my eviler twin sings a capella

[jrtom]

My sister (red_frog) quoth:

I want you to play this for your lovely wife and tell me if this reminds her of what it would sound like if we kept you up for five days straight, fed you doughnuts, and then demanded that you cover the original. (Anyone reading this who knows what his singing voice sounds like is welcome to weigh in as well. Me, I'm thinking it's not a perfect match, but he leapt immediately to mind when I heard it.)

The year before last, I sang with the UC Irvine men's group called Men In Blaque. (I'm not responsible for the spelling of the name; apparently they were worried about trademark infringements and no one told them that the phrase seriously predated the movie. Me, I would have gone with Menne In Blak.) They perform music that, as I put it, runs the gamut from the sublime (Gregorian chants and all that) to the ridiculous (you guessed it). It's actually a very highly skilled and talented group of folks (generally speaking) but the director drives me nuts (much like the steering wheel in my pants), which is one reason I'm not still singing with them. On the plus side, I did get to tour Mexico (Puebla) with them and find out that my Spanish is marginally better when I'm drunk. But I digress...

The director selected me, without bothering to audition anyone, as the soloist for this piece. In this case, that meant that I did the spoken parts (as well as singing the baritone part with the ensemble), and the choreography was centered around me. (It also, for some of our concerts, involved members of the choir creeping around the audience and temporarily kidnapping small children. I am not making this up.) The musical arrangement was fairly conventional (not jazzed up as this one is) but, alas, truncated: it's missing at least one verse, possibly two.

I asked the director later and he told me that in addition to the good fit for the voice, he thought I resembled Jim Carrey. (He assured me that he meant this in a good way.) I conclude that he was basing this mostly on the dark hair, the propensity for wisecracks, the height, and the rubber face (I'm convinced, given their heritage, that my offspring are going to have Eyes As Large As Saucers and the ability to rotate their faces completely around their skulls), rather than on any actual similarity of facial features. I must admit that I enjoyed displaying what I thought was the appropriate expression for having just eaten a sandwich involving arsenic sauce.

I actually thought the rendition above was pretty funny. However, I don't think that I can reliably sing quite as low as that even when I've been up for 5 days (which doesn't necessarily help anyway). Some post-processing might help.

Updates: I'm now hosting that song myself (*paints target on chest labeled 'RIAA: SHOOT ME'*), so it should be (a) less ephemeral and (b) more easily reachable. I've also listened to the song a couple more times, and I suspect that there is actually some processing going on there--not that I haven't met a few people that could sing that low.

Comments

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Holy shit. I didn't expect that. :D

told you it was funnier than you knew.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

:)

Re: told you it was funnier than you knew.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Yet another example of my being a totally useless psychic (only mostly kidding). I get these all the tim and bloody well never trust them. :P

(Of course, what good it would do me to have known this ahead of time I can't tell you, but I could try to think of something.)

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I couldn't load it, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

It's a jazzed-up (think Take 6 or Boyz II Men if that helps) version of the song in the "current music" selection. Given what I know of your musical tastes, it may not be worth trying harder to load the MP3.

[kshandra]

Just warning you that the link red_frog gave you will expire in a week....

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

mmm. thanks. may actually have to break down and host the file.

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

What a minute! She's eviller than you? But you will always be the devil to me. (I still think fondly of that Arthur Miller God/Devil thing.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

no, no, no. I mean the dude that is singing the solo, not my sister. My sister is neither my twin (unless Mom was in labor for slightly over 3 years) nor evil; she is as pure as...um...as pure...I'm sure something will occur to me in a minute.

Let me get back to you about that part. ;>

(And yes, I like that scene. For those of you tuning in late, my friend hypgnosis and I have, on several occasions, read a two-person scene from Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business at the reading nights we held. I read the part of Lucifer. It's always a big hit.)

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I'd pay money for a recording of that.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

If I'd known that, I would have brought the script and made a recording with hypgnosis while I was in Portland. Remind me about this again in early March; there's a good chance he'll be visiting then, and recording it should be pretty easy. "We have the technology..."

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Ooooo! Please, please, please, please!

[hypgnosis.livejournal.com]

Sure, I'd be up for that. Besides, if performing this piece means that you "will always be the devil to [her]," then recording it for all time should really make her think of me as . . .

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

I'll agree you're a God. Of what is the question.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Belching? :)

[gwyd.livejournal.com]

Pack rats? Body Hair? Tastess humor? Sarcasm?

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I promise, based on the evidence provided by my first roommate at the UO (a nice guy, I should emphasize), that he's not even on the radar as a God of Body Hair.

And actually I think we have mutual friends who are considerably more plausible as the God of Sarcasm than he is.

Pack rats...strangely enough, I don't really think of him as a pack rat. More as someone who (among other things) dislikes the *process* of getting rid of certain kinds of things, which is (to me) a different kind of phenomenon.

Tasteless Humor: mmm, not really. But then I may be prejudiced. :) I think that he appreciates humor more for its cleverness than anything else (and occasionally disregards taste).

[hypgnosis.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with jrtom on the first one --- I know at least two men far hairier than I. I also cannot be the God of Sarcasm --- naudiz allows no challengers for her title.

While I do admit to some moments of tasteless humor, and *braaaaapp* the occasional belch, and a dose of packrattitude, if I were really to aspire to the Godhood of something . . .

