CIRCLE
OF LIFE |
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FOR
HOUSE CHOIR AND STREET CHOIR MEMBERS, Hello
everyone, we launch our Circle of Life Charity CD project this week,
starting Monday July 27th 2020. All are invited to sing. This includes
everyone in our brand new House Choir and all Street Choir members down
here in the south west plus all friends and family. You can contribute
as much or as little as you wish and it will be included in the final
mixdown of the CD which will feature ten to twelve songs released on
CD or DVD and in aid of the DEC Coronavirus appeal. The first song we will work on is our own arrangement of Elton John's Circle of Life which was made famous in Disney's movie the Lion King from some ten years ago. Popular songs like this, particularly when they have been associated with films that families have enjoyed, are really good at bringing different generations together. They are a powerful way of providing connection in difficult times and helping us feel we are part of a community and supported by others - priceless !! I
have put together a big old fashioned arrangement of the song. You have
to put up with my voice providing the guide voices for the two men's
parts (baritone - low male voice and tenor - high male voice). Kim does
a much better job on the main vocal line (low female part - alto) and
she also provides a guide for you sopranos out there - the higher notes
for the ladies. Listen to the 'mix' first with the guide vocals as described above. It will sound slightly artificial because there are only two voices, so I have added some chorusing effects to give it the pretend sound of a choir. Please listen with headphones if you can. Here
is the mix including all guide vocals Lyrics
for printing out if you don't have them already RECORDING INSTRUCTIONS The
idea is that you record onto your smartfones, tablets or computers a
version of you singing along with the song. Any of the harmony parts
you fancy, it really doesn't matter and it doesn't need to be complete
or performed to some kind of standard (whatever that means!). I wont
tell you how many hours I spent retuning my own voice on the computer
to get it to sound vaguely in tune for this project !! So please, just
go for it. What counts is being a part of it. The technical quality
of the singing really doesn't matter that much. Make sure you warm up
a bit before doing the recording perhaps by gently singing it through
a few times and getting used to the melody and of course the harmony
parts. Now here's the tecchie bit - the recording ideally needs to be just your voice, not your voice and the song. There are two ways to do this, see below. You also need to make sure you don't sing too close to the microphone built into your computer, tablet or phone, otherwise it might distort. Equally if you sing too far away from your phone it might sound too distant, so feel free to experiment with this and you can decide for yourself what is a nice sound.
ONLY VOICE RECORDED - REQUIRES EARBUDS OR HEADPHONES. Play
the song back through one device with headphones plugged in to that
device. The device can be anything - a laptop or dektop computer, a
phone or a tablet. Then record your voice singing along onto another
device- ideally a smartfone tablet or another computer,Perhaps pull
one earphone off your ear slightly so you can hear your own voice in
the room as well as the music in your headphones/earbuds. If
you have no access to earbuds or headphones we can still use your recording
but try and make sure that music is very quiet in the background and
that your voice dominates the final sound as much as possible. If the
sound of the music in the background is too loud then it makes editing
the music later a little tricky to be honest. A
word of support - for many, hearing your singing voice back for the
first time, particularly on its own can be a really strange feeling.
You will have questions - nigel@musichealth.co.uk you should be able to send me the recording you have made by email. If you have trouble with this just contact me and we can go through it. Please email all your recordings to nigel@musichealth.co.uk L
et the fun begin - what a pleasure to know that our House Choir and
street choir voices are coming together to make this happen.
*****
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Minehead Street Choir and Foxes Academy Drum Group Beach Hotel Summer 2017
CONTACT Nigel
Neill |
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