no one else has ever done, with his usual encyclopedic insights into the state of the modern lyric, Theroux focuses on the state of language ― the power of words and the nature of syntax ― in The Grammar of Rock. He analyzes its assaults on listeners’ impulses by investigating singers’ styles, pondering illogical lunacies in lyrics, and deconstructing the nature of diction and presentation in the language. This is that rare book of discernment and probing wit (and not exclusively one that is a critical defense of quality) that positively evaluates the very nature of a pop song, and why one over another has an effect on the listener.
In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.
