How About the Real Thing, Bob?

One of my friends wrote me about the video clip I posted last week of Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, asking me, "Where's the singing?" You can't blame her - my blogs are all about singing and she did not understand that the ink is barely dry on the pages of my new arrangement. It takes a long time to teach new music to humans and have the singing come out beautifully. In Blue of a Kind, some of the songs we've learned took many months before they were ready for "prime time".

Bring On the Ringers

So I have taken to hiring professionals to sing my new works. Yes, these guys are top notch, but still these pieces have many parts, many variations, many lyrics and even ringers take time to produce a fair rendition. They are students with a schedule of classes, exams and etc., not to mention lives of their own and they are cutting their teeth on new works. In any case, I have started hiring these guys to do the groundwork and speed things up for another group of men with lives, Blue of a Kind.

So Where Is the Real Thing, Bob?

Right here. I did this arrangement back in November. It starts out based on the classic Drifters cover, and switches over to a Brazilian Samba treatment you may have heard by Michael Buble. As the tempo heats up, the backup lyrics spin progressively further out of control. I decided to ask Jean-Baptiste Craipeau in France to record the learning tracks. Life happened. Exams came and went, JB got the chance to work on it. And now here it is - 30 seconds of it anyway. Have a listen, and get a sense of what it is we're doing. D2 - this is for you!

Taking This Week Off

I've got another piece nearly completed and I'm the boss. This weekend is a choral festival and I won't have the usual amount of time to complete. I'm preparing to go to Cuba with the Yale Alumni Chorus in June/July. This weekend is my first set of rehearsals with them and we have a performance on Sunday. My next work will be I Can't Get Next To You.