In vocal music, ****contrafactum (or contrafact, pl. contrafacta) is "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music". The earliest known examples of this procedure (sometimes referred to as adaptation ) date back to the 9th century used in connection with Gregorian chant.

Categories

Translations meant for singing are not usually intentional "substitution". Types of contrafacta that are wholesale substitution of a different text include the following:

Poems set to music

An existing tune already possessing secular or sacred words is given a new poem, which often happens in hymns, and sometimes, more than one new set of words is created over time. Examples include:

Self-reworking

A lyricist might re-cast his/her own song (or someone else's song) with new lyrics. Examples include:

Parody

Intentional parodies of lyrics, especially for satirical purposes. Examples include; Writers of contrafacta and parody tried to emulate an earlier song's poetic metre, rhyme scheme, and musical metre. They went further by also establishing a close connection to the model's words and ideas and adapting them to a new purpose, whether humorous or serious.

Other

The Australian music quiz show, Spicks and Specks has a game called Substitute, in which players have to identify a popular-music song from someone singing completely unrelated words, such as from a book about knitting, to the tune of that song.

Examples

Other notable songs with significantly-different lyrics in different languages include the following: Songs which have been re-written by the same writer with different lyrics include: Contrafactum has been used in writing several national anthems, such as those of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Estonia and the Netherlands.