Dubbing for home languages is really not a good idea. The vocal is half of the performance – taking that away, and splicing in another person’s voice, literally mutes and disconnects the actor.
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Journal 2020-10-10
A question seems obvious when you have seen the answer.
A skill seems easy when you have practiced its mastery.
Only the time has changed.
Journal 2020-10-04
Recorded Sonnet 129 in one take. I didn’t plan how to do it – I just absorbed the words and wanted to see what happened.
The result is interesting, like nothing I have heard before.
The character speaking is not one you should let seduce you.
Journal 2020-10-03
If I had the choice now to pick how many years to live, I think I would choose 10,000, although maybe when getting close to the limit I might want another quota. I wouldn’t tick the box for a human eternity, as transience feels fundamental to the nature of life.
Journal 2020-09-27
My IOS Apple health app is showing it has stored 238.66 terabytes of my data! Wow, didn’t know I did that many steps.
Journal 2020-09-18
Watching performers, I appreciate quality but I don’t get particularly excited by even exquisite technical excellence. Looks attract, certainly, but interest is quickly lost if there is nothing real going on beyond the performance. I detach emotionally when there is anything conceited or contrived. What holds me is real lived human experience, with all its perfect imperfections; something genuine that has emerged in the moment and surprised even the performer.
Journal 2020-09-10
I really don’t like listening to or watching any recent performance of mine, even if I am generally pleased with how it turned out. This is weird because I don’t mind after a while, when there is some distance of time and I have forgotten about the process involved. I suppose the time delay helps me enjoy it as an audience member, rather than identifying so firmly as the performer.
Podcast #4
“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”
– Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Shakespeare the Songwriter
I listened on YouTube to various attempts at turning Shakespeare’s sonnets into songs, but I don’t think these straight translations work very well. However Shakespeare is so clever that if you read the lines of his sonnets out of sequence as rhyming couplets – e.g. line 1 then 3 then 2 then 4 etc. – the sonnets usually still work well, without losing the meaning. So I picked up a guitar, strummed some rhythms and improvised some vocal melodies to the rejigged lines, and it all works great!
A key for translating Shakespeare’s sonnets into a standard song format:
VERSE 1:
Line 1
Line 3
Line 2
Line 4
CHORUS:
Line 13
Line 14
VERSE 2:
Line 5
Line 7
Line 6
Line 8
CHORUS:
Line 13
Line 14
BRIDGE:
Line 9
Line 11
Line 10
Line 12
CHORUS:
Line 13
Line 14
Line 13
Line 14
Journal 2020-08-31
A lot of what I know is the product of age and curiosity, and although broad is often just familiarity with the basics. But I do also feel something expanding within me lately and I’m not sure of the cause, like energy ignited from a switch that has been flicked on.
Rob Walker 