ClassicalCode

I know I am stretching this backwards-alphabet-songs thing, but I am at home in Petaluma and had time to kill.

Here I sing the alphabet song with the melody backwards, the words backwards while showing solfegge hand signs and conducting.

In my previous post I sang the ABCs backwards with solffeg hand signs. Now, out of curiosity and my eternal pursuit of the way of the nerd, I added a different challenge into the mix:

Thanks to Brandon for reversing the video, so that you can hear the actual melody.

Inspired to further acts of nerdome by the encouraging comments on my last post, I decided to learn to do something I have been thinking of doing ever since I saw Paul Kim do it at a party. Sing the alphabet song backwards. Not just sing the letters backwards, but the notes as well. So last night I sat down, figured out how it would go, and started memorizing it. This morning, to nerd it up just a little bit more, I leaned to sing it while showing the solfege using hand signs. I then took my new camcorder into Golden Gate Park and recorded myself doing it. The park has the advantage of having actual sunlight while still having some privacy and quiet. Also, it’s pretty. Here are the results:

Due to a bug in iMovieHD I was unable to reverse the video so you could here the original melody, but here is the audio reversed:

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My friend Joachim Luis came over tonight and started reading though the beginning piano book that was resting on my keyboard. Being the jock party animals that we are, we decided to try to sing a few of them as two part vocal pieces.

First we sight-read “Rondino” by Jean Philippe Rameau on movable “doo” with Joachim on bass and me on treble (this one is for my dad):

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Then out came the solfeggio. “A Farewell” by Henry Purcell with Joachim on treble and me on bass:

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And then out came the video camera. “Sarabande” by Arcangelo Corelli:

Apologies and thanks to David Xiques.

In an attempt to find a way to put my multitracks on youtube, I came up with a neat idea. Show all four parts of a tag in sol-feg hand signs as it is sung. This could be a great tool for visual learners to both learn a barbershop tag, and hone their hand sign reading skills, a skill that is usually hard to practice without the help of another sol-feg nerd.

Inspired by several examples on YouTube, and my curiosity about the subject, I attempted to do some non-throat-singing overtone singing. I was surprised that I was able to get the results I did.

Things I learned:

• Higher notes work better for me.
• The more closed my mouth is the clearer the overtones are heard

My idol, Paul Kim, put a few videos of my (our) choir on Youtube. He is the one singing the bass solo part in this one.

From Paul’s Youtube description:

San Francisco State University’s choir concert, December 15, 2007 at Most Holy Redeember Church in the Castro. “1st Katisma” – from “Vigilia” by Einojuhani Rautavaara, sung in Finnish. Conducted by Dr. Joshua Habermann.

Thanks Paul!

On December 7th, at San Francisco State’s Opera Workshop performence, I stood in for a baritone who had broken his leg. The girl who sang Papagena, or perhaps her parents, posted this on Youtube.