Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet

I'm celebrating Emily Dickinson this week, and this is a poem, extraordinary even for her, the tragic story of a faithful gun. Since this is the Parlando Project I took Dickinson's poem and turned into a strange little song. 

That's what the Project does and has done over 750 times. We take various words (usually literary poetry) and combine them with original music in differing styles. You can read about the experience or hear all the audio pieces at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Another Emily Dickinson setting where my music seeks to bring out the strangeness that sits in-between some of her poems' lines. This lesser-known Dickinson poem might be paired with her "Because I could not stop for Death."  She's singing here before the carriage arrives.

For more than 750 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

I'm planning a short series of Emily Dickinson poems combined with a variety of original music as I look forward to spending next week attending (online) a number of events in the Emily Dickinson Museum's Tell It Slant festival.

Today's example is a musical setting for acoustic steel-string guitar of a poem portraying a day's sunset viewed in an intimate female world. 

The Parlando Project has over 750 such combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) combined with different music in different ways. You can read more about the experience of doing this and hear all the musical pieces at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Each year on September 18th I do something to commemorate composer and guitarist Jimi Hendrix. This year I set this famous short poem by classical Chinese poet Li Bai.

Later this morning I'll post more about thoughts on how this poet and that musician might fit together. This just one example of what the Parlando Project does: we combine various words (mostly literary poetry) with music in different styles and then write about the experience of that at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

The Parlando Project is less often able to present the live rock band performances that it started out with, but here's a little piece from one of those performances, one telling about the aftermath of a large hail and high-wind storm that struck in August of 2023.

The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations and you can hear them all and read more about our experience with the poems at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Late 19th century American poet Richard Hovey translated many French Symbolist poems; but this sonnet, published in a posthumous collection, is apparently Hovey's own work in French under the title "Au Seuil." Hovey's poem considers dying and the possibility of a judgement and afterlife.

I translated Hovey's French into English for this musical performance. The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in different styles. This is the 775th one we've published, and you can hear them all and read about our encounters with the poems at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Here's a short love poem by written for the 1894 Songs From Vagabondia by Richard Hovey. This book found favor with young men in its day for eschewing moral uplift and earnest toil to write instead of wine, women, and joyful travels. 

The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in differing styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can hear them and read more about this at our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Labor Day weekend in America is often the occasion for end of Summer activities. In this poem from the 1894 Songs from Vagabondia, poet Richard Hovey rows down a river in Maine connecting a lake and ponds. What does he find? The sense that Summer feels like a dream.

The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've released over 750 of these combinations. You can hear any of them and read more about our experience with the poems at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Pioneering Canadian poet Bliss Carman included this fantastic prose poem in his breakthrough 1894 collection "Songs from Vagabondia." Is it the slightly intoxicated wonder-talk of two tipsy young men, or the account of two angels playing with the universe?

That Carman seems to have designed that blurring makes for an interesting 19th century SciFi vignette which I perform today.

The Parlando Project combines various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can find them at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Pioneering Canadian poet Bliss Carman's break-through collection was called Songs of Vagabondia,  a popular 1894 book which extoled the adventurous and sensuous life. In this selection he jauntingly compares Robert Burns and Robert Browning.

The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can find more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org