21 September 2014
A Bit Of Clarification
21/09/14 10:59
Someone I know expressed surprise that I sang Bass in the opera. They didn’t think my voice was that low and I’d have to agree, I mean Barry White was a Bass, Richard Sterban was a Bass, Paul Robeson was a Bass, Lurch was a Bass. You wouldn’t think my voice would be that low, (though, after a beer or two I have taken a stab at the low part of The Oak Ridge Boys Elvira). I guess the difference is one of definition.
In classical singing, the women are grouped into Sopranos, the highest, followed by Mezzo-sopranos, Altos, and Contraltos the lowest. Men are divided into Countertenor, Tenor, Baritone and Bass, the lowest. Note that this does not include the Bargain-Countertenor who make up for their lack of range and pitch with a willingness to work for less than scale, and the Bacall-Pleshette, the lowest female voice range which has become quite rare with the decline of smoking. It also does not include the now defunct Castrati. For some reason music schools just haven’t had much luck convincing guys right out of high school to go into the field.
Now while those are the STANDARD voice ranges, this is not a standard group. In this production we’ve simplified the ranges. Women with squeaky annoying voices are Sopranos. Everyone else is an Alto. Men with shrill annoying voices are Tenors. Everyone else sings the Bass line. It’s much simpler this way. What’s more, Tenors and Altos are welcome to sing each others lines if they need to. If the note gets too high for one of the Altos, they can jump down an octave to the Tenor line. Also Sopranos and Bass are allowed to shift a line by an octave if it gets too high or low as well. They are giving us a lot of freedom.
Except for yodelling. Yodelling is right out.
Marsha did admit something this week. When she first agreed to be in the opera she thought The Chorus meant a bunch of people standing to one side singing. Even when I mentioned that we would be on stage, she still thought in terms of a classic school or church choir. A bunch of singers that were not the focus of the audience. This week we started the process of staging and it’s becoming clear that we are part of the cast, part of the action stage. We have to sell the story. More than just singing, we have to ACT. This is kind of pushing Marsha’s boundaries, but she’s a trooper. She is going to see it through and she seems to be enjoying the process. She has been watching and listening to Rigoletto on the computer over and over which has helped her get used to the music. I on the other hand, am terrified of how FAST they sing. One month to go.
So anyway, the opera is going well, as is the play. We’ve had a couple of read throughs and I’ve been listening to the recordings of the last session when we were all there which helps. The director gets back from England this weekend so we’ll likely start rehearsing in ernest next week. It’s interesting, she wants us to know the lines, to be mostly “off book” as they say, by the time we start rehearsals, but she doesn’t want us to have developed the character yet; that will happen during rehearsal. I gotta tell you though, it’s really hard to learn what Ethan is saying and what the others are saying to him without getting some idea of his character.
Now in the play Ethan’s neighbour is Douglas Aloysius McLaren. One of the actors in the play commented on the name Aloysius. She’d never heard of it. I had, and I thought it was because it was a name they used in vaudeville just because it sounded funny, like Nimrod. It turned out though, that while that may be true, I was actually remembering it from somewhere else. In Beanstalk Bunny, 1955 Directed by Chuck Jones, Voiced by Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan, at 2:50 Daffy Duck claims his name is Aloysius. (I’m not sure but I may know too much about cartoons.) (EDIT: Ya Think?, Marsha.)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfryft_beanstalk-bunny_shortfilms
On the home front, we noticed an odd thing. When our bedroom was upstairs Momiji would sleep on the bed between us. Now that the remodelling is finished we’ve moved our bedroom downstairs and converted the old bedroom into Marsha’s office. For some reason though Momiji didn’t move down with us. She now sleeps all alone on the futon in the office within a foot of where she was before the big rearrangement. We thought she liked us, when actually she just likes that geographic location.
Cats are weird.
I do hope all of you caught The Roosevelts on PBS. We started watching it last Sunday and got hooked. Only on Tuesday did we realize it was 14 hours spread over a full week, but it was fascinating, and worth every minute. It’s one of Ken Burns best works and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
PIX: when Andrew and Martha were here we went to the museum in Courtenay. For a small local museum run by volunteers on donations, they have a nice collection of local historical artifacts, artworks and, especially, fossils. The latter includes a couple of complete Elasmosaurs. http://www.courtenaymuseum.ca/fossils-dinosaurs/the-elasmosaur-find/
They also have a nice African Walking Catfish though what that has to do with BC is anyone's guess.
