the brief

marriage vows for secular realists, stripped of religious references and Hallmark sentimentality in a duet suitable for any gender configuration

Yanni's track To Take To Hold was a late addition to my youtube 'maybes' playlist. I'd found it just before I had the "pick any track and it will channel" experience that kicked off the fourth phase in early November 2021.

I 'knew' the karosong would be an eponymous duet from the beginning, and I had a strong sense of it as 'modern' wedding vows, stripped of religion, Hallmark sentimentality, and gendered language. They would be vows based in the acknowledgement that marriages are hard work, and would be appropriate to any gender combination — cis, lesbian, gay, trans, gender queer, two-spirited, whatever.

to take to hold
that's the vow i make today
to take to hold
in front of my friends and family

i want to be with you
i choose to be with you and so i vow
to take to hold you in the center of my life
to take to hold you in the deeps of my heart

Like all the 4.1 songs, the lyrics started coming sub-vocally, after I had returned to Lake Erie for the second pandemic lockdown winter. They came fast. I knew the song's gist and three part structure within the first month, knew the first two parts would be the individual vows and that the third part would be a full duet.

but i know it won't be a fairy tale
and i know there's no guarantees
but i want to build a life with you
and i will always work to make it work

yes i will always work
to make it work

As the song was coming, I expected the second vow would repeat or fully mirror the first vow. But that wasn't possible. In Yanni's async track, the music behind the second vow is shorter than the music behind the first. As a practicing idiot musant, I don't understand the musical reason behind this difference, why Yanni doesn't just mirror the music of the first vow. But I don't have to. I just need to bring forward the lyrics that fit the difference.

For this song, that meant key elements of the first vow had to be condensed into half the words.

to take to hold
that's the vow i make today
to take to hold
in front of my friends and family

i want to be with you and i vow to
put you in the centre of my heart and my life
and i know it won't be a fairy tale and I know
there are no guarantees

I don't often take issue with the lyrics for a karosong, but I didn't like condensing the second vow. That made it feel weaker than the first, less in balance. Which I felt worked against the intent of the song as a joining of equals. But — as I've said elsewhere — I'm just a low-level employee of the Universal Broadcasting Service. When the company says condense, I may not jump for joy, but I do it.

Apart from working out that densification, the delivery of the two vows came easily, and those parts were mastered (sub-vocally at least) by the middle of February. But the transition into the song's third part, when the two voices sing together, eluded me until nearly the end of May when I was back in my home studio.

I understood the transition. Both individual vows ended with the same phrase, "and with these words i thee wed", and I knew early on that that line would become plural in the song's third part ("and with these words we are wed").

I could feel the vocal drop at the end of the second vow, then want to build up into the third part with the rising music. But I couldn't sing it, I just didn't have the vocal skill to elongate and lift the lyrics with the music. And then the duet itself seemed to be cramming too many words into too small a space.

and with these words i thee wed

we are wed
we are wed
and with these words
to take to hold
and with these words
to take to hold
and with these words we are wed

I'd got the transition by early June, working out how to drop and then build the vocal up into the third part. But then I ran into a roadblock.

I'd first understood that part three was a 'duet', the two voices singing harmonically together. But that didn't seem to work. Then I thought it was more of a call and response between the voices but that didn't seem to work either.

Working out the delivery of that third part is still ongoing at the time of writing.

singing

Apart from my difficulties getting the third section, this was pretty much the fastest and easiest of the 4.1 songs to channel. That was in part I think because — of all the songs in this new set — its singing style was most in keeping with songs that had come before. So it felt very comfortable to sing right from the beginning.

(Your lingering touch was similarly easy and comfortable, and like this one, came entirely sub-vocally.)