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Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet

Poetry has been defined as “words that want to break into song.” Musicians who make music seek to “say something”. Parlando will put spoken words (often, but not always, poetry) and music (different kinds, limited only by the abilities of the performing participants) together. The resulting performances will be short, 2 to 10 minutes in length. The podcast will present them un-adorned. How much variety can we find in this combination? Listen to a few episodes and see. Hear the sound and sense convey other people's stories here at Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet At least at first, the two readers will be a pair of Minnesota poets and musicians: Frank Hudson and Dave Moore who have performed as The LYL Band since the late 70s. Influences include: Patti Smith, Jack Kerouac (and many other “beat poets”), Frank Zappa, Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart), William Blake, Alan Moore, The Fugs (Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg), Leo Kottke, Ken Nordine (Word Jazz), Bob Dylan, Steve Reich, and most of the Velvet Underground (Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico).
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Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet
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Now displaying: April, 2024
Apr 28, 2024

Rose Fyleman wrote charming and popular children's poems in the early 20th century, like this one. I set her poem for performance in a jaunty rock'n'roll trio as I approach the end of my National Poetry Month look-back at poems aimed at children in the first half of the 20th century.

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 read them and find out more about our encounters with them at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Apr 27, 2024

I continue to examine poems from a pair of books of verse meant for the children who grew up to become "The Greatest Generation." This one's not a sunny day holiday for the kids: Matthew Arnold's at the beach, he puts a seashell to his ear, and hears....the future, or perhaps time itself, and it's harrowing. 

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these over the years, and you can hear them and read about our encounters while doing this at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Apr 26, 2024

A short Spring poem with a famous ending couplet that seems to be about contentment -- and after all, I found it inside a 1922 book of verse for children I'm looking at for National Poetry Month. In the context of the longer work Browning placed it in, it may not be that simple, but I perform it today as if it was.

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

Apr 25, 2024

For National Poetry Month this year I've been looking at poems from a pair of 1920s books of verse for children. Today's selection is a charming poem by Robert Louis Stevenson performed with an electric folk-rock band.

The Parlando Project does this, takes words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music. We've done over 750 of these combinations and you can hear them and read more about our experiences of the process at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Apr 21, 2024

To observe this National Poetry Month I've been diving into a pair of poetry anthologies for children published in the 1922/1923. One poet included in them was an unusual case: Hilda Conkling, a child herself. That this grade-schooler was composing poems that often seemed to share Imagism's approaches intrigued some Modernists. Here's one of her poems set original music.

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

Apr 18, 2024

Sarojini Naidu's poem of stalwart Bengali fishermen asked to be sung, so I sang it. The author may have had a melody in mind, as she published this in a section of her poetry she called "Folk Songs." Naidu began as a promising poet ("The Nightengale of India") but left verse to for work for women's suffrage and Indian independence. 

The Parlando Project takes words (usually literary poetry) and combines them with original music. We've done nearly 750 of these over the years, and you can find them and remarks about our encounters with the poetry at our archives and blog located at frankhudson.org

Apr 16, 2024

William Wordsworth's well-known sonnet performed, as the word sonnet means, as a little song. Within the next 24 hour or so, I hope to have more to say about what you may have overlooked in this short poem on the Parlando Project's blog (see below). We've got a lot at the blog celebrating poetry and National Poetry Month.

The Parlando Project combines words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done nearly 750 of these combinations, all of which are available (along with short essays on our encounters with the words) at our blog: frankhudson.org

Apr 12, 2024

For National Poetry Month this year I'm looking at and performing poems found in a pair of 1920s anthologies of verse for children. The Girls of Verse and The Boys Book of Verse.  Though "The Minstrel Boy" was included within books of poetry, this poem by Irish poet Thomas Moore was quicky adapted as a song and is best known as such today. 

Which saves me from writing the music for today's audio piece. The Parlando Project takes various words (usually literary poetry) and normally combines them with original music, We've done over 700 of these combinations, and you can read more about this and hear them all at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Apr 10, 2024

Today I read a summary of poet Mary Oliver's approach by poet and critic A. M. Juster. He concluded: "I also think her spirit wanted to write religious poetry, but her mind wouldn't let her."

Lo & behold I was working this week on a singable version of this 1906 poem that I found in a collection of verse for children published in the 1920s that I'm examining as part of my National Poetry Month observance. Obviously. its author William Carruth was decades too early, but it seemed to be part of that conversation.

The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 700 of these, and you hear them and read more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Apr 9, 2024

We're celebrating National Poetry Month with musical presentations of poems taken from a gendered pair of 100-year-old anthologies published as The Girls and The Boys Book of Verse.  Today's is John Masefield's famous poem of seafaring. 

The Parlando Project takes words (usually literary poetry) and combines them with original music we write and perform. We've done over 700 of these over the years and you can read about this and listen to them at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Apr 6, 2024

We continue our National Poetry Month feature examination of a pair of century-old children's poetry anthologies with this famous invocation of book-fed imagination.

The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 700 of these things, and you can listen to them and find out more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Apr 4, 2024

My feature this National Poetry Month is going to be examination of two 1920's poetry anthologies, one for girls and one for boys. This William Blake poem invoking childhood visions bringing joy was in the opening section of the girl's volume and it seems like an apt poem to set to music and lead off our celebration this month.

The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in differing styles. We've done over 700 of these. If you want to read more about this or hear more of these combinations, visit our archives at frankhudson.org

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