出歌: 呢首歌嘅歌詞好奇怪 | Song Release: The Lyrics of This Song are Weird(Nisaugo ge Gotsi hou Keigwai)

July 10, 2017, 2:25 p.m. Behind the Scenes Music Product Release 廣東話

呢首係我第一首公開發放嘅歌, 歌名係"呢首歌嘅歌詞好奇怪". 首歌係關於呢首歌同埋佢嘅歌詞有幾咁唔掂嘅.

Behold my first song ever released publicly: "The Lyrics of This Song are Weird". This song is about the suckiness of the song and its lyrics.

Click呢度睇歌詞

Full lyrics are available here!

首歌係我自己一個人整嘅(包括把聲同段片). 整左超過一個月. 如果你鐘意嘅話, 麻煩幫段片俾個like, subscribe個Youtube channel同埋share下俾你D friend. 如果呢首歌嘅反應良好, 我響未來將會整多D類似嘅歌. 多謝支持! :)

I made the song (including the vocal and the video) on my own. It took me more than a month to produce it. If you enjoyed the song, please give the video a like, subscribe to my Youtube channel and share it with others. If the reception of this song is good, I'll spend more time to compose similar songs in the future. Thank you very much! :)

我原本係為左整game而學整音樂嘅. 直至到幾年前, 我大概每一年就整一首廣東話歌. 呢首係我整嘅第三首歌. 之前果兩首太差, 所以我冇放到出來. 呢首我覺得唔算好好, 但係都算係咁啦. 所以我就決定放出來喇.

I learned music composition for game development. Since a few years ago, I compose Cantonese songs approximately once a year. This song is the third song that I've made. I didn't release the previous two songs because the quality were too bad. This one isn't good. It isn't that bad either. That's why I decided to release it.

幕後製作 | Behind the Scenes

呢個project總共用左8個軟件. 包括LMMS, Audacity, ProjectM, SimpleScreenRecorder, Inkscape, Spriter Pro, Aegisub同FFmpeg. 除左Spriter Pro之外, 其他都係免費嘅開源的軟件.

In total, 8 software applications were used for this project. They are LMMS, Audacity, ProjectM, SimpleScreenRecorder, Inkscape, Spriter Pro, Aegisub and FFmpeg. Except Spriter Pro, all of them are FOSS software.

音樂製作 | Music Production

首歌係用LMMS整嘅. LMMS係一個俾你由零開始嘅整音樂嘅軟件. 幾年前, 我曾經幫過嘅佢地手, 開發LMMS呢個軟件. 而把聲呢, 係用Audacity錄嘅. 把聲經過處理.

This music was composed with LMMS. It's a music composition software designed for making music from scratch. I had briefly contributed to its development a few years ago. The voice was recorded and processed using Audacity. Some audio engineering was performed for the vocal track.

首歌係咁樣整出來嘅:

The procedure of composing this song is shown below:

  1. 作一段melody | Compose a piece melody
  2. 作個chord同arpeggio來迎合個melody | Compose the chord and the arpeggio for the melody
  3. 用同一個chord同arpeggio, 作多幾段melody | Using the same chord and the arpeggio, make several more pieces of melodies
  4. 作多幾個差唔多嘅melody, chord同arpeggio | Make a few variants of the melody, chord and arpeggio tracks (e.g. change the beat or the instrument used)
  5. 作幾段beat | Compose several pieces of beats
  6. 排好D melody, chord, arpeggio同beat | Put the melodies, chords, arpeggios and beats in sequence
  7. 填詞 | Write the lyrics
  8. 錄音, 之後處理 | Record the vocal. Then audio engineer it
  9. 執頭執尾執靚佢 | Remaster the entire song (e.g. reverb, turning mix volume, attaching other effects, etc.)

我無正式學過作曲. 如果我用錯D專有名詞嘅話, 麻煩同我講聲. 我會更正. 另外, 以上步驟唔係唯一嘅作曲嘅方法. 以前我都用過其他方法作曲. 呢D步驟只係想解釋返我點整呢首出來嘅姐.

I haven't formally learned music composition. If I have used the wordings above incorrectly, do tell me. I will fix them. Please notice that it is not the universal solution of music production. I have tried out other approaches in my other songs. The steps above is just what I did for making this specific song.

以下係首歌響LMMS嘅cap圖:

Here's a screenshot of the song being edited in LMMS:

LMMS screenshot

作廣東話歌同其他語言嘅歌有一個好大嘅分別. 就係要啱音. 我地有成6個音, 要對返個melody其實都有D難度. 仲要整到個歌詞嘅意思都要啱, 難上加難. 所以我作作下就卡死左喇!

Since Cantonese is a tonal language, I have to match the pitch of the melody notes with the tone of the Cantonese characters. Therefore, it's very tough to compose a Cantonese song as it's difficult to find the right word that has both the correct tone and the correct meaning. I was stuck in the midway while I was writing the lyrics.

跟住我用Python整左個廣東話填詞對音工具. 我搵到三個中文詞語嘅database. 配合埋粵語審音配詞字庫嘅聲調嘅資料(因為廣東話嘅聲調一直有變, 我自己再人手改左個審音字庫嘅部分聲調). 有左呢個工具, 我只要打低個音, 就可以搵晒D啱音嘅詞語.

