forum Writing a Song

Started September 11, 2018 by Kellsey

tune

Hello!
So in my universe, I have a race of people whose culture revolves around art, specifically dance and song, and prayer. It really began because, for some time, they were enslaved and forbidden to speak as they worked. In order to communicate and keep hope up, they'd hum these complex songs together in their chain gangs, or create these kind of stomp dances with their chains. There's this moment where they sing out loud for the first time in a long time, after being freed. Their revolution begins with small a group overtaking their overseers and then breaking into their freedom song. It goes like this:
Song of Freedom:
O Bountiful Earth
Freed at last we are
Forgive we you
For forced to commit, by you, sin

O Endless Sky
Greet again we you
See we you
Pray to deny never we

Sorry about the grammar, but the only English version I saved is in the grammar of the language I created for them. This song came about because the group initially freed were miners, who'd been made to stay in the mines for days at a time. These people believe in two gods, the Earth and the Sky, and so their freedom song is about not blaming the Earth, and rejoicing in seeing the Sky (also, in their language, the word for sky is the same for freedom.) However, that's just the beginning. The revolution finally ends when everyone is freed, in one crazy battle where everyone sheds their chains and go into a blood frenzy where they attack and kill anyone who doesn't look like them. After they calm, they feel intense remorse, pain, joy, etc. And they sing for hours in lamentation and rejoice. This becomes a yearly celebration for them, where people sing and dance for hours to the Sky and Earth, and children are initiated as being part of the community. That hours long song becomes a big part of their culture, but I'm not sure how I should write it.

Should it be a modified repetition of what I have above (since not all those enslaved were miners), or a very long song with multiple verses that add onto that ^^^. Should it be praises to the gods, or like a retelling of their struggles? I'm not really sure. Also, I kind of don't want it to be so long because translating it is a pain. Like:
Translated:
Ah Sanat delan!
Dalekeskak analesh menake motan
Idilinake Menake
Tlashekeskak ita ilishke

Ah Salakna daleke!
Kalenakeak ekilash menake motan
Shikishkeke menake motan
Lemitlake kilika ishek menake

This is a language I've made up on my own and writing just this took me about an hour. However, if writing a longer song would add some authenticity, I'm willing to do it. I can always make "shortcuts."

If they sing for hours, they would likely repeat something many times or have someone more learned sing the parts requiring at lot of memorisation. For example, I grew up in a culture where the primary style of singing was line, echo, line, echo, refrain, repeat the whole thing from the top.

Singer 1: If you are faithful
Chorus: Eyooo
Singer: If you are faithful and confess your sin
Chorus: Eyoo, she’s telling the truth
Singer 1: Then he is faithful
Chorus: Eyooo
Singer 1: He is faithful to forgive you of your sin
Chorus: Eyoo, it’s really the truth

And so on. That makes a few lines of song take up much more time. I feel like in your case, what you could have is multiple songs all along a similar theme, with the one you outlined above being a recurring motif.

So, as an example, first they sing that one you wrote about greeting/worshipping the sky (I’ll call it A for short) with a lot of gusto for a while, then comes a mournful one that retells the slavery and hardship of their people (B) then perhaps a hopeful one about remaining true to their God’s despite the bleak outlook (C) which can segue back nicely into (A), and then a victorious ode about their battle (D) then one that’s praise to the gods for freeing them and giving them victory (E) which turns back into (A) and then mourning again for the lives they took (F) Prayer to the gods to help them be respectful of life/not forget the past/etc. (G) and ending back at (A).

Obviously you don’t have to use that structure, but I feel that a bit of variety would give the celebration more structure. I’m seeing it more as a musical - several songs telling one story - than just one song.

As for whether you write it out, that’s up to you. If you’re planning to include several hours worth of song lyrics in a story, I would advise you not to, and would say definitely do not include hours of them in your conlang in your story. 95% of people skip Tolkien’s in-story poems, and those are in English. For sharing with others, a few detailed notes on each ‘section’ of song is plenty for you to refer to:

Example:
Song B: One singer retells the hardship of slavery and powerlessness of being mute. The rest hum along in mournful and complex harmonies. Dancing is slow, with heavy foot-stomping to accompany the beat and remind everyone of what they had to do to communicate

Etc. For yourself, you can do as much as you like! If conlanging is your thing, you can go wild writing out several pages of song lyrics and translating them, but I don’t think you need it for authenticity. And on the plus side, if you have a good idea of the structure and content, you can always go back and write whichever bit you find out you need later.

All the best with your writing! I’ve never seen a culture done with some of the aspects you’re describing, so it sounds really interesting and refreshingly unique.

@Riorlyne Oh wow this is so much more thorough than I'd hoped for
I understand the structure you've laid out and really like it, especially since stories are something they value as well (through art.) I'll probably go with the line-echo, since it seems likely that these people who haven't been allowed to sing for years would need someone to lead them first (also, it reminds me of qu'ranic recitation, which I greatly admire.) It'd also establish song as a true art form, where the leader would have to train in order to do the songs justice.

And don't worry, I wouldn't fill my story with long, conlang verses lol. Writing it out would just help me develop and tie the culture together better (Also, I'm majoring in Linguistics and creating a conlang is helping me better understand linguistic structures.)

Thank you so much for your help!

And don't worry, I wouldn't fill my story with long, conlang verses lol. Writing it out would just help me develop and tie the culture together better (Also, I'm majoring in Linguistics and creating a conlang is helping me better understand linguistic structures.)

Oh good, that works then! I don't mind snippets of conlang in fantasy novels but I find when it gets to paragraph level it kind of breaks the immersion. And yay for Linguistics! (I'm a big enthusiast.) I would have loved to have majored in it but the uni I went to was phasing it out as a field of study and so I was only able to pick up enough subjects to do a minor. They were a lot of fun though, especially the first couple of years.

(And yes I definitely used my newfound linguistics knowledge to develop my world's languages.)

What are some particular linguistic features of the languages you're creating (if that's something you're happy sharing)?

Well, so far, I've only been focusing on one language so it's not very complex yet. It's actually quite amateur, because I began by just writing arbitrary rules on a piece of paper and beginning with basic pronouns/tenses and then ended up not following them halfway through, or forgetting my own rules.

But, some features I've stuck to are in syntactic structure, phonology, and tense conjugation. Syntactically, it goes verb-subject-object, with there being no complex structures yet (which is why I'm not eager to write full song.) For conjugation, I randomly decided on three suffixes to indicate past, present, and future, and a rule for conjugating into formal/informal tense. In order to make a word formal, you take the first vowel and last consonant and add it onto the end of the word. Like:
Natle (To be born inf.) would become Natleke in the informal/present tense and Natlekeatl in the formal/present tense.

There are some rules regarding this in that, if the first vowel is the same as the last one once conjugated, or if it creates a diphthong not usual in the language, it's left out. Like:
Melashki (To lament inf.) would become Melashkike in the informal/present tense and Melashkikek in the formal/present tense, as opposed to Melashkikeek or Melashkike'ek

There are also some exceptions, because what's a language without those? Overall, my conlang is really not that good, and I expect I'll scrap it at some point in the future when I've learned more. There are a lot of issues with inconsistencies and my lack of experience. The only languages I have any understanding of are Spanish, French, German, and Japanese, so I'm not really able to draw inspiration from real languages yet. Still, I'll keep working at it.