Choir Madness!!!

[Sean]

^It's that good, eh?

Here's another song by Gwyneth Walker that the group premiered with the BPO that day. How Can I Keep From Singing

We sang a different arrangement of this song last year at UB. I'll post them both so you can her the difference.

How Can I Keeps From Singing by Gwyneth Walker (new video)
[youtube]TBJhz4-b-WU[/youtube]

How Can I Keep From Singing by Ronald Stahlei (Older video)
[youtube]xPHe54QrDIw[/youtube]

I definitely feel that the Walker arrangement is more upbeat, and cheerful, while the Staheli version is more solemn, but more beautiful sounding, in my opinion. I've performed both of these song too (although I wasn't a member of the group when the Walker version was premiered in concert), and I can say that the arrangement by Gwyneth Walker is much easier to learn and perform, mainly because it isn't acappella (no instrumentation). But...I definitely think the extra work to perfect the other version is worth it!

[RJDiogenes]

Yes, the second one sounds like a sad Irish folk tune or something; nice enough, but not really suited to the lyrics. The first one is more uplifting.

[Sean]

Well, the spring concerts are all said and done with...so you know what that means!

But first...

I've been playing around with some video hosting sites, and I've finally found one that's similar to YouTube, but less...how to say it...noticeable? Point is, on this site, there's less chance of those who I don't want finding these to find them. So, for now, what I've decided to do (once I get the general consensus, of course [from the only other person who has posted in this thread...]), is put any live action videos taken off of a camcorder on that site, and keep posting (for now, at least) any "music videos" that I make on YouTube. Since I have multiple recordings of some of the songs (each sounds a bit different though, and for the live action videos...there are some you just have to see to believe), that will also avoid doubling on each channel. The only downside to LiveVideo, the other site I'm using, is that ReNext doesn't have an imbed feature for it, like it does for YouTube. So...just links, for now, I guess. What are your thoughts on this? Does this sound like a good idea?

Anyway, back to business.

This is the first song performed at our spring district concert. Since it's the Men's Chorale...we decided to have a bit of fun with it... We start off with a rousing introduction by, of all people, the Jonas Brothers ( ), before transitioning into Brothers, Sing On!, by Edward Greig. He's the same composer who wrote Peer Gynt.

Brothers, Sing On!

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Heh. That was funny.

The only downside to LiveVideo, the other site I'm using, is that ReNext doesn't have an imbed feature for it, like it does for YouTube. So...just links, for now, I guess. What are your thoughts on this? Does this sound like a good idea?

Sure, that sounds like it will keep the live action videos under the radar. I just wonder if YouTube has a way of letting you restrict access to videos or something; I'll have to check on that. And I'll see what I could do about coming up with a LiveVideo embed code.

[Sean]

^YouTube does have a way to set the video to private, but you can share it with a maximum of 25 people (who have to be friends, or subscribers), and stops it from embedding.

Thanks for attempting to crack the code, so to speak. It would be nice to embed these too.

[RJDiogenes]

No problem. It only took me a half dozen tries. I can't seem to get rid of that white bar at the bottom; I'll try again tomorrow.

[edited to remove faulty video player]

And it would be nice if it didn't play automatically.

[Sean]

^Thank you RJ. Playing automatically could be a problem...wouldn't want the whole page going off at once, would we now...(although...we would be in 50+ part harmony... )

I don't see a white bar, only the function bar. I'll access the video, and see if there isn't some way to change the play settings...

[Sean]

I've fiddled around with the settings...there's an option to turn off the auto play on the video viewing page...but when I do that, and re-embed it here, it still auto plays...it changes the embedding link, but that link isn't what's used in the URL tag...hmm...I sent an email to their support center. Hopefully they'll get back to me. They're supposed to be pretty good about answering questions.

[RJDiogenes]

That's good; it's pretty useless if it auto-plays. Maybe there's something in the non-auto-playing embedding link that I can work into the HTML code. We'll try that if they don't have an answer.

I did fix the white bar later on by fiddling with it. I was able to set the Flashplayer "wmode" property to "transparent." But setting the "play" property to "false," which should stop it from autoplaying, has no effect. I don't understand it.

[Sean]

^Well, thanks for trying. Must be something on LiveVideo's end...I'm still waiting to hear back form them. I edited the post for now though, to remove the embedded vid...the auto playing was becoming annoying.

Now, for something new! (almost). I attempted to sync the audio track form the CD to the video I have...and I think it worked pretty well! The sound is much more crisp, and almost all of the background noise is gone now. It's the same song that I put on LiveVideo (now, without the pesky autoplay!).

Brothers, Sing On!, by Edward Greig
[youtube]XKKpjDKHQck[/youtube]

Next, one that I personally loved (and so did the other 300+ people in the auditorium. The ability to do neat a cappella arrangements like this one is something I will miss, since there's no Men's Chorale next year...which I don't entirely mind though, because of all the benefits rehearsing with the mixed group every day will have. If you listen to radio stations that play more recent songs, you might be familiar with this one...

Over My Head, by The Fray

[youtube]UupEvHvPJv8[/youtube]

Normally, the song has guitars and a piano in the background. Here, we did it all vocally.

What I'd like to know, is how Youtube knew to put the version done by The Fray, and other Fray songs in the "related Videos" section. I didn't put any such info in the title, nor did I add any tags, or categories. Not even a description...

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Interesting. Maybe the title and name was enough if it's a popular song; it may be based on search volume, like Google.

I never heard it before, but it's very melodious. And I like that rainbow pic.

I might Post my livevideo code in the Computer Forum at TrekBBS and see if any of the programmers can help out. I've found various attempts at livevideo embedding here and there, all very similar, but they all autoplay. Apparently, better programmers than I have not been able to solve the problem, so I should probably move on to seeking advice.

[Sean]

^It is quite a popular song, I believe. I hear it often on the radio. And as for Youtube using the title as basis for a search que...all my videos have simple number titles. That one is "18" No mention of the song title or the composer...

[RJDiogenes]

Must be the YouTube Elves.

[Sean]

So, I've been doing a bit of snooping, and I think it may be the name of the raw file that sparked it off. When I save the videos to my computer, I name them the title of the piece, just so I know what one is where. The name of the raw file for that video is "Over My Head". So...maybe that's it. They must make note of the file name somewhere. If you don't set a name for your video, they use the raw file name, which tells me that they acknowledge it somehow. I'll have to try naming the next one something unrelated...and see if that has any effect.

[RJDiogenes]

That must explain; they must index the raw file names.

I got some ideas from TrekBBS on how to rework the BBCode for embedding LiveVideo; I'll try to test it out sometime this week.