THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CANTONESE SONG WRITING
AI is literally everywhere. People are using it for generating essays, creating illustrations, photoshopping photos, etc. One of the benefits of AI is that it creates content for people without a skill requirement. For example, they can make genius videos like this . . . https://www.instagram.com/p/C9JRNt8M3Ml/
On the other hand, it puts many jobs at risk. Young adults who are figuring out their career routes have to account for the possibility of their chosen profession being overtaken by AI. It is a real concern. AI is convenient and effective in many areas, no doubt, but there are also times when AI cannot perform as well as a human mind.
This is clearly demonstrated in the making of Cantonese songs. I don’t know if any of you reading this blog ever happen to scroll upon an AI-written song on Tik Tok. What do you think? Good, Bad, Pass? Feel free to share if you have heard of some good ones. I haven’t heard an AI created song that I really like as of yet, but I have heard some wonky ones for sure. The worst of all are the AI-written Cantonese songs. It is hard to explain without some examples. So let’s look at some shall we?
How Cantonese Songs Should Sound
No experiment is completed without a controlled element. Here are a few examples of Cantonese songs that clearly demonstrate how Cantonese lyrics match the melody of the music. These songs are specifically chosen because they will be very easy to work with in the experiment later on.
数字人生 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT8JQ-8bR3Y
This song uses numbers to make up a huge part of the lyrics. It’s very fun to play around with. However, why don’t you try replacing some of the numbers with a different number? Does it sound the same? Or is it a little weird?
Second example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-lDYPR2P8 (Material Girl)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0DloC5JGH4 (200 Degrees)
We can also look at this experiment at another angle by comparing the english and cantonese version of a song. We will take Material girl by Madonna and its Cantonese version 200 degrees sung by Sally Yeh as an example. If you pay close attention, the lyrics in 200 degrees are not the translation of Material girl. Try translating Material Girl’s first and second line to Cantonese. Does it work with the melody? Probably not. (I tried, it sounds horrendous.) “Material Girl” was such a great hit and was translated into languages like Spanish and Mandarin, but why do you think the lyrics weren’t directly translated into Cantonese?
Examples that need a little more work
Now that we have seen some examples of how Cantonese lyrics should merge with the instrumental, let’s look at songs where the lyrics do not 100% work with the melody. Here are some wonky examples created by AI.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C45CgBxoAhJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5ih-D2ojlm/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Awkward, right? The words seem to not match the melody, the lyrics don’t make sense, and the whole thing is just off. It is interesting to see the difference though.
Why is it so hard to write Cantonese songs?
Cantonese is a tonal language and has way more tones than Mandarin. Expressing a character in a different tone will change the whole meaning of the phrase. In order to make sense, Cantonese lyrics need to consider the assonance of the instrumentals. The lyrics’ tonal change has to match the ups and downs of the instrumentals, or else it’s going to sound like the previous two songs you heard. AI didn’t take Cantonese tones into consideration so it gave us wacky songs. Even Hong Kong singer GEM, well known for her songwriting talent, also expressed that Cantonese songs are difficult to write in previous interviews. So let’s stick to listening to human-written Cantonese songs for now to spare our ears and music-loving hearts.
Jade’s cantonese teaching history
Jade, Inspirlang’s founder, started teaching how to sing Cantonese songs to mainland Chinese audiences when she was in ninth grade, all thanks to her dad for giving her a Macbook and she discovered the power of Garageband. Transitioning from her study-life balance from China into the US, she realized she could finally use her free time to do something she enjoyed—music. She started making classic Cantonese song covers on Garageband, and later on trying to teach others how to sing them as well. As Jade entered college and met other American friends who wanted to learn Chinese, she transitioned from teaching Mandarin speakers to English speakers.
In her past semester teaching at NYU, Jade shared that she has taught a meaningful number of Mandarin speakers how to Speak Cantonese. People are often surprised why Mandarin speakers want to learn Cantonese. Mandarin speakers are often eager to make connections with other Cantonese speakers. With the influence of Cantonese pop culture and classic Cantonese music and movies, learning Cantonese is not exclusive to heritage speakers but everyone.
Feature singers in cantonese
We can’t end this blog post without a few song recommendations. (Author’s picks)
愛是永恆 – 張學友 (Jacky Cheung) A classic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhMBViQ0SMA
Dear Jane – 哪裡只得我共你 You & Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPGCIqt_klw
衛蘭 – 雜技 (Janice Vidal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oIzHqJIORU
胡鴻鈞 – 遙不可及 (Hubert Wu) This was an OST for the TVB drama series 降魔的 The Exorcist’s Meter. You can check out our blog about TVB drama recommendations for a list of interesting TVB dramas to watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfnqbylP5WE
紅日- 李克勤
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBmLSS8P2ME
真的爱你 Beyond
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to7JtGUZhrQ
The last two songs are on the list of Cantonese songs we have covered on our Cantonese songs podcast. If you want to learn how to sing it, head over to our podcast for a full tutorial.
If you also want to learn how to sing Cantonese songs, go check out our Cantonese song podcast. It provides phrase by phrase pronunciation and singing tutorials to some of the most classic Cantonese pop songs. You can also check out our large variety of Chinese learning resources and our YouTube channel for more entertaining ways to learn about Chinese culture.
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