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I suppose that's also how songs wear out with time and/or repeated listens. Fittingly, any frisson seems to be the first to go. I'll contribute Stellenbosch Un

by mgdlbp 4y ago

I suppose that's also how songs wear out with time and/or repeated listens. Fittingly, any frisson seems to be the first to go. I'll contribute Stellenbosch University Choir's rendition of Say Something (by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera). The arrangement capitalizes on the choir's dynamic range; by remaining relatively soft throughout, the sudden loud, tutti passages (1:38 & 3:51) have great effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdnPAIFn32A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdnPAIFn32A I find that choral performances of pop songs work really well, though they're regrettably but understandably rare. Interestingly, the focus on dynamics isn't present in the original, duet, or Pentatonix version of Say Something, so no frisson moments there. Someone listed Bohemian Rhapsody--can also compare with Stellenbosch's version: https://soundcloud.com/uschoirkoor/bohemian-rhapsody https://soundcloud.com/uschoirkoor/bohemian-rhapsody

MeteorMarc 4y ago
For me, this depends on the composer. E.g. Beethoven moments wear down quickly on repeated listening, while Bach's moments are more durable.
mgdlbp 4y ago
(10 days later...for the record): Turns out choral covers of pop songs are more common than I'd remembered. It's just that the most relevant search term is popchoir/pop choir, which wasn't obvious to me until I noticed it used in several video titles in sequence. These tend to be performed by less formal community choirs, which makes sense. And though many have mic setups, the point about choirs being difficult to record still applies. The interesting bit is that many European languages have converged on the same juxtaposition of the lexemes <pop><choir>, with the former consistently being a loanword from English. That is, there are lots of search results to be found by translating literally to terms like popchor (German), popkoor (Dutch), поп-хор (several Slavic languages), or popcoro (several Romance languages), plus hyphen and space variations.

by mgdlbp 4y ago

MeteorMarc 4y ago

For me, this depends on the composer. E.g. Beethoven moments wear down quickly on repeated listening, while Bach's moments are more durable.

mgdlbp 4y ago

(10 days later...for the record): Turns out choral covers of pop songs are more common than I'd remembered. It's just that the most relevant search term is popchoir/pop choir, which wasn't obvious to me until I noticed it used in several video titles in sequence. These tend to be performed by less formal community choirs, which makes sense. And though many have mic setups, the point about choirs being difficult to record still applies. The interesting bit is that many European languages have converged on the same juxtaposition of the lexemes <pop><choir>, with the former consistently being a loanword from English. That is, there are lots of search results to be found by translating literally to terms like popchor (German), popkoor (Dutch), поп-хор (several Slavic languages), or popcoro (several Romance languages), plus hyphen and space variations.