At 12:38 PM -0400 4/7/06, Phil Daley wrote:
At 4/7/2006 11:33 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
>Indeed he could not. Having him speak the lyrics in rhythm was a
desperate kludge that turned out to be perfect for the character. Each
of the songs does in fact have a clear melody that you can hear in the
orchestra; the combination of this w. Harrison's spoken delivery
results in a combined effect very close to what one would experience if
he had actually been singing.
My question is, could you have notated a part for Professors
Higgins, such that, a performer unaware of previous performances,
could have replicated that part?
Of course. Couldn't you? X-noteheads have been used to represent
relative pitch in speech for rather a long time. But I submit that
there is no such person as a performer unaware of previous
performances. Only a fool would audition for the King unaware of Yul
Bryner, or Prof. Higgins unaware of Rex Harrison. After all, they
created the roles! If you have to invoke a fantasy world I'm afraid
you're on shaky ground.
Robert Preston, on the other hand, really could sing quite decently
if not operatically, and his speech-song was part of his character in
"Music Man."
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
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http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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