Do you recognise that tune? I've had it on the brain for the last couple of weeks. It's called "Optimistic Voices" and is from a really famous film - but which one? Here's a slightly more complete version (with 3-part harmony), and here's the mp3 from the film soundtrack. Answer at the end of this post :-)
I suppose I should write something about this week's rehearsal, but I don't really have anything to say about it. No Jamieisms because it was Fanny. We spent the whole time on Poulenc, and I now know it a lot better than previously, but I really didn't enjoy the rehearsal at all. I think this was probably more to do with me being in a bad mood than anything else - I know there were lots of people who did enjoy it! You'd think I'd be really cheerful, having not had to go to work, and I must say that's certainly pleasant... no luck on the job-hunting though (although that's not really why I was in a bad mood), and what was particularly frustrating this week was that I found the *perfect* job, but it was in Brighton. I reckon it would be possible to do it from home and only visit Brighton occasionally, but sadly I didn't manage to persuade them of that... (I'm hoping they'll rethink that decision when they find that there's actually no-one else in the country who fits the whole of their person specification! We'll see!)
Anyway, I need to be up to go to an all-day choir rehearsal in a few hours, but I seem to still be awake, and I think I need to write a post about football chants. I've been thinking about this for ages - and yes, it is choir-related... more than you might expect!
This chant is the one that started me thinking about football chants from a choral perspective. It looks quite straightforward, doesn't it? But it amuses me every time I hear it, because the crowd NEVER finishes it in the same key in which they start! They start on roughly the same pitch each time (which in itself is fascinating, but that's not what I've been thinking about) and get through the first half of the tune with no tuning problems. But then it goes up.... and the top note in bar 6 is never anywhere near an octave above the starting note! So at that point the crowd changes key, coming down the scale from the top note they actually reached rather than the correct one, the result being that they finish a tone or two lower than they started. Do have a listen next time United are on TV, it's hilarious! (Well, I suppose it's quite possible that it's only me that's amused by this....)
What's even more fascinating, though, is that there are some songs - with octave ranges - that the crowd CAN sing in tune. And at this point I need to refer you to a whole load of examples (tell you what, if you have no interest in what I'm actually talking about, you could always use these for sight reading practice!)
Manchester United chants, sheet music: page 1, page 2, page 3
(I started by writing out the ones that illustrated my point, but then, being me, I got obsessive about it and decided I needed to write out ALL the current chants. I must say I didn't realise there WERE so many different ones in actual usage until I undertook this task, so that in itself was interesting! There are actually a few more, but I wasn't 100% certain of the words so I need to check before I add them. But all these are not only in current usage, I heard them all at Old Trafford TODAY.) (Well, I suppose strictly it's yesterday now.) (And, actually, I don't think I did hear the Ryan Giggs song, but he only played half the game and wasn't very good! But I included it anyway, because it's the one that started the whole thought process.)
Anyway, as I was saying... I find it fascinating that the crowd has such a problem with the Giggs song, because there are many other songs they sing that have a similar range, yet they stay in tune. And I've come up with a theory about why that should be - I think it might be because the tune starts on its lowest note, AND that note is the tonic. To compare, let's look at the other chants that have a range of roughly an octave. Example 2 (Mourinho) goes down to a low F and up to an E, but it starts on the dominant - a helpful pivot point of C. Example 5 (That boy Ronaldo) starts on its lowest note, but that note in this case is not the tonic but the dominant, so the mind (assuming it knows the tune) has an unconscious pivot point (the B flat) which is higher than the start note. Example 12 (You are my Solskaer) is similar (pivot note being the A).
Example 4 (Que sera sera) starts on the tonic, but in this case it's almost the highest note. It's interesting that in this case the pitch actually doesn't drop noticeably by the end of the tune - how often, in choir, does someone have a descending line in which they have to be reminded not to descend too far? If we were asked to learn "Que sera sera", I'd bet large sums of money that at some stage Jamie would demand that the second note be really high, etc. And this brings me on to my other fascination - descending minor thirds. The interval that gets mentioned more frequently than all the others combined. Just look at how many chants are based on it! Let's see - examples 3 (U-N-I-T-E-D), 6 (there's only one Ronaldo), 7 (Rooney), 8 (come on you Reds), 9 (Red army), 11 (Manchester), 13 (Ole)... Why is it that this interval seems to be the one that crowds latch onto, and seem to like to sing - and don't sing too badly - yet it's the bane of choirs' existence?
Anyway, I don't actually have answers to most of my questions, I just wanted to share with you something that's been on my mind for months! If I refine my theories I'll let you know :-)
To change the subject, I'll finish by sharing a load more links:
I found a couple more pages of choir humour. There's some duplication between the two of them, and some stuff that I already had on my website, but there are a few new bits that I think will amuse you: Rehearsal Police etc., and choir aptitude test etc. (on that second page I particularly like this sight reading test!)
I recently discovered a blog that made me cry with laughter. He's doing this thing called "Venn That Tune" - for example, this is the first one . If you don't find that one funny, there's probably no point you looking at the later ones!
Some great posts on the Singer's Life blog recently. I particularly like the one about the value of fluency in languages, but there's also part 1 and part 2 of a post about vocal warmups. Nothing too startling to those of us familiar with Maggie/Jamie warmups, but it's always useful to hear a similar message from a different person, I think, and I did enjoy the tongue-twisters :-)
Barbara points out that there are midi files on the Cyberbass site for those who need assistance with the Poulenc. I haven't tried any of them myself, but they look useful.
You may well have heard of the service that, if you ring them up and play them a song over the phone, sends you a text telling you what it is. Well, it's called Shazam, and seems very clever. Sadly it doesn't work with classical or live music, but never mind! Again, I haven't tried it - has anyone else?
Very interesting article here about a singer who developed Bell's Palsy and suddenly found that certain consonants were much harder than others.
Even more interestingly, a fabulous interview with Mark in today's Guardian. I won't spoil it by listing highlights here, but it made me raise my eyebrows a couple of times! And, talking of the Bridgewater Hall (well, I almost was...), did any of you spot it making an appearance in the last ever episode of Life on Mars? I don't think we saw the doors or name or anything, but I recognised the wall! And just in case there are any Life on Mars fans who are still trying to work out what happened, here's an interview with the writer that explains lots of stuff.
And finally, you may think that I find all this stuff because I spend too long wilfing... but in fact I hardly ever do that - if I look for something online, I tend to find it fairly quickly, but I often spot other things in the process. Also, I have a large number of sites that I check daily (mostly by RSS), and I often find other things via links from those sites. But I admit that if someone other than my cats was watching me do all this, it WOULD look rather like "wilfing" :p
(Oh, and "Optimistic Voices" is from The Wizard of Oz! It's near the end, when Dorothy is dancing down the road in sight of the Emerald City at last.)
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