#84: Learn a song in a new language

To begin with, let me confess: This post is written by an absolutely horrible singer. I'm one of those guys who're shown on TV during the Indian Idol auditions, just to make fun of the poor chaps (maybe even worse). But I do love music and I do love to sing along, especially to songs whose lyrics strike an instant emotional chord with me. Learning the lyrics is no problem for Hindi or English songs, but that's not what this post is about. No sense of accomplishment in that, is it? I'm talking about the songs you really like just for the sound of it, even though you understand just a few words here and there (or maybe non at all). For me, they'd probably be "Bulla ki jaana" by Rabbi Shergil or "Ee bhoomi" by Swarathma.

Now, here's the fun part (and this takes only about half an hour to an hour usually). Play the Youtube video on one half of the screen and the lyrics (with translation) on the other half. The first time, read the lyrics along with the song and try to discern one word from the other. You'll be surprised by how clear the meaning gets at this stage itself, as you recognize familiar words or word roots. Now, just try to sing along and learn the different paragraphs of the song one by one. This step is probably the most frustrating, but once you have the stanzas sorted out, its incredibly easy to put them together. All it takes is just a few keywords in each paragraph. A few practice runs with the music and before you know it, you have the lyrics by heart.

By this stage, the purists are probably saying "Okay, so you learnt the lyrics. Great. But that doesn't give you the right to torture me with your voice does it?" To that I say "Well, I'm not looking to win any talent hunt shows with this. This is something I did for myself, and man it feels amazing to be able to enjoy the true essence of a song this way" 

I don't know if you'll ever try it out, but if you do, let me tell you this: when you finally sing the whole song without the lyrics in front of you, all by yourself, you'll come away having experienced a sense of achievement that definitely makes this a "Top 100 Moments" experience.