Barbershop tag taught as a limerick

Apr 21

Music No Comments

Combining my love of nerdy limericks and my love of barbershop tags, I have endeavored to create a limerick which teaches a barbershop tag. This tag was taught to me as Lilly Marlane, although I had to omit the words and a lead pickup note to fit it in the poetic format.

First the lead posts the tonic, a C.
Then the others, homophonically:
Bass: re mi fa do,
Bari: la la le so.
While the tenor sings: fa mi re mi.

Barbershop multi-track: I Love To Sing ‘Em (Best tag so far!)

Apr 15

Barbershop, Music 1 Comment

Continuing in my attempts to improve my barbershop skillz, I sat down today and recorded my first up-tempo multi-track barbershop tag. Despite my fears, my voice is in much better shape in this one even though it required many more takes. To be honest, I was beginning to doubt weather my voice would ever be able to sing barbershop convincingly. Especially up-tempo numbers.

Improvements:

  • More natural sounding lead voice (other recordings sounded very spread, or heady)
  • Good rhythmic tuning

Still to work on: More

Opera stuff looking for good home (free)

Apr 1

Music, Opera 3 Comments

Opera LibrettoThe other day I responded to an ad for free opera libretti and magazines on Craigslist. The woman was trying to find a good home for about eight boxes of what turned out to be her deceased friend’s libretti, Opera News, and San Francisco Opera programs.

The libretti are going in to my library (more on that later) but the rest is of little interest to me, as I don’t have the time to go through them. The woman who died was a life long opera fan so these items span a range of dates. I would imagine that the programs especially have some value as collectible items. Let me know if you are interested in rooting through them. They are yours if you want them.

As for the libretti, there were about 41 of them. I got them because, as a singer, they can be VERY helpful in translating arias and entire roles. If you are ever interested in borrowing any of them, I have listed my complete collection after the jump:

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