. . . I'd like it to be the God of Analogies. I love finding them, constructing them, analyzing them and their close relatives called homomorphisms, telling stories using them, and unearthing the roots of them (esp. when the analogies are in the form of wacky idiomatic expressions -- then I'm happy as a pig in Congress). Plus, analogies are a major coin of the realm when you're teaching.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

What--no isomorphisms? Diffeomorphisms? ("Complete the isomorphism [and this sentence], ...") :>

I'd like to put in a bid for being the God of either Devil's Advocacy (ah, the irony...) or Casuistry. ;>

[hypgnosis.livejournal.com]

From the Tying Up Ancient Loose Ends Dept. (whom we hardly ever hear from because they're sooooo backlogged):

1) As I know I mentioned to you on the phone after this post, isomorphisms and diffeomorphisms are both types of homomorphisms, and thus are already covered.

2) I am not sure that you want to be the God of Casuistry, given these definitions. :-)

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

OK, we'll go with "Hairsplitting Arguments" rather than "Casuistry"...although some of those definitions are not far off in spirit. ;) (Brought to you by the author of the proof that halitosis has been responsible for many technological advancements.)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

no, no, no. I mean the dude that is singing the solo, not my sister. My sister is neither my twin (unless Mom was in labor for slightly over 3 years) nor evil; she is as pure as...um...as pure...I'm sure something will occur to me in a minute.

*laughing helplessly*

[lightning-rose.livejournal.com]

"...As pure as the driven slush..." ???
-Pearl Necklace, by ZZ Top

:)

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

You think I'm going to compare my sister to anything using a simile from "Pearl Necklace"? I said I was evil, not stupid. :)

[lightning-rose.livejournal.com]

She doesn't need a reason to beat you up. She's the oldest, it's her birthright! :)

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

She's older, but not the oldest, so she might have to purchase an easement on that birthright from our mutual oldest sister.

Besides, who said anything about her beating me up? I assume that she has emissaries to do these little things for her--don't we all? ("Want I should kneecap 'im, boss?")

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

I'll check with Sis and get back to you. :)

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

You do that. Although considering that amazon_lori was the one to verge upon libeling you, you might consider sending your ninja attack dogs after her first. :)

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Sadly, two of my preferred Ninja Attack Dogs[TM] are klwalton and amazon_lori, and they're BOTH maligning me, so I'm in a bit of trouble here.

*heavy sigh*

No respect. Ever.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Different variety of evil. :) But I am assured that I am.

You know him in person? Imagine the same thing, only female, a few inches shorter (only a few) and three years older. You've more or less got it.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Careful, there, red_frog--you're in danger of having to sue yourself for libel. ;)

(Honestly, while there are some similarities, I'm not convinced that the resemblance is that strong--or at least I suspect that it might give people the wrong idea. Not that this is necessarily to your detriment. :> But I guess that it's one of the least misleading short ways to describe yourself to someone that knows me in person.)

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Somewhat less misleading than imagining that I am in fact a fossilized sea creature. :)

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

Or, for that matter, a red frog.

I, on the other hand, am in fact a hang-gliding platypus with a miniature Renaissance-style hat. Or, according to my whim, a cat in a fencing mask. Even occasionally a disembodied head on a decaying castle's chopping block.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Is THAT what that is? I thought it might be a Smurf with batwings.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

*look of horror* Did you really think that I'd use a picture of a Smurf for anything other than target practice?

(Did you somehow manage to miss it hanging above our dining room table when you visited?)

No, no. It's a platypus stuffed animal--a gift from Megan. I named him Darwin. :)

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

Somehow, in the intervening two and a half years, I had forgotten the platypus. :)

I had a Smurf hanging in my college dorm freshman year. Of course, it was wearing a blindfold and had a noose around its neck.

[catzen.livejournal.com]

(much like the steering wheel in my pants),

::raises eyebrows::

Steering wheel

[hypgnosis.livejournal.com]

Of course! To quote the Scotsman, "It's driving me nuts!"

Re: Steering wheel

[catzen.livejournal.com]

Ouch.

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

I can, right now anyway. I just tried it here in my office. However, I can't always do it. (The low note is a low C, by the way. The lowest pitch I recorded on my own CD was actually a low A, a third below that, but it's hidden in a texture and not really noticeable. The lowest pitch on the CD that sounds like singing is a low Db.)

My phonation in that range is not extremely loud, but microphones, amplification, and compression can work wonders with this stuff. I don't think the Rockapella bass is using any processing beyond that to reach those notes.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

I couldn't find any of my pitch references around, so I had to guess at how low it was. I've certainly sung with basses that can reliably sing that low, so you could be right (and given that it's Rockapella, I suspect that you are)--I was simply uncertain because the timbre of the bass's voice sounded a bit weird, i.e., processed.

I have been able to sing as low as a low Bb before, but I may have had a cold at the time. :)

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

I think there's a fair amount of compression on the track.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

If there is, it's not really for the purposes of making the song smaller. The bit rate is 128 kilobits per second, it assays out at 3 MB--for a 3 minute song--and the sampling rate is 44 KHz). But you may mean something else by "compression" that I'm not getting here. But it's entirely possible that this file has gone through a few conversions that have had a similar effect to what high compression does; I've never heard the original CD track, so I can't be sure.

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

I don't mean that kind of compression. I mean the type of compression used in audio engineering; its effect is to compress the dynamic range of the sound and make it punchier. It's essentially ubiquitous in professionally recorded music, but can vary greatly in degree.