Today, we're going to try something a little different: I have a short, simple challenge for all of you who read my blog (and some other people, but that's not important right now). On Friday, I'll take a look at the results, but for now, click down below the break for part one of this two-part exercise.
You know the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," right? No? Well, stop being from non-baseball-playing countries!
For those of you who do know the song, though (and that should, at minimum, be everyone in the US, baseball fan or no), I want you to try to do the following: sing the song, but with a one-word anticipation. So on the first note sing the word "me," on the second note sing "out," and so on, so that you run out of words on the penultimate note of the piece [EDIT: just the chorus will suffice--don't stress yourself trying to look up the verses which you might not even have known existed]. Don't worry about how you sound; it's not like I'm there to judge you. Just see if you can sing the song (or a reasonable facsimile thereof, if you don't consider yourself musically inclined) with the words all one note to the left.
If you can't do it right away, see how much effort it takes you to get it down. None? A little? A lot? Is this something you can do on the first try, something that takes a few minutes' effort, or something that would require more time for you master than you're willing to devote to the whims of some guy on the internet?
Whatever the result, post it in the comments section below. Assuming I can get at least a few people to respond, I'll have a nice post on Friday summing up the results (you aren't the only people I'm asking to do this), and hopefully explaining just what this has to do with MLP fanfiction.
Have fun!
...Um, no.
ReplyDeleteSo, how goes your epic journey through the endless wasteland that is Background Pony?
Aw, nutters.
DeleteAnyway: I am cautiously optimistic that I'll have a review ready in less than a week's time.
Be that as it may, I'm going to have a lot to say. I already have a lot to say, and I haven't even gotten to the much-debated ending yet!
Are we allowed to write down all the words first and look at them while singing or would you rather we do it from memory?
ReplyDeleteGo ahead and look at the words, if you don't know them by heart! I'm more interested in... well, we'll get to that part on Friday.
DeleteI got it on the first try while reading the lyrics with only a little bit of a hiccup on the "root, root, root for the home team, if they don't win it's a shame" part. I tried again and had pretty much the same results, but by the third time it was ironed out. If I were to be doing it from memory, though, I think I'd have a lot more trouble--even though I know the lyrics, reading them lets me concentrate on the notes without having to also worry about remembering the words.
DeleteAfter googling up some sheet music, it took about 3 minutes to read through it. I have about 10 years of training as an instrumental musician, and about 2 weeks of training as a singer.
ReplyDeleteI would put the difficulty of doing this without music in front of me at around beating three over two with my left and right hands. If I really put my mind to it, I could get it down eventually, but I've never had any use for it.
You just want us to sing the chorus, right?
ReplyDeleteI had to re-familiarize myself with the song before trying it (Canadian, you see. We don't care much about baseball. I also only bothered with the chorus). My results, after a short time trying: After a number of stumbles at the beginning, as I got used to the awkwardness of singing offbeat, it didn't seem all that difficult until I got to the lines "I don't care if I never get back. / Let me root, root, root for the home team". From "don't" to "root" every word falls on a single beat (with even a pause between the lines), so I constantly found myself stumbling back into the normal song at that part. I've yet to complete the chorus without any stumbles, and I don't really care enough to put the effort into perfecting it, so this is all you'll hear from me.
ReplyDeleteWell, since I'm from the UK and have limited knowledge of baseball (although I have seen a couple of games before) I only know the well-known bits of the song, so I can't say how easy it is to do the whole of it. "Take me out to the ball game" is rather easy to do, but I'd say "One, two, three strikes you're out of the old ball game" is harder than you might think. It's most likely because the last word ends very comfortably on the tonic note, but with the word anticipation put in then you have to use a melisma on the last word to hit that note. It's rather awkward to do the last phrase, but it's quite fun to try and get it right.
ReplyDeleteI tried doing the same with some other songs, and it's interesting how I was actually able to get them down rather well. Maybe someone's ability to do the word anticipation depends on how well they know the song. But then again, "Take me out to the ball game" mostly has one-syllable words and one note per word, so that's probably another factor. You've successfully got me thinking now, Chris.
