How I sing Caro Mio Ben

 by Anthony H. Su 蘇希三 So͘ Hi-sam 2018/9/20 (pdf file in https://tinyurl.com/myCaro )

Voice lesson has never been a serious item in my music hobby because it is not easy to find the songs for my limited range and I don’t want to spend money on buying the published music.

I thought this famo͘us “Caro Mio Ben” is an easy song to be sung at the Rubinstein Club gathering because of the limited range. I should be able to play my own accompaniment on the piano. After I found out that the Caro Mio Ben is really nice to low voice singers I am convinced that this song is good for showing and developing low voices. I started with studying the lyric trying to figure
out how I could / should sing the song to show the expression in the lyric and avoid showing my weakness in voicing. It surprises me to find out that this song is not about beautiful melody, nor
about the well-developed voice.

I guess this song was written as a voice exercise without specific enunciation in the beginning and the lyric was added later on without much thinking. The song has been referred to as an arietta. Neither
the libretto nor the lyricist has been mentioned in what I have read. The identity of the composer is still questionable. The only thing sure is the fact that the song has been popular in voice lessons
and is considered beautiful as a solo piece.

I found, as I tried to translate the lyric into Taiwanese, that the expression and the meaning of the lyric are passive and negative. This means it is not supposed to generate passionate and positive responses from the listeners. This means, to me, that I am not supposed to make it sound beautiful. I would have to find other reasoning for other kinds of expressions.

In addition to the many down-falling melody lines, the most distinctive point is the ending that appears to be the conclusion and the climax of the song.

The Taiwanese lyric aims at the fit between the enunciation and the melody, for concurrent voice and language exercises. The lyric appears to help the voicing in this case. The score on the other side
provides the pronunciation of the Taiwanese lyric. The meaning of my Taiwanese lyric is translated here: (Watch how the lyric reflects the melody toward the end.)

The young lady I love in heart, I am trying to make a point.

Without you staying together, my mood is going nowhere.

The young lady I love in heart, I am trying to make a point.

Without you staying together, the time is hard to get by.

Frank as I am, my sigh could not stop.

Don’t be so cruel, so stubborn. Don’t be so cruel, so stubborn.

Make me wait no more!

The young lady in my heart let me make a point.

Without your companionship, my mood cannot be found.

The young lady in my heart let me make a point,

Without your presence at my place,

my mood drops down to the bottom.

My future plan is to add two verses to the lyric: one addressing to someone in my dream, making the sexual identity of the person neutral; the other would express, in low voice, some active and positive attitudes from an elderly person to someone of a younger generation.

see https://tinyurl.com/CaromiobenAna