Just want to share

It’s a funny thing. I always thought I’d be doing this in IntFiction. But we’ve definitely strayed apart - my release of my public collection didn’t ellicit a single reply. I’ve posted in French, Italian and Spanish communities, I’ve posted here and in RAIF, and IntFiction is the only place where there was no reply at all. The Spanish were particularly quick and enthusiastic.

Anyway! No worries, because I have this little corner of the community!

I’ve always thought that whenever I recorded my first performance worth listening to, one that I feel happy with, I’d like to share it first with this community. It has nothing to do with IF, of course - but here is where I feel I’m among friends, even never having met any of you, even if I sometimes rub someone the wrong way.

Recorded live, sung to a pre-recorded backing track in the foyer of a hotel I sing regularly at. An opera-flavoured rendition of Brel’s “Amsterdam”. The version turned out to be a tad too low and too slow for my needs, but people liked it. It’s not like I was even getting paid. :stuck_out_tongue: Still, I’m speeding it up and raising it half a tone next time.

EDIT - Google Drive Music Player link. Not sure how well it works: http://www.driveplayer.com/#fileIds=0B4qjYuo7MJfXQ0JqMVlpR3VJbnc&userId=104962695144214602457

Also, “Recondita Armonia” is an aria from Tosca (sung the same day, also with a pre-recorded playback). I’m not pleased with the B-flat at the end - starts off practically an A, then manages to climb up to B-flat - but all things considered it’s my best yet. So I’m also sharing. :smile:

EDIT - Google Drive Music Player link. Not sure how well it works: http://www.driveplayer.com/#fileIds=0B4qjYuo7MJfXV25RWGV1RXRkbzg&userId=104962695144214602457

You don’t have to comment, but if you do have something to say, go right ahead. :slight_smile: I promise you won’t find any fault I’m not already aware of myself. Anyway, the way I talk about some games some times, I’m due some harsh words.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4qjYuo7MJfXc0FnZE5IcEdDSnc&authuser=0

Thanks for putting up with me. :wink:

EDIT - Really, I don’t what the point is of GoogleDrive having an embedded sound player if it doesn’t stream the sound; you have to actually download and open if your media player. :stuck_out_tongue:

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DUDE Y U NO AUTOTUNE IT ALREADY

Seriously, though, congrats on doing this and having the courage to share! I can’t possibly give any meaningful criticism, but I don’t think it’d be appropriate. It’s good to know other people have other artistic goals beyond writing a text adventure. And that they have succeeded in them, too.

Well, the player version didn’t work for me, but when I clicked on the link for the drive files themselves, it played in my browser just fine. (go figure).

I didn’t understand any of the words besides “Amsterdam” but I thought it was very nicely done. (listening to it for the third time as I write this)

I’m flattered! I keep wishing I’d have done it a smidge faster, but hey, next time.

I would point you to Brel’s original, stunning rendition. Bowie also sings an English version (I think the translation is by Mort Shuman? Could be wrong) which is less impressive than Brel (but most people, being only mortals, are less impressive than Brel) but has words you can understand. And it’s a fairly good and accurate translation.

Hey hey. I didn’t expect to bump this, but since at least one person liked it enough to hear three times, I suppose I have an obligation to. :slight_smile: Yesterday was quite a day. I did Amsterdam again - a semitone higher and a bit faster, and, well, I’m rather proud of it.

Amsterdam: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4qjYuo7MJfXR2JHbG1jblpHVUE/edit

I think it’s something rather special. Also, I’m sharing a rendition of the Pagliacci aria that I did particularly well yesterday (quite a day!). It’s an aria sung by a performer - a pagliaccio, a travelling entertainer, literally a clown - who knows his wife is having an affair, but he doesn’t know who with. His heart is broken, he doesn’t know what he’s saying, what he’s doing, but he must go on stage! He must wear the wig, paint his face; he isn’t a man, he is a pagliaccio, and the more he laughs at his broken heart, the more people will applause; and the more readily they will pay to watch the performance.

One tends to think of Opera as passé and old-fashioned, but reading the synopsis above, doesn’t it still sound rather fascinating? I tend to think of this opera sharing the same themes as “The Blue Angel”. Anyway, I digress! As usual!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4qjYuo7MJfXeVFiZW81Nk54ajQ&authuser=0

No iffy pitch issues here! I hope! :smiley:

Please keep sharing. It’s good to know people who like text adventures have more interests than, well, text adventures–and it’s great that when they do, they share it with a “I hope you all enjoy this” e.g. without puffing themselves up.

While I know nothing about music criticism, I still enjoy being able to listen to something that someone has clearly worked hard at and enjoys. Sometimes it’s hard to look into new stuff and, well, having this drop on my lap is rather nice. Also, it’s cool just to hear someone so they are more than just words on a screen. And this is oh so much better than a hastily produced youtube video.