Therefore, I had developed a tool to do this for me. The tool was written in Python. By using three Chinese word databases that I found on the internet, combined with the tone of the word suggested by Chinese Character Database: With Word-formations (which I had further modified manually because some of the tones were changed in the modern Cantonese we're using today), a list of words with matching tones is generated:

Screenshot of the Tones to Word Tool

由上面嘅cap圖可以見到, 呢個工具可以列出個database嘅啱音嘅字(但係有小量錯誤). 例如我打240, 就可以搵到同"240"同音嘅字. 包括"亂晒籠, 垃圾蟲, 定晒形, 未夠喉, 滑鐵廬, 落晒形, 鼻涕蟲".

As shown on the screenshot above, the tool lists out all matching words that it found (with some minor errors). For example, if I type "240" (二四零), the first character of the word has to match the tone of 二, the second character must match 四, and the third character must match 零. The filtered result of the words is displayed, which includes "亂晒籠, 垃圾蟲, 定晒形, 未夠喉, 滑鐵廬, 落晒形, 鼻涕蟲" in the Chinese word database of Cantonese.

個工具仲可以俾你揀database. 目前個工具有廣東話, 大陸普通話, 同埋台灣國語嘅詞語嘅database. 雖然唔係所有歌詞都係用呢個工具作嘅, 但係呢個工具用來做brainstorming同埋搵D啱音嘅四字成語真係無得輸. 我以後應該都會繼續用呢個工具來填詞.

Database selection is also supported. The current version of this tool supports Cantonese, Chinese and Taiwan-style Chinese. This tool helped a lot while I was writing the lyrics for this song. Although I did not exclusively use this tool for writing all of the lyrics, it was very useful for brainstorming and finding Four-characters Chinese Idioms that match the tone that I want. I will probably continue to use this tool for my future songs.

不過好可惜, 我唔清楚部分database嘅使用條款. 所以我係唔可以放呢個工具出來嘅. 同大家講返聲唔好意思先.

Unfortunately, due to the unknown license of some Chinese words databases, I could not release this tool publicly. I'm sorry about that.

填完詞就用Audacity錄音同改音. 下面幅圖係我改音嘅過程. 只要複製highlight左果part就可以延長隻字個音長. Delete左果part就可以縮短隻字個音長. 呢個步驟不停重複, 直至做到把聲同首歌同步為止.

After the voice was recorded according to the lyrics written, Audacity were used for audio engineering. The image below shows how did I change the length of the Cantonese character that I had sung. By duplicating the highlighted part, the duration of that character is extended. Conversely, by deleting that part, the duration is reduced. This process was repeated for synchronizing my voice with the melody.

Audacity Screenshot

之後Audacity整出來嘅track會放返入LMMS裏面. 最後首歌係用LMMS generate出來嘅.

After that, the vocal track generated by Audacity was imported into the LMMS project. Finally, the song was generated by LMMS.

影片製作 | Video Production

整完首歌要整片.

After the completion of the song itself, a video for this song was produced.

我用左ProjectM來做Audio Visualization. ProjectM係一個實時嘅Audio Visualization軟件. 我用SimpleScreenRecorder來錄低作個audio visualization. 佢可以直接錄低任何program嘅OpenGL影像. 比起響軟件層面錄更有效率, 唔會疾下疾下.

The audio visualizer software used in the video used was ProjectM. It is a real time audio visualizer. The visualization were recorded using SimpleScreenRecorder, which supports recording OpenGL output of any program. Compared with software-based recording method, recording the OpenGL output is much more efficient. Therefore, the output video is almost lag-free.

個招牌就用左Inkscape整. 跟住用Spriter Pro將個招牌變成動畫. 而字幕係用Aegisub整嘅. 跟住用Inkscape畫多一幅圖, 叫人subscribe我個channel. 最後用FFmpeg將LMMS整嘅歌, Audio Visualization, 字幕同個招牌冚把爛合埋一齊. 搞掂!

The image of the banner was created using Inkscape. After that, it was animated using Spriter Pro. Image sequences of the animation were generated. The subtitles editor used for the video of this project was Aegisub. With this software, a subtitles file were generated. An extra image were drawn with Inkscape for the end scene that asks the viewer to subscribe my channel. Finally, the audio outputted by LMMS, the visualization of the audio, the banner image sequence and the subtitles were combined by using FFmpeg. That's it!

希望你會鐘意啦! | Hope you enjoyed it!

我係作曲新手. 呢首個我花左好多工夫, 整左成超過一個月. 如果你鐘意嘅話, 麻煩幫忙share一下. 如果你地鐘意, 我日後會整多D呢類嘅歌. 多謝支持!

I'm rather new in song production. More than a month of work was spent on producing this song. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to share it. Similar songs will be produced if the reception of this one is good. Thank you very much! :)

除此之外, 我都歡迎未來合作. 如果你有興趣, 可以send封email俾我架(email見網頁頂部)!

In addition, future collaboration is welcomed. Feel free to drop me a line by using the email address on this website.


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