This referred to some noise we produced last night, possibly during the warmup, although I forget exactly what! (I feel a bit guilty that I was at choir last night, given that I was off work ill both yesterday and today. But I felt better by teatime yesterday, and planned to go to work today... until the headaches came back late last night. Better again now, though, so I do plan to go to the ladies' sectional.)
Jamie went on to try to think of an example of a song to illustrate his point, but couldn't. He considered Abba, but dismissed them on the grounds that "they were GOOD!" Judy, who knows that I'm a bit of an authority on cheesy backing vocals, was encouraging me to make some suggestions, but by that point he'd mentioned Abba, and my mind was busily running through all their songs (for yes, I do have them all written out with all the harmony parts - my band sings them!) Most Abba songs don't actually have separate backing vocals, they just have harmony added above and below the tune (e.g. in "Dancing Queen" or "Mamma Mia"). There are a few with 'proper' backing vocals, but I didn't think of them till the moment had passed - e.g. "The Name of the Game" has the "doo doo, doo doo" bit in the middle, and "Voulez Vous" has the "ah ha" bits in the chorus.
And non-Abba 70s pop hits that have distinct backing vocals that aren't just harmonisations of the tune? I was hoping you'd ask :p The following list is by no means exhaustive, but all these songs were top 3 hits in the 70s, and not only do they have 'proper' backing vocals, I have them written out. (I have 5 lever arch files full of backing vocals and guitar chords for songs - my band has a very large repertoire!) Only trouble is... I don't remember singing anything like any of them last night. Can anyone shed any light on what it was that did prompt the 70s comment?
Elvis Presley - The Wonder of You
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord
Elton John - Rocket Man
Donny Osmond - Puppy Love
Osmonds - Crazy Horses
Carpenters - Yesterday once more
Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody
Rubettes - Sugar Baby Love (the backing vocals for this song are primarily "bop showaddy, bop showaddywaddy" - surely the best generic backing vocals in existence!)
Three Degrees - When will I see you again
Mud - Lonely this Christmas
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - Make me smile (come up and see me)
Bay City Rollers - Bye bye baby
Darts - Come back my love
John Travolta & Olivia Newton John - Summer Nights
Donna Summer & Barbra Streisand - No more tears (enough is enough)
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Anyway, if you weren't there, you may be wondering what exactly we DID sing last night, other than cheesily impersonating a forgotten 70s band... Well, we did quite a bit of work on both Svyati and Komm, Jesu, Komm, with the promise of work on Rachmaninov and Elgar in sectionals and in next week's rehearsal. In the Bach, we worked on the start instead of the end for a change, with quite a bit of time being spent on the first two bars... this led up to the most amusing moment of the night (IMHO):
"Right. Bars 1 to 3. WITHOUT STOPPING."
... You probably had to be there :p
Going out now. More later.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
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2 comments:
Might have been something to do with the pronunciation of 'tuieee' in 'Svyati'
Aha, that would make sense - and also explains why I've got it written on the last page of "Svyati" :p (I thought I'd just written it there because it was during the warmup and that was the nearest bit of paper to hand!)
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