Also, opera and text adventures both can be seen as a semi-passe art form that Advanced People don’t have time for. But both have so much to offer.

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Still don’t understand any of the words, but I like it a lot. Keep up the good work!

Like Andrew, I do not really know enough about Opera to evaluate. But you have a beautiful voice! (P.S. I didn’t use the music player links either, b/c they required that I log into Google, whereas the simple file links didn’t. A music player that requires a login: leave it to Google. smh)

Thank you all. :slight_smile:

(this line is padding because if the post is less than 20 characters this forum won’t accept it)

I love classical music, but somehow that love doesn’t extend much to opera. Yeah, it’s inevitable to enjoy some Mozart, Wagner and Verdi arias and overtures, but I usually don’t follow much. Anyway, Amsterdam sounds eerily like Greensleeves

Hey, it kinda does! That’s weird, I never noticed it before.

I meant to say the first time around that I enjoyed it very much. Made me wish I was interested in writing a game where such music would be applicable.

I’ve thought about that at length, as you can imagine. :slight_smile: In the end, I decided that this sort of music is too intrusive - it’s no background music, it’s music that you stop to listen to (and if you don’t, then it’s music you’d rather not hear). Not really appropriate for a text-based gaming environment.

Still, I could be wrong, so if you do decide to write a game like that, hey. Let me know what sort of music you need and we’ll see what happens. The background music I use is from various sources around the net, so I’ll be honest, legally it’s iffy - with opera it’s not so much “rights of the composer” as “rights of the orchestra who’s playing”.

Maybe it could inspire an ad-hoc ShuffleComp-ish game?

Then make it a feature that the music is front and centre. Kinda how Bastion made the voice over (and in someplaces singing) integral to the game.

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Hey, wow. I’t funny when people record your performance and put it on youtube. :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t have put it, myself. My voice doesn’t record well. I know it not only from my own sensibility but also from what people say. Recorders get the “ringing” of my voice, the “metal” in the sound, but they don’t get the volume and the space and the involvement, so the result is always underwhelming. I certainly find this recording underwhelming and won’t use it for promo or for any other reason - the As in the end sound downright feeble, and I know they didn’t sound like that live. Also, and I know this from my experience with other singers and from the feedback others give me, recording is a funny phenomena - you see a production live and it’s wonderful, but you hear the recording of that same performance and you find lots of little faults you honestly didn’t hear at the time.

It’s great for studying and improving. Less great for promo, unless you have one of those voices recorders love.

But hey! It’s cute and I want to share! :smiley:

EDIT - Recording an opera singer usually takes some mike levelling anyway. When you hear an opera singer on a stage, the very room is amplifying his sound, which is projected towards the end of the room and then fills the room from everywhere at once. In order to achieve this, the actual sound being projected is very concentrated, small, and tight. Microphones close to your mouth will only really catch this concentrated sound, and not do justice to what the audience is hearing. A standard camera microphone doesn’t have the 360º ability of the ear to catch all the sound properly. At the very least, some post-production is usually necessary, not to change anything but merely to restore - into the recording - what people would actually hear in the room.

If I’d know they’d record I’d have brought my Zoom microphone. Ah well. It’s funny to see the faces I make. :slight_smile: I look down a lot, certainly, a bit too much, and my eyes go all over the place. I have to watch (heh) for that!

EDIT 2 - You know how aging a wine makes the wine incorporate the taste of the wooden cask it’s in? How the very flavour of the wood seeps into the wine? That’s an opera singer on a stage, and the wood is the room providing the necessary resonances everywhere. If you remove the cask, you get a wine with less body, and less interest, and that’s what you get when you hear or record an opera singer right next to him; when you record the sound coming out of their mouths, instead of what you SHOULD be doing, which is record the sound which is bouncing off of the walls.

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expected from an opera singer and not half as bad as those of Lang Lang, and he’s a pianist, damnit!

I just asked someone who was there. In order for them to recognise in the video what they’d heard live on that day I had to reduce the treble on my speakers to half and boost the bass by 25%. Which is a relief, because I like it better that way. :slight_smile: It’s down to what I said before about recording voices…

namekusejin, I don’t know Lang Lang, but I do know Glenn Gould. “Excentric” would be a fair label. “Unique” as well. “Genius”, undoubtedly.

you liked Glenn because he hummed along, right? :wink:

I admit that’s part of his charm. :slight_smile: And his Bach is just amazing, his phrasing. You can hear the various voices as he plays them, each of them being as important as the other.

I also heard a recording of him playing a Mozart piece like it was a romantic piece. :slight_smile: He totally threw Mozart’s tempo to the wind. It was pleasantly weird. The sort of thing you can only get away with when you’ve got a career like his. It’s the sort of twisted thing that really shouldn’t be done… except that when it IS done, and done well, holds a quirky, perverse pleasure.