h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh dear - that's me out, I think. I didn't write a journal in the lunch break yesterday, intending to do it when I got home, and then I didn't even look at my laptop in the evening. I got home so late and did some cooking, preparing a couple of meals for the next few days.

Busy week ahead: On Friday we have "Museum Night". The town where I live has 2 museums, which isn't bad for its size. Apart from the obligatory "Heimatmuseum" with exhibits on local history, there is the Deutsches Strassenmuseum, which is more interesting than it sounds.

Website only available in German.

http://deutsches-strassenmuseum.de/Home/

There is also a mini-museum: The Octroi house, which is on the Lidl car park. It was a sort of customs house where incoming goods were weighed. It contains a table, a chair, some weights and a mannequin of someone sitting at the table officiating, in some sort of uniform.

http://www.strassenkatalog.de/panoramio/germersheim_am_ludwigstor_ich_bin_ein_teil_des_weltkulturerbes_und_wohl_der_zugehoerige_banause_ja_,57720171.html

Our little choir's contribution to the Museum Night (and other general cultural offerings) is two short recitals in the Catholic Church.

On the theme of "All you need is love" we are singing mainly pop songs, including "All you need is love", "Groovy kind of love", "Can you feel the love tonight". The usual stuff.

We had an extra rehearal on Monday evening, then on Thursday which is our usual choir practice evening, we shall be having the dress rehearsal in the church itself. We are now negotiating how much equipment we can leave in the church because there's a Mass early on Friday evening before our recitals.. We are performing at 8 pm and at 9pm (so you've still got time to get here....)

I'm rather partial to "Love is a many-splendored thing."

There must be loads of songs we could have used. Actually "Love is a many splendoured thing" would probably not have very much resonance here in Germany. I've not heard it since I got here nearly 40 years ago now. And it's too old for the choir demographic. Most of them had never even heard "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love" (Burt Bacharach - another one we're singing). Also - I would rate Many Spendoured Thing as more suitable for a soloist than for a choir.



Once we've got that one under our belt, the next concert, in about 2 years' time, will be about songs and singing. "Sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong" - and "I'd like to teach the world a song" - that sort of thing.

Can I join your choir?

<BB<

I'm sure your choir will elevate those tunes to new heights, but have you ever considered how some of the most irritating earworms are songs about songs? As well as some of the above, there's the one from Tom Thumb:

This is my song
My very own song
I can sing it short
Or I can sing it long

doo dee doo dee doo ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuEFRC7YG6M

(clickable link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuEFRC7YG6M

[Amy P]

You just reminded me of a (was it a Cilla Black?) song - "Love, this is my song, here is my song, a serenade to you"... Oh no, it was Petula Clark. Whatever.

Anyway - not suitable for our choir. These days so many choirs have soloists. We have only just started using soloists. It occurred to me when we were putting our programme together that using soloists has a very great advantage: With a little preparation, the choir is ready to do the Oohs and Aahs and harmonise the chorus, the soloist goes home and learns his/her part and hey presto! 3 minutes of the programme filled with very little work and a fairly short preparation time.

You can join our choir, Bluebottle - especially if you're a tenor and can hold the notes. Our tenors are rather wanting, especially in the barber's shop style version of Moon River that we're doing.

"'Sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong' - and 'I'd like to teach the world a song' - that sort of thing." [TC]

The first was done by the carpenters in 1973, the second by the New Seekers in 1972. "Love is a many-splendored thing" was a movie that I *thought* came out in the late 1960s, but IMDB says it dated from 1954. My mistake!

So, is 45 years the cutoff point, even for songs that people might hear when they see old movies? Just curious.

It's not as clear-cut as that. Some films just don't catch on. I blame it on the translators usually. They can make or break a film in a country where the film is dubbed. Starting with a bad translation of the title.

I've got a good pair of lungs from doing all the cycling, not sure if that helps a singing voice, though…
But a choir that sings lyrics that make sense would be a nice change.

<BB<

"a choir that sings lyrics that make sense would be a nice change." [Bluebottle]

I haven't seen much evidence that lyrics influence song popularity . Even if one makes generous allowance for anyone's chances of deciphering what the lyrics actually are . When Taylor Swift sings, my effort to figure out what she's singing flagged before the end of the first verse.

If aliens visited Earth, they might well conclude that the purpose of most lyrics is to annoy the listeners' parents. Sadly, this gives young people nothing new to listen to after they become parents and grandparents....

Song lyrics we've sung in our choir include:
'So turn the lights off ain't no one afraid, when the night comes it'll be just like the day and without the day I am glowing from within, all because the sun shined once again. So play that sweet tune play it through the air and the volume raise it up. Don't you ask me twice, you know I'm gonna bid all because the sun shined once again'.

And that's not a typo – the lyrics are 'shined'.

<BB<

Are you offering that as an example of lyrics that make sense, or that don't make sense?

[I'm guessing that they don't, but it's a big world...]

Cycling will help you take big deep breaths (using the muscle known as the diaphragm), but for singing what you need is breath control - the ability to let out your breath really slowly as you sing. It's a different muscle (actually a set of muscles around your stomach) so probably not helped by all the cycling.

But I doubt the cycling will hurt you in any way, so keep doing it. And singers often need to take in some fairly substantial breaths for the long phrases.