Eric Whitacre: A choir 2000 voices strong.


Rich Engle

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This is quite the thing:

Virtual Choir

Rich:

Thank you. That is a demonstration of pure beauty.

The Global Village is in our hands. It is also Marshal McLuhan's 100th Anniversary...perfect!

Adam

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Beautiful Rich, thanks.

At you-know-where today a soprano from the Canadian Opera Company sang Handel's "I know that my redeemer liveth." The marrow of my bones is still pulsating.

Our choir did quite a few today, including Chopin's Prelude, Op. 28, No. 20 --an arrangement for choir, piano, and electronic keyboard (I got that job, even though I am primarily a guitarist.

Then we turned the choir around and did Randy Newman's "You've Got A Friend In Me" (the "Toy Story") theme song. That one included accordion, an Akai breath controller doing tuba parts, a young girl playing piccolo, percussion, and yours truly handling ukulele parts (I learned how to play ukulele for it yesterday). After that some standard hymn faire, and the traditional spiritual "Wade In The Water."

We also had our friend Kat Epple (she's a grammy winning flutist) play a flute/piano duet with our director Chuck Grinnell. It was a very odd, large flute, I forget what you call them.

It was a busy day!

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Rich, thanks! I passed it along to others. Myself, I am not a fan of the human voice as an instrument, but these are superlative. I am in awe. Thank you for the moments of enlightenment.

Not to mix media and messages but

(1) I was surprised at the people recording in their bedrooms, rather than studios.

and

(2) I was amazed by the video rendering software in "Sleep."

Michael

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Rich, thanks! I passed it along to others. Myself, I am not a fan of the human voice as an instrument, but these are superlative. I am in awe. Thank you for the moments of enlightenment.

Not to mix media and messages but

(1) I was surprised at the people recording in their bedrooms, rather than studios.

and

(2) I was amazed by the video rendering software in "Sleep."

Michael

Yup, those two aspects definitely tripped my triggers as well.

This project is a significant move forward in music overall.

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Rich, thanks! I passed it along to others. Myself, I am not a fan of the human voice as an instrument, but these are superlative. I am in awe. Thank you for the moments of enlightenment.

Not to mix media and messages but

(1) I was surprised at the people recording in their bedrooms, rather than studios.

and

(2) I was amazed by the video rendering software in "Sleep."

Michael

MEM, I am with you about the voice. The first music that spoke to me was all orchestral, symphonies and concertos and so on, the evocation of our voices and minds was everything. I have always sort of thought of the voice as icing on the cake, but now of course, oh what glorious icing.

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Beautiful Rich, thanks.

At you-know-where today a soprano from the Canadian Opera Company sang Handel's "I know that my redeemer liveth." The marrow of my bones is still pulsating.

Our choir did quite a few today, including Chopin's Prelude, Op. 28, No. 20 --an arrangement for choir, piano, and electronic keyboard (I got that job, even though I am primarily a guitarist.

Then we turned the choir around and did Randy Newman's "You've Got A Friend In Me" (the "Toy Story") theme song. That one included accordion, an Akai breath controller doing tuba parts, a young girl playing piccolo, percussion, and yours truly handling ukulele parts (I learned how to play ukulele for it yesterday). After that some standard hymn faire, and the traditional spiritual "Wade In The Water."

We also had our friend Kat Epple (she's a grammy winning flutist) play a flute/piano duet with our director Chuck Grinnell. It was a very odd, large flute, I forget what you call them.

It was a busy day!

What a programme. I can hear the reverberations from here.

There was a wonderful CBC radio series on the ukelele about 10 years ago. I wish I could remember the details to access it.

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A ukulele blog

The Jimi Hendricks Youtube is not available in my country!

Pedro Da Silva on the electric ukulele is!

And I learned how to spell ukulele which apparently was named in Hawaii as "the gift that came here" or "jumping flea."

I want to see it's long form birth certificate!

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A ukulele blog

The Jimi Hendricks Youtube is not available in my country!

Pedro Da Silva on the electric ukulele is!

And I learned how to spell ukulele which apparently was named in Hawaii as "the gift that came here" or "jumping flea."

I want to see it's long form birth certificate!

Great uke!

Give it up Adam, the guy was born. You'll be rid of him within six years at the latest, guaranteed.

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This is quite the thing:

Virtual Choir

The -Music of Ainur- as described by Tolkien in the Silmarillion comes to mind. The One-God Eru-Illuvatar commanded His Ainur to make Music and from that Music the world came into being.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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The ukulele has experienced a major revival. Notice also that it is being used more and more in commercial soundtracks. Another great point about them is portability--many guitar players/singers like them because they are so easy to travel with. Above all, fun, fun, fun.

This is the one I played yesterday. Made in Indonesia, but it is an absolute peach, esp. at a street price of 99.00. This thing sounds great, looks great . . .

Edited by Rich Engle
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