Musical musings

[mapsedge]

This is the continuation of the thought that I alluded to in my Alison Kraus post.

I'm not sure how I want to approach this topic.  It's about home grown bands, and faire bands in particular, but I have some criticisms and I don't want everyone that reads this who is in a faire band to think I'm talking about them.  Maybe I am, maybe I'm not.  If the shoe fits, I suppose, then, that it needs to be worn without any griping, because my intent is good.  At least, I like to think that working to improve the overall sound of the music is good intent.

There is one faire band (hereinafter referred to as fb) in particular that is a shining example of what's wrong with fb's in general (there are, btw, fb's who Get It, and sound really good).  You've got a group of people, each of whom by him- or herself is a reasonably good singer, and they decide they're going to perform, for instance, "Wild Mountain Thyme"  (or Go, Lassie Go if you prefer.)  No, hold on.  For this example, we need something a little more up-tempo, say, "The Queen of all Argyle."  They've got the energy, they've got the volume, and they can carry a crowd because the crowd likes them, and if they're lucky, no one's listening too closely because when the harmony starts, that's when the music breaks down into cacophony.

You see, you've got three or four people, all singing more or less the same song, at more or less the same tempo, at more or less the same volume.  See all those "more or less"es? 

Let's contrast this with the concert I attended last night, Alison Kraus.  When you had all three mail vocalists working harmonies for AK, you couldn't tell one from the other - all of the S's ended at the same moment (or were dropped altogether*); no one tried to compete or outsing anyone else; everyone was precisely on tempo; in short, the blend was flawless.  When, at the end, AK and Dan Tyminski sang "Down to the River to Pray", DT and AK listened to one another, and DT's voice was always, always under AK's, supporting, bolstering, reinforcing, never ever competing.  You could hear him adjust to match her, and it was gorgeous.

Someone's going to argue with me now.  I can hear the voice now, "But they're professional singers!  We can't do that."  B. u. l. l. s. h. i. t.  They're singers just like the rest of us who, a: are aware of what it takes to sound good; and b: make the effort to do that.

I sing on occasion at the local coffee house, and as a part of my set I do a cover of "There Were Roses."  Another musician there, name of Ruth Ward, will almost always come out of the audience, grab a mic and sing harmony with me on the refrain.  Ruth gets it.  She blends so flawlessly that the first time she did it I almost didn't make it through the song - I'd started to cry for the beauty of it.  It touched the audience, too.

And isn't that the goal?

* A technique I learned working with Frank Blair: only the lead pronounces hard or trailing consonants.  The folks singing harmony sound weird, but the final blend is perfect to the listener.