Attitudes towards different languages in music

Nik16- Welcome to A2K!

I like to hear music sung in Italian. The words flow so beautifully. German, to me, sounds like a very harsh language, and does not seem to fit the poetry that is music.

1) Spanish - very exquisite language in a song
(I also like German in a song. I sing German songs ("Lieder").)
2) ?

Welcome Nik16 !

1) French (my native language), English (like this language, and understand it, so...), Japanese (undertand 1/20 word, but still it's a beautifull language), Spannish and Italian are also nice languages... it "sounds" pretty good.

2) Well... none (?)

Italian, Latin and Spanish...

I love Andrea Bocelli!!!!

But I'm rather sure, satt will like this site:

German for music lovers :wink:

There are lots of stereotypes. We follow some.

When I was a teenager, in the 70s, some people said Spanish was not made for heavy rock. Too many sillables, they said.
At the same time, Catalonian nationalist youths said that Catalan was the language for heavy rock (really an excuse to fight Castillian, imposed by the dying Franco regime).
By the end of the decade, the discussion was over. Great rock groups in Spanish appeared. Punk, heavy metal, plain rock...
Of course, I love any good lyrics in my beautiful native language.

German sounds great in Rock, as well as in Lieder and Opera. The thing is that if you don't understand the language, it's a little bit harder to enjoy throughly. (I remember a song by Udo Lindenberg "U-Rhesus Negativ", real cool).

Italian is good for anything (even if it has the syllable problem of Spanish), great for children's songs, but best for opera.

English is also quite flexible, but operas in English sound silly to me. I think this is more cultural than strictly linguistic: when I hear anything ressembling an aria in English, I think "Broadway musical".

Folk songs sound great in any language (the natural talent of the peoples of the world), and cartoon songs are particularly funny in Japanese.

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Bonus: The lyrics of "Light my fire", sung by a Spanish speaker who knows very little English:

Yu now than beesanbeeram troo,
Yu now than beesanbeeram lyro,
if I'm beesanbeeram too,
girl we'd beesanbeeram highro,
come on baby, lyro fyro,
come on seren nighton fyro!

I love that.

I like to hear music in almost all languages. I'm not paritcularly fond of high pitched asian or indian singing, but I have a hunch that is a bias of my western ear.

Thanks, Walter............That's a nice site!

Walter..
I have a CD which contains a track of "Moritat / Mack the Knife (Die Moritat von Mackie Messer)" sung by Bertolt Brecht himself, of which performance you probably know.
Brecht extremely places a stress on the "RRRR" pronunciation, and it sounds somewhat funny at first but causes effective results.
I have an MP3 file of the performance, and I can send it to you as a mail attachment if you let me know the mailing address. (The original recording was taken 1930 and already beyond copyrights duration.)
German consonants in the ending of words in a song sound very good, if they are pronounced expertly. Consonants seem to be an emphasis of training for biginners (and experts too) in German singing.

any comments about french songs?

"Je voudrais que tu me consoles" and it's "Le son qui tue" :wink:

A recording of Cora Vaucaire's chanson singing used to be one of my most favorite tapes (yes "tapes").

eheh!

it's not fair to kick someone down.

There is some people with good tastes!

In Japanese language, one sylable of a word has exactly a single vowel, and it may make singing in Japanese less difficult.

A song of a Latin verse seems not particularly difficult as it contains less consonants. When I was a boy I could sing a Latin song ("kyrie eleison" - the title itself is in Greek) without fully knowing the contents of the song.

What about modern russian songs?

I know some. "Lunnaya Tropa" from Alsu is really beautiful.

Can't avoid linking any French singer with Edith Piaf (if woman) or George Brassens or Charles Aznavour (if man).

To me all the Romance languages are beautiful to the ear. I'm a sound person, so I love the soft sounds. As Walter pointed out long ago, English is really a derivative of low German, but since I only speak one language fluently, I really can't comment as an expert.

Satt, I have been fascinated for some time by the beautiful music that is obviously Oriental, and is played behind the commercial for Sea World.

I couldn't access Walter's site.

I am fond of Thijs van Leer. where else can you hear Jazz/Rock/Yodeling in the original Dutch?