#in which I am constitutionally incapable of NOT rambling about fanworks

[rhythmelia]

I did the thing! A while back I posted here about finding the Cantonese version of Frozen’s Let It Go 冰心鎖, and how I really liked the poetry of the Cantonese lyrics and how they deepened the meaning and spirit of the song, and basically made it EVEN MORE of a queer anthem than the English lyrics did. :D :D :D (maaaaaaaybe not the lyricist’s intent but I am running with it anyway~)

So here’s my cover of the song, if you go to the YT page I have links to credits, resources for pronunciation, and additional translation notes. Thanks for listening! Recording/process notes below the cut~

So the first fun challenge was finding a backing track, because I am an alto and that high end of the song was painful! I still ended up dropping that final belt the song is known for down an octave so I didn’t sound like the romantic screeching of a squashed tomcat

I initially flubbed a bunch of takes because the lyrics and the particular run of notes in different parts were basically too moving for me to hold it together. Yes, I know, I cry easy. -_-

Especially the entirety of chorus 2

Especially 去又來 昂 然而 自我 wherever I go I will proudly be myself , and 忘掉 昨天 悲歌  Forget the sad songs of yesterday 

And the end of the bridge going into chorus 3 (ugh mY HEART!!11!)

闖新天一個我   再不要 攔住 我 As I rush towards a new day, I won't be held back anymore

放棄 吧 無形鎖   再度黎明 重頭 活過 Give up, invisible lock/shackle! When dawn breaks, a new life awaits (;_;)

I’ve never studied Cantonese formally though I grew up speaking it and I’m halfway between basic BICS and academic CALP fluent, so I don’t know a lot of more formal/academic vocabulary and phrasings. When I heard this song before looking at the video with Chinese and English subs, I understood maaaaaybe 5% of it. Looking up word/phrase meanings and Jyutping romanization was very educational in terms of my vocab building :P

Fun fact: Cantonese song lyrics and poems are often based on more classical styles, and may use a lot of allusions and poetic language, and follow the grammar of written Chinese (spoken Mandarin uses this grammar, Cantonese....has several areas of linguistic divergence) that regular folks don’t use in conversation. Also, song pronunciation/word choice may differ.

For example, 的 is used for possessive, formally pronounced dik1. But in casual conversation, we use/type “D” pronounced di1 (dee)

PowerPoint 2010 does this FUN thing where, if you set rehearsed timings on the slide show, when you convert to a video file the $%#$*&#! program compresses the timings. Cue lots of screaming and pulling of hair as I had to incrementally adjust fractions of seconds on the initial slides, convert the file, and play to see how the timing lined up. Rinse and repeat, working my way through the slides. Incidentally, this 3:41 video took about 5 minutes to convert each time. And no, I don’t have access to fancier video editing technology/software.

My first video on Youtube lol. The first 10 views or so are just me figuring out the formatting in the description box and reloading to see how the changes shake out. How come AO3 can figure out how to not count your pageviews on your own works when signed in and Youtube/Google can’t?

Feel free to chat with me if you have any thoughts/questions/comments about this! :D