Critique my MacBeth!

[guitaristic]

It's back, guys.

Cool dude I like it! I think you did a good job of capturing the emotion of the piece.

 

[CrowsofFritz]

Well thanks, man!

 

[dobro]

An "action" in the acting sense is what you want to get from another person, and it is related to some form of validation of self.

Oh Jesus. That takes it to a slightly new level. Backstory's huge, but actions are the direction you'd like it to go.

As for subtext, it's just what it sounds like -- the meaning below the text... And note, that's an action, too.

But a subtext doesn't have to be an action. I mean, somebody might be unaware of the meaning below the text. I like scenes where both parties are aware. There are interesting variations, though.

As for arcs, all scenes have a beginning, middle and end. In its simplest form, the beginning is trying to get what you want -- your objective, the middle is varying the strategies to get it, and the end is either you got it or you've given up trying.

I got away with not having an arc in that song I mentioned. It was a song, not a novel or play.

In my beginners' class, I'd spend the first session just talking about how and why people interact, the nature of human communication, etc., with one or two short exercises designed to get my students to drop their conceptions of what they thought acting was.

Yeah, good luck with that.

This stuff certainly has application for musical theater -- songs are written and performed this way. I really can't say whether any of this applies to other kinds of music.

Stuff like some of Scott Walker's stuff for example, yeah, completely. But I'm looking at this, not as something to let the audience in on, but as a mental scaffolding for delivering the vocal. The listener would get in on the story only so far as the lyrics revealed it. But the lyrics wouldn't have to. If you want a story, go to the movies. Yet the cool thing about some songs is how they can bring out a story to a certain degree. You ever heard Lyle Lovett's stuff? It's brilliant.

Hey thanks for explaining that.

Maybe that's how Tom Waits got into the movies. He's always telling stories in his songs.

 

[rpm61]

The first third of that jumped out at me because of something I stumbled on recently. I'd tracked the vocal for a song I'm working on about four different times and it just wasn't working. So I created a backstory for the lyric, and suddenly on the fifth go it worked. In other words, for that particular song, if I was playing a character in a particular story with a particular set of situational and emotional circumstances, I could deliver the lines in a way that timing, intonation and emotion couldn't reach on their own. Okay. But I have no idea what you mean by 'defining actions' and 'coherent subtextual arc'. Care to elaborate?

Good point, I don't think I've ever wrote lyrics considering back story other than a character's situation but it sounds like it would be effective with certain styles of lyric. The techniques PT is talking about could be very useful when fleshing out character based or "story" lyrics, I could see where it would help with delivery also. I suppose it's why so many good songs are first person where the emotional reality and actions are the writer's own. That's an interesting connection dobro.

 

[Tobe]

Yeah, I could have practiced my Scottish couldn't I? I really feel that, towards the very end, Macbeth was really showing his desire (or lack thereof) for life on Earth. I was trying to encompass that. Any ideas on what I should do?

What I think you should do is keep posting your efforts on MP3 Mixing Clinic. As you can see... we are full of ideas And thanks for the effort.

It doesn't need to sound Scottish, it needs to sound timeless to bring out the rich ironic commentary that makes the monologue so interesting. Forget emphasis... work on the character of your voice and the rest will follow.