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FOR CHOIR MEMBERS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Hello everyone, we launch our virtual recording project this weekend, April 16th 2020. All are invited to sing. This includes all street choir members from Exeter, Minehead, Taunton and Tiverton. 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 song which will be uploaded to You Tube in a few weeks time. It doesn't need to be perfect or particularly in tune even. The only thing that counts is that you give it your all !

We are producing a version of Elton John's Circle of Life. This is the name of a community singing project that we had planned for this year which will likely need to be postponed, so it feels appropriate to be using this song. 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 our song here is no exception.

I have put together a big old fashioned arrangement of the song. Thank you to Kim for her great singing of the guide vocals. She asked me to say that because of her naturally low singing voice she struggles with some of the higher notes but personally I think she has done a grand job. Well done Kimbo. You also have to put up with my voice providing the guide voices for the men's parts. Ouch !! He-he !!

PLEASE WEAR HEADPHONES OR EAR BUDS IF YOU HAVE THEM

Listen to the backing track first, here with the guide vocals as mentioned above. It will sounds slightly artificial because there are only two voices, so I have added some chorusing effects to give it the pretend sound of a choir. The main melody, sung by Kim here, will be sung by the altos and the sopranos are welcome to join in as well on this. Please listen with headphones if you can. The sound quality from your phone or tablet is always very poor.

Here is the mix including all guide vocals

Here are all the separate parts on their own so you can hear the harmonies.

High Alto main melody
Sopranos can also sing this

Low alto harmony in choruses
For those altos with the rich warm lower tones

Soprano in choruses
High altos can also sing this

Soprano at end of song
Just sopranos on this one

Baritone in choruses
Tenors can also sing this

Tenor in choruses
Just the tenors

Lyrics for printing out if you don't have them already

RECORDING INSTRUCTIONS

This is where you come in. The idea is that you record onto your smartfones, a version of you singing along with the song. Any of the parts you fancy, it really doesn't matter and it doesn't need to be complete or even in tune particularly because I can sort that out from this end. 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.
Just sing in your natural voice.

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 your 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 or another computer, but if you don't have access to such a thing but do have an old cassette recorder, or perhaps a dictafone or anything really then that will do fine. 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.

On a laptop or desktop computer you might be able to play the song back through your headphones and at the same time record your voice using the inbuilt software of the computer. This might also be possible on a tablet or a good smartfone as well. It can all get a bit technical to be honest but I shall leave you to play around and if in doubt give me a shout or perhaps, for some, call the grand children !

MUSIC AND VOICE RECORDED IF YOU HAVE NO EARBUDS OR HEADPHONES

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 rather tricky.

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. THIS IS NORMAL. Don't let that stop you singing and sending in your recording. Whatever you sound like is BRILLIANT because you have decided to be a part of the project to use music to bring us together. This is a really important thing to say. Also the guide voices you can hear have lots of effects on them - echo and chorus as well. Once I receive your raw recording I will add these effects to your voice too, to make sure it sounds really professional !!

Finally, if you have recorded your voice onto a cassette player or other hard copy medium, you will need to post it to me - Lyddons Cottage, Upton TA4 2JE.

You will have questions - nigel@musichealth.co.uk

We shall allow four weeks for people to get their recordings in to me. If you have recorded your voice on a smartfone then you should be able to share 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

Thank you, let the fun begin and we will aim to release this towards the end of May or maybe June time.

P.S. Someone is also putting together a very special version of the choirs version of All Together Now which we recorded last year.

More to follow on this.

*****

Regional community singing project for 2020
Street choirs from Exeter, Minehead, Taunton and Tiverton

Regional community singing project for 2019
Street choirs from Exeter, Minehead, Taunton and Tiverton
Successfuly completed November 23rd 2019:

Regional community singing project for 2018
Street choirs from Exeter, Minehead, Taunton and Tiverton
Successfuly completed November 24th 2018