Fool Beats - A musical Tarot Deck

coredil

FOOL BEATS

www.teacuemusic.de/fool-beats

The Musical FOOL BEATS interprets the twenty two cards of the Tarot major Arcana in a free, personal, musical and danced way.
The Musical is not only a new variation on the Tarot theme, FOOL BEATS is also a musical Tarot Deck.

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Bonjour à tous,

compared to previous years, my active participation to AT has been pretty quiet lately.
But my Love for Tarot still remains and I also learned so much about Tarot from this community that it was time for me now to share with you the work I did during the last years.

Here are some insights about the making of this musical Tarot Deck.

In 2012 I began to work on an idea that I had for quite some time: a Musical based on Tarot.
Beginning to work on this project I spontaneously thought about sharing the idea on AT.
I thought it would be good to get some feedback or some suggestions.
There were also some things that I would have loved to ask for: for example to find a practical way for the audience to get a reading during the show.
But as I am used to work alone mostly, I wanted to concentrate on my own inspiration and I finally decided not to share the project before it was completely finished.
That means: composed, rehearsed, publicly performed and finally having all songs recorded.
This last point has been reached some days ago and it is now time to share :)

About myself
After studying classic guitar and jazz arrangement in Germany and being a classical guitar teacher for several years I worked twenty five years in a municipal music school where I directed and performed musicals with children and young people.
At the same time I wrote and composed quite a lot of Musicals for children as well as for young people.

It took me about one year to write the libretto and to compose the twenty two songs of FOOL BEATS.
In April 2013 it was finished and the rehearsals began in the Music School where I used to work (I retired a few months ago) with a group of amateur young people.
About one year later in May 2014 the Musical has then been publicly performed in the Music School.
Unfortunately I got ill for several months during the last period of the rehearsal.
The young people worked on their own without director for the last months and they even had to create several choreographies too!
It was an absolutely amazing and great effort from them!!!
A few months ago, after the show was performed, we recorded the vocals and some days ago I just finished to mix the songs.
Bare in mind that this recordings have been made with amateurs who never had any singing lessons!

And this is what I would like to share with you: the recorded songs and their lyrics.
The link at the beginning of this post, leads you to my website (a site where I present all my musicals) and to a short description in German of FOOL BEATS.
On the right side there is a PLAYLIST with all the songs.
When you click and choose a song in the player, a DOWNLOAD MP3 button appears under STOP/PLAY.
Feel free to download the songs for your personal use :)
On the same page you will find the twenty two titles of the songs.
Clicking on each title will open a tab with the complete lyrics for each song.
You will find there the original french lyrics as well as german lyrics and german translations.
English translations are available too.

I wrote the musical initially in French because French is my native language and also such a nice language to sing :)
Usually, when I write a musical, the complete lyrics have to be translated to be sung in German.
But this time, for some reasons, I felt that several songs would have lost a lot if translated to German!
Therefore I decided to keep the original French lyrics for the half of the songs.
This was of course a challenge for the young people who had to perform the songs in French!
Some of them did not even learn French at school!
I find that they finally brilliantly succeed in it.
This is why you will find half of the songs sung in French and the other half sung in German in the PLAYLIST.

BTW this is my voice in "Écoute le silence" (The High Priestess), in "Jojo et Marlène" (The Devil) and in Tout est bien (The World).
So yes, in this case the high priestess as a male voice :)

It was a great challenge to integrate my thoughts and reflections, my personal life and experiences with the archetyps of the Major Arcana.
One and half year after I finished to write Fool Beats I can see that my interpretations are very personal and may even differ from the usual ones.
One thing also is that I sometimes gave more weight to the negative side of a card.
For example "The Emperor" is more about the negative side of being authoritarian.
Or "The Chariot" is a kind of caricature of too strong enforcement.
But as each creator will know, the process of creating is not only something one consciously decides.
Most of the time something is speaking through yourself that you have to follow otherwise you would possibly close the door to any kind of inspiration.
In the end and with some distance I still stand to what I wrote :)

The music, it is quite eclectic too with very different styles of Music and Beats.

Fortunately, shortly before the First Night of the show, I could finally find a way to allow the audience to get a reading.
At the entrance there was a poster inviting the audience to pick a card from the nice person sitting at a table with several decks.
Anyone willing to pick a card was then told to remember the card, and to ask a question for him- or herself.
When the corresponding scene/card in the musical was played, she should attentively look and discover if the scene had something to do with the asked question.
On the poster it was also advised that if one could not find any answer or relation between the question and the performed scene, one should wait till the next day or more and think again about it.
I have been told, some people were really impressed about this simple reading :)

A last thing:
I directed a lot of Musicals and there were a lot of First Nights.
There is a tradition at the end of the First Night of the actors receiving flowers.
But there is also a tradition of the actors making a present to the director.
So I received quite a lot of really nice presents during all this years.
But this one was really really great!
The actors offered me a Tarot Deck that they created on their own!
They made several photo sessions in the country, in several cities or at home and they recreated the twenty two scenes of the Major Arcana with themselves in their own ,very personal way.
I was really touched!

I hope you enjoy the songs.

Best regards
 

coredil

I now have uploaded on my site a raw english translation of the french lyrics.
A better translation will follow soon, a native english speaking friend of mine is now working on it.
There are now three text tabs for each song: french, german and english.

Best regards
 

coredil

In the meantime I have uploaded english translations of the Lyrics of FOOL BEATS that have been reviewed and fixed by a native English speaking friend of mine (USA).

Here are the song titles:

THE FOOL (the subtitle is: So dumb it makes you want to cry)
THE MAGICIAN (subtitle: DJ)
THE HIGH PRIESTESS (Listen to the silence)
THE EMPRESS (You're carrying a child)
THE EMPEROR (Not authoritarian)
THE HIEROPHANT (Prayer)
THE LOVERS (Even if I love you)
THE CHARIOT (Padap)
JUSTICE (Between the flower and the sword)
THE HERMIT (Even in the dark)
WHEEL OF FORTUNE (If you love me, kiss me)
STRENGTH (There once was a castle)
THE HANGED MAN (Jimmy's ballad)
DEATH (You clear your mind)
TEMPERANCE (If you see her)
THE DEVIL (Jojo and Marlene)
THE TOWER (Standing angry)
THE STAR (Beautiful on my life)
THE MOON (Upside down)
THE SUN (All's well)
JUDGEMENT (Dance!)
THE WORLD (It is there)

It is a Musical that can be performed (played, danced and sung) on a scene.
With some creativity the songs can be used as a Major only Tarot deck.
This was a work of love and heart and much thoughts went in it.
To my knowledge there are not a lot of musical Tarot decks around!

Best regards
 

Tarotwolf

Recollections of Blondie and 99 Luft Balloons float through my memory. I love the music for the Magician! I could lose myself in it.
It's obvious that a tremendous amount of work has gone into this endeavor. I'm handicapped to appreciate the music fully since I don't understand French or German; and quite frankly I have no musical talent. However, I perused the translations and have to say the lyrics to the World are especially impressive from a poetic view.
Thanks for sharing your passion!
 

coredil

Oh, thanks a lot Tarotwolf for your friendly comment :)
I really appreciate it.
I am glad you love The Magician, it is the first time I compose in this genre!

I am very happy that this thread has reached at least one person and I can now sigh with relief :)

Best regards