Month: December 2012

(Thanks for the tip, Kat)

With Helmut Lotti, so perhaps you understand the “Sort of” in parentheses in the post title. After all, while the guy is talented, he just doesn’t have the voice–or the musical chops as a whole–to pull off a “classical” anything. Face it, he experienced success too quickly as an Elvis impersonator in a rather loose European pop venue (“loose”?!?–I can think of no kinder term for a field where David Hasselhoff has experienced massive success as a pop music performer. Just sayin’). While he has a nice enough voice, certainly better than 90%-plus of successful American pop “singers,” he carries the atrocious “Elvis (crooner) scoop” into songs where it’s higly inappropriate, has some really unfortunate vowel production, 50s-60s pop consonants (swallowing his unfortunate vowels from time to time, for example, making them even worse), etc.

Too bad, really, since the arranging and instrumental performances are top notch, while Lotti’s vocal performances are just OK. Here’s a snippet for an example:

[audio:Helmut-Lotti-God-Rest-Ye-Merry-Gentlemen-excerpt.mp3]

See? Not offensively sung, exactly, just mediocre. Good enough for many Xmas Eve services at small local congregations, but worth just a little more than I paid for it (I got the album as a free promo *heh*).

Here’s an example of a 34-year-old Lotti taking some tutoring from a 64-year-old Cliff Richard in 2003:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHTaPjVUtYw

I’m no big Cliff Richard fan (especially his histrionics), but he’s certainly got some chops, and it’s interesting to listen to how Lotti pretty much mimicked him, as best he could.

One of the best Christmas gifts I’ve recieved in the past several years was a “stocking stuffer” from my Wonder Woman, Songs of Joy & Peace, Yo-Yo Ma & Friends In addition to being full of songs appropriate (though not always “Christmas” songs) to the Christmas season, it’s an example of how real musicians aren’t constrained by any particular style or genre but only by their own well-developed musical “chops,” good taste and the drive to impeccable performances. Try these examples on for size:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUm_Gs2SDOo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-5jufFWvp4w

And a video featuring a recording session for one of the cuts on the album:

Note that Alison Krause makes some vowel choices I’d drill (if necessary) a voice student or a choir to avoid, but… she appears to have made them with an understanding–conscious or unconscious–of her own unique vocal characteristics, and so they mostly work quite well, especially within the genre. *shrugs* That’s just part of talent intersecting with LOTS of hard, hard work of the “blood and toil and sweat and tears” variety that’s necessary for music to be made at this level of excellence.

For further demonstration of crossover excellence, an exploratory session with one of the instrumentalists from the album–not a recording session so much as a jam session with a classical cellist, a bagpiper and an accordianist–among others. Yes: a bagpiper and an accordianist can gift us with musical excellence.

Fo gigure.

Lastly, one more from the album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_-5gfsDOiA

Oh, just click on over to Amazon.com and buy the album. You know you want to. (Nope: I’ve not “monetized” the link to “gimme a payoff”.)

Choral. In rehearsal. The clip below is from a music clinic conducted by Jester Hairston in 1981 in Odense, Denmark. The song the mass choir is rehearsing is Hairston’s “Mary’s Boy Child”–a song much butchered by soloists and choirs. It’s just s short section of the rehearsal, and I did cut out much of his oral directing, although some is left in. (No, sadly I never attended a clinic/rehearsal directed by Hairston, although I have enjoyed his music a lot over the years. It’s always a real treat to attend a rehearsal conducted by the composer of a piece, though, and just eavesdropping a bit is enjoyable for me.)

[audio:Jester-Hairston-in-Odense-Marys Boy Child–edited.mp3]

I posted a snippet of the song featured below the other day. The video here features also the poem cited on that post, as narrated by DFD: