Yesterday, [livejournal.com profile] ann1962 and [livejournal.com profile] midnightsjane linked to a featurette on youtube about the making of OMWF. They say it's in with the season six DVD's, but I don't remember it. (Shows how little I've watched that particular season to the bitter end!). I enjoyed the fact that it shows each of the principles doing something interesting and shows most of them having some difficulty.

I guess I really wish I had a video of the group singing along at the Big House in Tahoe (including [livejournal.com profile] dlgood commenting that he didn't do musicals, because that was part of it). I think it was a very interesting study in the way people act in such situations. [livejournal.com profile] anom made everything richer by singing harmony a good bit of the time. [livejournal.com profile] masqthephlsphr griped because the men all were trying to sing "I'll never tell" as a duet. I wish she was around to discuss it, but I think her complaint was that the men didn't want to sing the girl's part. Personally, I think having enough men and women in one spot willing to sing that we could have done it as a duet was special. She had more of a point when Tara's solo started. I admit the hetero in me likes sitting back and listening to women sing love songs, even though in this case it's sung to a woman. But, I don't think any of the guys had a problem with singing Buffy's numbers or Tara's part in the duet with Giles. Part of the problem with singing all the time is that you don't hear everyone else as well. Like the point where I was running out of gas and [livejournal.com profile] atpotch's beautiful voice became abundantly clear.

Personally I have to decide on the fly how I'm going to sing something. I am a tenor naturally, but I've known since shortly after my voice changed that I can speak and sing in a much deeper voice, from the diaphragm as it were. In singing sometimes I can get away with singing the soprano part. Sometimes not. So occasionally I will drop down an octave. We sang occasionally in Spanish class, and my habit of singing down an octave really got to the girl who normally sat beside me one year. She was an absolutely gorgeous cheerleader, a really nice girl, a year older and way, way, way out of my league! I'd get to the point I couldn't hit the high notes and drop down. She'd take it for a while then get up and move! (She'd move back after we stopped singing so it wasn't anything personal.) I suspect that as my voice got tired I didn't sound so good at the sing along, so I'm grateful to [livejournal.com profile] scrollgirl, who was right in front of me, for not getting up and moving!

From: [identity profile] mamculuna.livejournal.com


CW, your muscial abilities are so far ahead of mine! The only reason y'all didn't rise up as a group and throw me out was that I've learned over time to sing very, very quietly. The only time I give way to full voice is in the car, very much alone. I hear the tune in my head, but my voice doesn't seem to relate to that in any way.

From: [identity profile] dherblay.livejournal.com


Wait, weren't you the one muttering with Masq something about people being out of key and turning around to glare daggers at me? Hmmm. I think I may have been so wrapped up in paranoia about my own bad singing to notice anyone else's.

From: [identity profile] cactuswatcher.livejournal.com


No glaring daggers from me, and any muttering was an attempt to copy faithfully Nick Brendan's style of filling in forgotten lyrics.

From: [identity profile] buffyannotater.livejournal.com


I think I deserve a little credit for singing all of Dawn's parts, in her key. ;-)

From: [identity profile] atpotch.livejournal.com


In her register, more impressively ;-)

I was most impressed by your accurate rendition of Xander's wicca lines, which I approximated by "icca-fhofifs-icca-icca-icca-be over here".

TCH

From: [identity profile] darbyunlimited.livejournal.com


There is a OMWF featurette on the S6 DVD, but it's not the same as the YouTube one, which appears to be a different one edited from the same raw footage.

From: [identity profile] midnightsjane.livejournal.com


That was so much fun! I think we all sounded quite wonderful together. I don't usually sing in public...my voice is just sort of mediocre, although I don't actually scare children and small animals when I sing, lol.
I remember thinking that the neighbours must have thought the house had been rented to some sort of strange choir...
*What can't we do, if we're together?*

From: [identity profile] anomster.livejournal.com


Wow, this is further back than I thought! But I wanted to reply when I 1st read it & didn't have time.

Glad you liked my harmonizing! It's funny, most of the time I'd rather sing harmony than melody--even if the melody fits my vocal range better (hence my "Compulsive Harmonizer" button). Which means I also sometimes do that octave-switching thing. I don't know why anyone has a problem w/it--it has a long & honorable history, as shown by all those little "8va"s in transcriptions for instruments w/more limited ranges.

Funny, I didn't hear Masq complaining about the duets! Guess I was too busy singing both parts. One (other) nice thing about harmonizing is I can do it above the low voices & below the high ones!

As for your cheerleader classmate, I think some people are thrown off by hearing changes in other people's singing. It might not have been that she didn't like the sound, just that she couldn't concentrate on where her own voice should go when yours was going somewhere else! I really don't think it had to do w/your voice--I still don't understand why you thought you needed to apologize for your singing when you & Fresne & I were singing along sotto voce w/Rob's Love's Labours Lost musical.

And this is getting really long, but I can't end it without mentioning how much I enjoyed playing recorder/mandolin duets w/you, once we finally got the chance to! Also that I eventually turned up The Pine Tree Suite based on American Revolution-era tunes that I think I told you about. In addition to "The Girl I Left Behind Me" & "The White Cockade," it includes "Chester," "The Vicar of Bray" (did we play that one?), "The British Grenadiers," &, of course, "Yankee Doodle"! I'll try to remember to bring it next time. It's set for soprano & alto recorders, so we won't have to play everything in unison again. Only 10 months to go, right? @>)
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