Happy Summer, y'all!

@speediedelivery
/giphy Elaine dancing

@Cerridwyn was just recently at Watkins Glen State Park (yes, where the races are). If you ever get to the Finger Lakes region of NY, you have to go. You’d love it.


Not pics I took, but I did take some like these. Just too lazy to leave the fire pit and go to my laptop.

@ybmuG
droolin’

@Cerridwyn @ybmuG
/giphy Iguazu Falls

More water than Niagara Falls but over a much wider area. Nice hiking with scenic views. River tours that take you right up to and into some of the smaller falls.

@Cerridwyn @ybmuG fire pits are right up there on my list, along with my headphones and a audio book. Time with my adult kids, and the grandkids. Making lots of different thing, even better if it’s a group craft with afore mentioned persons, or a couple of my crafty friends. @kel & @jelybean

@Cerridwyn @speediedelivery @ybmuG

@Cerridwyn @ybmuG Those falls in the park look like they’d be lovely to walk behind or in.

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz @ybmuG @tinamarie
Hanging Lake in CO is gorgeous, but it’s become so popular you have to make a reservation to hike there.

@f00l
I’m a fan of musical theater, and not at all of opera, but this woman gives a fierce performance, with vocal power to fill the hall OVER the orchestra, with no microphone or amplification
/youtube Elizabeth Zharoff- Martern aller arten

@f00l Lovely! Thanks for sharing. I just sent this video to my sister, who is a big opera fan. I’m only a tiny opera fan, so…

@compunaut

That is an astounding voice.

Of course, opera singers are trained in the vocal/singing techniques that allow them to perform unamplified over an orchestra … Back from those days when there were no mics.

I’d love to hear someone w a voice like that do some standard and showtimes. I wonder if the " technique" training world completely overwhelm the individuality and expressiveness.

@compunaut @f00l
My favorite opera singer - it’s long though:
Jessye Norman performs American popular songs (16 May 1984)

@f00l I saw Zharoff perform an impromptu ‘Summertime’ from Porgy and Bess. There is a perceptible line, a physical technique that must shift from operatic to theatric.
Note: a technician needed to pull the mic away from in front of her as she sang - she was literally overloading the amp & speakers.

Some songs can survive an operatic approach; others can’t. Some singers have the chops to vary their vocal execution to better fit the music; others don’t.
Mozart and Richard Rodgers require different skill sets. IMO, Julian Ovenden performing ‘Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’ is technically perfect, but stylistically a disaster.

@compunaut

That’s odd. I love Ovenden doing that song.

I guess variety (re artistic preference) is the spice of life?

@f00l Yeah, well, that’s just, like, my opinion, man YMMV
To me, who played in the pit orchestra for many musicals (including Oklahoma!) in my younger days, his rendition is all (fabulous) tone but no articulation/enunciation. If I didn’t already have the lyrics memorized, I wouldn’t be able make out several of the words.

@compunaut

As you are a musician, you might be interested in the way the John Wilson Orchestra is structured.

From Wikipedia
“The John Wilson Orchestra was formed by British orchestral conductor John Wilson in 1994. It is a symphony orchestra that includes a jazz big band. It performs the original arrangements of MGM musicals and the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein. The orchestra has performed annually in The Proms summer festival since 2009.”

Wilson says:

The orchestra’s been together a good 15 years and its make-up is very specific. It’s modelled on the old contract movie orchestras in America. And that’s basically the combination of a dance-band brass, rhythm and saxophone section, so four trumpets, four trombones, five saxes who all double, and a rhythm section, who are all very specific specialists in this style. And then on top of that you have a woodwind and French horn section.

But I think the key thing is getting the right string players. It has to be a very high octane, high gloss, soloist sort of player. The string sound isn’t blended down, it’s blended up. You play up to the best. It’s a very in-your-face, expensive sort of string sound and it takes a lot of playing. You have to have the best players, but we’re spoilt in this country for terrific orchestral performers.[2]

He seems to be going for that “Broadway adapted to Hollywood” sound, kinda a mid-century MGM speciality orchestral sound.

His orchestra specializes in classic era American musicals songs and also American jazz/crooner standards, with a different catalog of music each year at the proms.
The John Wilson Orchestra night at the Proms is always one of the hottest tickets, and one of the highest rated live TV broadcast Proms nights.

Ir can be fun finding and playing the John Wilson stuff on YouTube, tho he often works with Ovenden (if that puts you off)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilson_Orchestra

https://www.johnwilsonorchestra.com

@f00l

French horn section

That’s me

@compunaut

If you do chase down some John Wilson Orchestra stuff, let me know what you think?

I guess, not knowing what language terms musicians and critics use for this sort of sound, i’d describe is as a “lush” sort of orchestral sound?

(A sound design that conveys the range of emotions, including downers such as danger, apparent failure, or unhappiness;
but the strong presence of the music, in that arrangement and combination of instruments, also seems to convey that there will be “a happy or satisfying ending” to the theatrical conundrum presented in the entertainment.)

It all seems kinda very “50s movie sound” to me. But I like that throwback sound, in the right setting and with the right material.

@cattylaq
Wow! I’m not the biggest fan of jazz organ, but that’s fabulous!

@cattylaq @Kyeh ain’t nothin better than a B-3 played by someone who knows how to make it sing!

@cattylaq

That’s just insane I could listen to it over and over again

@cattylaq @f00l @Kyeh @ybmuG
/youtube Green Onions by Root Doctor