In classical singing, the women are grouped into Sopranos, the highest, followed by Mezzo-sopranos, Altos, and Contraltos the lowest. Men are divided into Countertenor, Tenor, Baritone and Bass, the lowest. Note that this does not include the Bargain-Countertenor who make up for their lack of range and pitch with a willingness to work for less than scale, and the Bacall-Pleshette, the lowest female voice range which has become quite rare with the decline of smoking. It also does not include the now defunct Castrati. For some reason music schools just haven’t had much luck convincing guys right out of high school to go into the field.
Now while those are the STANDARD voice ranges, this is not a standard group. In this production we’ve simplified the ranges. Women with squeaky annoying voices are Sopranos. Everyone else is an Alto. Men with shrill annoying voices are Tenors. Everyone else sings the Bass line. It’s much simpler this way. What’s more, Tenors and Altos are welcome to sing each others lines if they need to. If the note gets too high for one of the Altos, they can jump down an octave to the Tenor line. Also Sopranos and Bass are allowed to shift a line by an octave if it gets too high or low as well. They are giving us a lot of freedom.
Except for yodelling. Yodelling is right out.
Marsha did admit something this week. When she first agreed to be in the opera she thought The Chorus meant a bunch of people standing to one side singing. Even when I mentioned that we would be on stage, she still thought in terms of a classic school or church choir. A bunch of singers that were not the focus of the audience. This week we started the process of staging and it’s becoming clear that we are part of the cast, part of the action stage. We have to sell the story. More than just singing, we have to ACT. This is kind of pushing Marsha’s boundaries, but she’s a trooper. She is going to see it through and she seems to be enjoying the process. She has been watching and listening to Rigoletto on the computer over and over which has helped her get used to the music. I on the other hand, am terrified of how FAST they sing. One month to go.
So anyway, the opera is going well, as is the play. We’ve had a couple of read throughs and I’ve been listening to the recordings of the last session when we were all there which helps. The director gets back from England this weekend so we’ll likely start rehearsing in ernest next week. It’s interesting, she wants us to know the lines, to be mostly “off book” as they say, by the time we start rehearsals, but she doesn’t want us to have developed the character yet; that will happen during rehearsal. I gotta tell you though, it’s really hard to learn what Ethan is saying and what the others are saying to him without getting some idea of his character.
Now in the play Ethan’s neighbour is Douglas Aloysius McLaren. One of the actors in the play commented on the name Aloysius. She’d never heard of it. I had, and I thought it was because it was a name they used in vaudeville just because it sounded funny, like Nimrod. It turned out though, that while that may be true, I was actually remembering it from somewhere else. In Beanstalk Bunny, 1955 Directed by Chuck Jones, Voiced by Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan, at 2:50 Daffy Duck claims his name is Aloysius. (I’m not sure but I may know too much about cartoons.) (EDIT: Ya Think?, Marsha.)
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xfryft_beanstalk-bunny_shortfilms
On the home front, we noticed an odd thing. When our bedroom was upstairs Momiji would sleep on the bed between us. Now that the remodelling is finished we’ve moved our bedroom downstairs and converted the old bedroom into Marsha’s office. For some reason though Momiji didn’t move down with us. She now sleeps all alone on the futon in the office within a foot of where she was before the big rearrangement. We thought she liked us, when actually she just likes that geographic location.
Cats are weird.
I do hope all of you caught The Roosevelts on PBS. We started watching it last Sunday and got hooked. Only on Tuesday did we realize it was 14 hours spread over a full week, but it was fascinating, and worth every minute. It’s one of Ken Burns best works and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
PIX: when Andrew and Martha were here we went to the museum in Courtenay. For a small local museum run by volunteers on donations, they have a nice collection of local historical artifacts, artworks and, especially, fossils. The latter includes a couple of complete Elasmosaurs. http://www.courtenaymuseum.ca/fossils-dinosaurs/the-elasmosaur-find/
They also have a nice African Walking Catfish though what that has to do with BC is anyone's guess.