Recording Music that has never been recorded before / isn't available online
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    Go on YouTube and search for a piece of polyphony or a specific Gregorian chant.

    In most cases, you'll find recordings (even if they're not perfect).

    This is a wonderful thing and makes our lives quite nice and easy.

    Looking at a score for the first time in your parish office with the noises of an office all around you (chattering co-workers, photocopier, bookkeeper playing praise and worship music, etc)? Throw on some headphones and listen to a recording. Much easier than trying to hear the schola in your head sing the score with the background noise.

    However, occasionally you will run across a piece of sacred music (Song X) that has no recording on YouTube, no sample MP3, etc.

    How can you help make sure this doesn't happen to the next person who comes along?

    Record your (hopefully competent) choir singing the (hopefully public domain) piece! Upload it with a clear and easy-to-search-for title.

    Then bingo - six months down the road some Music Director from the other side of the country who searches for Song X will find your video! You'll have helped a colleague and you don't even know it.

    Orlande de Lassus has a number of polyphonic Offertory propers. Almost none of them have recordings available online. I will begin the process of putting them online this weekend with his Perfice Gressus Meos.

    The next time you find a piece of music that doesn't have a recording online, do the same.
    Thanked by 7Adam Wood Andrew Motyka Allan D Ally CHGiffen Ben Heath
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,480
    http://www.chantcafe.com/2014/02/recording-music-that-has-never-been.html
  • JaredOstermann
    Posts: 488
    And then turn off comments on YouTube, or risk permanent scars to your self esteem from musicology nerds comparing you to the Tallis Scholars.

    This is a good idea, though. Our schola currently sings polyphonic office hymns for Advent, Lent, Easter, Palm Sunday at Vespers. I haven't found any recordings of these pieces online - maybe I can sneak a recorder in. In addition, there are very few recordings available even for purchase of "normal" (that is, non-monumental) magnificat settings. For example, the Palestrina book for 4 voices.
    Thanked by 1Andrew Motyka
  • aria
    Posts: 85
    Yes! This is a great idea. I would add, though, be sure to include the name of the composer/arranger name in the video title. It's really hard to wade through every "Ave Maria" (for example) when you're looking for a specific one but the video poster hasn't include that info!
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Set comments for approval before release.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    I'd like to add another layer to the processes by which leaders can better inform their preparations to teach, interpret and perform ritual and sacred music, whether congregational or choral. As many of us who compose and arrange know, or for those who avail themselves of the pdfs and mp3's of ChoralWiki, the ability to digitally transcribe and edit old or newly composed works is now commonplace. Savants such as Francis and Mr. Copper also have arrays of additional tools to nuance the audio reproduction of a digital score beyond the Finale "human" commands. But before Finale/Sibelius/Lilypond etc. MIDI keyboards for decades generally have sequencing software built in to some extent.
    The director who isn't the greatest keyboardist, or barely passed (that would be me) score reading keyboard realization at undergrad level, can do literally what is told them their first day of choral conducting courses: you must know each voice part (and accompaniment however orchestrated) thoroughly and absolutely. Well, why just listen to varying levels of recording competence only, and inevitably perhaps buy into someone else's interpretation decisions, when you can input (without metronome if you're brave) each voice line and discover the nuances of voice leading and dissonance resolution and text painting and elocution yourself, before you pass the scores out to your singers?
    Sequencing for director preparation is a very accessible and revealing tool financially available to virtually everyone in our profession.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen francis
  • francis
    Posts: 10,818
    I just found this thread as a result of Adam cajoling me to do this for money. OK. I'll bite... How many here would pay for a simulation, how much and what need be turn around time?
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Remember, list member Matthew Curtis has http://www.choraltracks.com
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