Languages and song

Mycernius

The Hairy Wookie
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What languages do you find fit well with music? Is it a cultural thing or are some languages better being sung than others? I ask this because I was listening to my opera collection the other day. Italian strikes me a a great language for this type of music, and other types. It seems to flow along gracefully. Compare it with Wagner's Ring Cycle, which is sung in German. A language I find that does not fit very well with music. Very harsh and abrupt. I also find this with Russian. Indian singing is strange, but that has more to do with the use of quarter notes. Hindi sung by men is better than hindi being sung by women, which I find nasal. These are only personal prefernces, but I would like to know if anyone has had similar experinces or views, or even totally diferent views. I'm not fussed
 
Semitic languages make wonderful music of religious content.
I had an 33 rpm Arabic prayer vynil disc when I was about 10. At that time I found the sound horrible and difficult to absorb. But now that I am 44, and my hypersensitive perceptions have mellowed down. So now I can appreciate the sonority and spirituality of Arabic and Hebrew songs of prayer. Just one small point I wanted to contribute.
 
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Well, english sounds good. That's what i'm used too. Swedish sounds allright too, german can sound good and i think russian sounds good (if i only could hear it in some better songs).
 
Swedish and Finnish are great for rapping/hiphop in my opinion.. especially the skåne dialect (Timbuktu, Svenska akademien), but I might be bias on that one, being from skåne :p

English is great for music, and many Swedish artists sing in English. Many of them can't speak English any better than the Japanese, which leads to the birth of some very... interesting lyrics.
 
Blääää, for Timbuktu. My clasmates play Swedish rap all the time and if there is one thing worse than English rap/hip-hop it's Swedish rap/hip-hop. :/

But everyone's entitled to their opinion. :)
 

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