CHRIS THIS IS FUCKING HARD YOU HORRIBLE TASK MASTER :(
ReplyDeleteDoing this aloud while looking at the lyrics, I'm stumbling heavily around "If they don't win it's a shame". The cadence keeps lining back up somehow.
OKAY I GOT IT took like three actual tries.
I was getting seriously mad at everyone saying how easy it was - I couldn't even get past the first line - until I had someone else to provide the music. I keep stumbling around Cracker Jack, but I can get the rest of it well enough. The ending's pretty weird too
ReplyDeleteMy problem before was that I was doing the melody in my head by thinking of the original lyrics, while simultaneously singing the new ones. Probably would've been easier if the vowel sounds were retained - making "Chiaotzu" a doll's name...
Never even heard of the song, but I bet I'd be awful at it. Like off-beats on Band Hero's drums. Can't do 'em.
ReplyDeleteLinks are the only way I know how to communicate
DeleteThe only way I could do it was by altering the sheet music to match the new word/note match-up: otherwise, I couldn't keep either the length or the tone of each note in my mind. Even with the aid, "root, root, root," "one, two, three strikes," and "old ball game" were very hard to get close to right, even after a few tries.
ReplyDeleteWeird, you're the second person to mention having problems with the strike part, but it was one of the easiest sections for me. I wonder why that is
DeleteIt took five tries. I wonder if it was harder because I usually hit a few dozen baseball games a year, and so sing it the "traditional" way fairly regularly?
ReplyDeleteVery odd:
ReplyDeleteAfter Googling up the lyrics, I stumbled right at the beginning on my first attempt, made it all the way through fine the second time, then the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh times ended up back on the melody at "if they don't win, it's a shame." I've been playing guitar and singing at church for more than a quarter century, so now I'm gonna hafta spend some time this morning seeing what's tripping me up in there...
Mike
OK:
DeleteGot it again on times eight, nine, and ten. I kept skipping over the original note of "if."
The whole exercise made me think of folksinger Cheryl Wheeler's song "Potato," in which she uses the melody of the jarabe tapatio, the Mexican Hat Dance, to sing a song about potatoes. It's the chorus where things get interesting... :)
Mike Again
Figures this post would become a discussion about how people don't know the song.
ReplyDeleteHoly crud this is hard. I can't get past the word "ball". I'm too used to singing this the normal way at baseball games. Sorry Chris, I'm not even gonna try to master it, this is way too hard for me.
I'm guessing this is going to tie into fan fiction with a post about story flow. Just a guess, though.
I have enough trouble mastering songs sung straight.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the song well enough to sing it from memory, so I looked it up. The beginning is fairly easy to take one measure at a time, but I find I often have to pause to remember the next word. Also, like others said before, that "root, root, root," part is hard. As is the "three strikes your out" part.
I can do you one better though. Here's a recording of like my tenth try that sums up my general experience.
Methinks there's a Russian chorus out there somewhere that's missing its second bass... my word you have a deep voice.
DeleteDid it first try. Took a few minutes to prepare it in my head, but once I started it went smoothly enough. As Mordin Solus would say, "Not difficult!"
ReplyDeleteI started trying after you posted it, and attempted it on and off since. I think I might have just gotten it down perfect, so it took me between Tuesday night to this afternoon to pull it off. That is way too long a period of time, I suspect.
ReplyDeleteReckless experimentation: I'm a fan. ;-)
ReplyDeleteEven though it's probably too late to be included in your results, Chris, I took a crack at this, and I think it was about 90 minutes of straight noodling with it until I was almost competent, but not completely so. Trying to match syllables to the song meter around "peanuts and cracker jack" was harder than I thought, and I kept adding an extra "root" in instead of jumping to "for" when I should have. Oh, yeah.... I also dropped the opening "Take" at the end to smooth out the short stop, which was also screwing up re-attempts.
The destination you have in mind for this should be interesting, so I'm stayin' tuned.