Do Re Mi

I sometimes find myself wishing that I could put a tune into words. Not words to a tune, because that's a poet's job, but a tune into words. To be able to describe a tune, to be able to explain to someone who cannot hear it, what it might sound like. Adjectives (like melodious, lilting) that are often used to describe music are so......inadequate.

I think the most creative anyone has been with putting a tune into words is the song "Do Re Mi" from The Sound of Music. Maria, played by Julie Andrews (who I think has made that character really come alive!), finds a wonderful way to teach the basics of music to the 7 children she is governess to. Do, stands for a female deer - a doe. How simple. Re, of course, is a ray of sunlight, Mi, refers to myself, and so on and so forth.

But how does that simplification of musical notes describe the tune that each note stands for? When poets put a song into words, what is s/he thinking? Are they attempting to complement the tune with their words? Or are they concentrating on their grammar, and literary devices?

There are many poems that have been put into song. And in such cases it seems to me that the tune finally assigned to the song enhances the meaning of the words. Is that also the objective when words are being written for a tune? But can words truly enhance the tune? Or is it that they both play off of each other to create something extraordinary, something that redefines the meanings of both the tune and the poem, and instead emerges as an entity that should perhaps be credited for its own unique personality - the song?

Ahhh, I have no answers here. If anyone can think of anything, let me know?

Until then, I shall be content with the doe basking in the rays of the sun in my backyard, while I watch from afar, so awed and distracted that I don't laugh when the teapot begins to dance.

Yes, I know that was a bad one.