Smelly cat x Oo Antava Mashup: see how it's pure math

[00:00:00]Someone left a funny comment under the episode where I said that Antava has a special tune which can accommodate a wide variety of lyrics, almost any lyric. They asked me if I could fit these lyrics. Smelly cat, smelly cat, what are they feeding you? Smelly cat, smelly cat, it's not your fault. Lyrics from the sitcom friends into the tune of the Antava song.

[00:00:31]And I'm taking up this request because one, it's funny as heck, and two, it's a great way to see how the professionals create a better fit between lyrics and tune. You won't need any special music knowledge to follow along because that's the Suean's promise. While we do this hilarious exercise with a straight face, I said straight face. Ah, if you haven't seen this Friend's episode, check this out.

[00:01:08]>> And apparently this is Fiby's music video. Smelly cat. [music] Smelly cat is not [singing] your fault.

[00:01:21][laughter] And this of course is the super hit Indian film song O and by composer Dvi Sri Prasad.

[00:01:31][music] Smelly [singing] cat. Smelly cat. It's not your fault. Terrible. The word sounds stretched out. A short word like it's got stretched out like like this guy's coat.

[00:01:57]>> Bad guy in a little.

[00:02:01]>> What's happening?

[00:02:03]>> Didn't Savvi and Kamill make it look like fitting lyrics would be easy?

[00:02:10]instant spontaneous fit. [music] >> In reality, lyricists must go through a lot of calculations to make it work, if not consciously, at least at a subconscious level based on their years of expertise, especially for this tune because it's so unusual. Let's see if you can feel this song's rhythm like a lyricist. [music] >> [music] >> The song keeps going on in the same tune again and again while falling on the 16 count cycle. 1 2 3 4 1 [music and singing] 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 Yay! You could count rhythm. If you can count syllables, too, you'll know how to fix the bad attempt number one.

[00:03:15]Syllables are the sounds that make up a word. For example, the word faultlessness is three syllables or sounds. So if we take the lyric line, it's not your fault from smelly cat. It's is one syllable or sound. Not is one. Your is one. Fault is one. In attempt number one, one syllable was dragged across four counts. 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 [music] 1 2. Which is why it sounded so stretched out. In the actual song, these four count periods take four to seven syllables and this two count period takes two to three syllables and this last two count period takes one to two syllables. So the lyricist didn't want it to be draggy like [singing] which is why he went with co which gives that nice bouncy feel.

[00:04:21]Keeping this in mind, can we make a better syllable fit like a lyricist? So, let's try this. Smelly cat. Smelly cat.

[00:04:31]What are they feeding you? Smelly cat.

[00:04:33]Smelly cat. It's not your fault. Fits much better than the first time. So, that's 66 6 3 1. Smelly cat. Smelly cat.

[00:04:45]Six sounds. What are they feeding you?

[00:04:49]Six sounds. Smelly cat. Smelly cat. Six sounds. It's not your three fault. One sound. Smelly cat. Smelly cat. What are they feeding you? Smelly cat. Smelly cat. It's not your fault. It fits. But there's one issue. It's not about the poetic meaning. We can't do much about that because we already decided to use the smelly cat lyrics. It's about better emphasis.

[00:05:17]And this is the part that's the secret weapon of lyricist composer teams.

[00:05:23]Let's try this.

[00:05:25]Smelly cat. Smelly cat. What are they feeding you? Smelly cat. Smelly cat.

[00:05:30]It's not your fault. This is 667 2 1.

[00:05:35]That's because we took its from the fourth line and placed it at the end of the third line. See the difference between smelly cat, smelly cat, it's not your fault versus smelly cat, smelly cat, it's not your fault.

[00:05:53]The second one sounds a lot better. Why?

[00:05:57]Think of how native English speakers say it's not your fault.

[00:06:03]>> It's not your fault.

[00:06:05]I know it's not your fault.

[00:06:10]The emphasis is on not and fault in that sentence.

[00:06:16]>> It's not your fault.

[00:06:18]>> The emphasis is not on its. They don't say it's not your fault.

[00:06:25]>> It's not your fault.

[00:06:28]>> Whatever word falls on this first count, that word will feel emphasized in the song. So if we place its at this first count then it gets the artificial emphasis. But if we remove that its and put it in the previous line and start with not will get the emphasis and it feels natural. This kind of first syllable or syllables of a lyric line which get chucked to the previous segment of the music is called a pickup because the anticipation is picking up and boom when you land on the next count of one you get the emphasized word. Its became the pickup so that not can get the emphasis. The basic idea is you move words around until the deserving word gets the emphasis. Okay. So now let's hear our final result for the smelly antava song. Smelly cat. Smelly cat.

[00:07:36]What are they feeding you? Smelly cat.

[00:07:38]Smelly cat. It's not your fault. Smelly cat. Smelly cat. What are they feeding you? Smelly cat. Smelly cat. It's not your fault. How does this tune end up fitting with the lyrics of so many other songs? Other tunes can't do this.

[00:07:51]There's something extraordinary about the antava tune which I call as bench strokes which you can see in this video.

[00:08:06]>> [music]