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Post by cass on Apr 19, 2016 8:22:01 GMT
This may help-----a handbell, a flute, a clarinet, a trumpet, a piano, a violin and a human voice can all produce the same note----it is the 'color' that allows you to identify which instrument it is. That's very a simplistic, but basic, way to think of it. Hmm I learned in high school music that it is "start sound" of the instrument that allows our ears to distinguish it from others. For example, in string instruments, the moment the musician starts playing their first note, we hear a "crunch" sound as the player places the bow against the string. For the flute, the moment he/she plays their first note, we hear a soft tonguing sound (as if they're quietly saying the letter "t"). According to my music teacher, a study was done (somewhere in the world, I don't know) where participants listened to individual recordings of different instruments playing a single note. However, the "start sound" of the instrument was removed. This was done by playing the recording 1 or 2 seconds in, after the player started playing the note. Participants had to identify the instruments. The results? Some participants believed they heard a flute when it was, in fact, a trumpet. When they heard the recording of an oboe, they thought it was the human voice. Interesting, isn't it? Hope I explained it clearly, especially to those who don't have a background in music. Perhaps clarinetjamie and sagaofjenny will know what I'm talking about? That's certainly an... interesting way to put it. I've asked a friend to get me the article and will read it and share it with anyone interested when I have it. But for now, what I wanted to add is that the biggest factor in identifying instruments as I was taught is in identifying the resonance and frequency of the note being played. Instruments work and sound different from one another because of how they're built and what they're made of. I will never forget one particular exercise my choir director made us do (he taught us for band, as well): he would make us listen to a single note being played on different instruments (typically recordings), and we had to correctly identify the instrument. Over and over and over. There's a whole lot of physics involved, but in layman's terms, it has to do with how the sound waves are interacting with the instrument's shape, material, size, and so on. Flutes, particularly, tend to vibrate at a single frequency, which allows them to sound very pure in tone. I played with an Armstrong flute for several years before acquiring a Gemeinhardt flute, and while neither are particularly good flutes, the tone and quality of my Gemeinhardt is far better. With violins, there's a lot of brouhaha over the superiority of a Stradivarius vs. a Guarnerius, because of the quality of the sound they produce. Same instrument with the ability to play the exact same notes, but with vastly different sound quality which suits different purposes. Further, I feel like that argument falls flat if you take away instruments and look solely at the human voice. We all have vocal chords, but we're all built somewhat differently, so the vibrations vary between us in terms of frequency, and anatomy plays a huge role in someone's overall sound, so tone is going to vary person-to-person. I also like the way she does her glissandos between notes from time to time. They're really subtle, yet there's so much control to it. An example would be at the end of "The Sound of Music" song where she sings "And I'll sing once more". The downward glissando is on the word " I'll". Her glissandos are one of my favourite things about her artistry. She uses them sparingly, and almost always with music that could be considered flat and dull if sung precisely as written. We've talked about this elsewhere, I know, but basically she "fancied up" the song, to really satisfying ends. Your comment made me realize that a lot of my dislike of other renditions of "The Sound of Music" tends to be because there's no artistic character to buff out the musical notes, usually just the singer trying to run away with it and be not-Julie. Maybe instead of hearing her version and saying "Okay, we can't do that!" they could learn from it and everybody's happier. Like Ga-Ga's tribute. I've never heard of the "start sound" being the identifying factor, and in fact I would think that a good musician masks that as they grow more proficient. Do you have a link, I'd like to read more about that. As for Julie's voice being hard work---of course it is, and I think Streisand is being disingenuous when she says she "just does it". The fact that we hear Julie's voice as being effortless is an indication of how much effort she put in. Yes, outside of warmup, people aren't even supposed to be hearing that tonguing sound, and every one of us got crap constantly at the hands of our classical conductor in my band for sloppy starts, no matter what the instrument and no matter what the style of music we were playing. Flute is pretty dang hard, but I gave violin a shot once and I have the utmost respect for violinists. I can't even fathom. You literally have to pick up the bow with your A-Game intact. Re: Streisand... I've come to appreciate her, but she kind of always is disingenuous. And that extends to her voice. I hate nearly everything she's done vocally with the exception of Funny Girl and Yentl up until the last five or six years and it's mostly because she has such a great voice and nary a shred of vocal discipline. Some people like that, where I find it terrible, and to me it shows a real lack of caring, which is reflected in her response to Julie's question. Her last couple albums, though... she got it. Finally. They're gold.
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Post by utility_singer on Apr 19, 2016 11:02:50 GMT
Julie's vocal range profile: click Yes, that's the link I said wasn't accurate. As for the rest, I do find it very interesting but my first overly simplified explanation was for the non-musicians among us. And Streisand---well, I love some of her stuff, I hate other of her stuff, and don't listen to her much unless I'm alone, because my husband can't stand her. I think most of the stuff I don't like came from that "I'm the greatest star" head trip she went on from the 80s through the early 2000s, and then her 'last tour' followed by the 'no really, THIS is the last tour' nonsense. I certainly hope that she comes to her senses and simply does a concert version of Gypsy rather than trying to star in the movie herself. She's just too damn old to be believable on screen in that role. Stage, maybe she'd get away with it. But on film? Not a chance.
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Post by cass on Apr 19, 2016 15:09:04 GMT
I think Babs lives in a bubble sustained merely by her own ego, to be honest. She comes out on occasion but it's a rare thing, indeed. I lol'd when I saw she wants to star in Gypsy. Of course she wants to star in Gypsy! Probably will be passing that one up, unless I like the vocals, if that ends up being the case. As to the above discussion, here is the mentioned paper for those interested: Elliott_Charles_A.pdf (472.03 KB) I have a few thoughts, but I want to mull it over first. It's short, only four or five pages, and the most jargony it gets is stats.
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Post by utility_singer on Apr 19, 2016 17:29:19 GMT
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Post by eve93 on Apr 19, 2016 19:10:30 GMT
OMG I was just reading the exact same thing about Freddie Mercury, but on a different news website and was thinking about what was being discussed in this thread. And then when I came here, I saw you already posted it. Creepy! Great minds think alike I guess? Lol www.ew.com/article/2016/04/19/queen-freddie-mercury-voice-science
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Post by utility_singer on Apr 19, 2016 23:13:52 GMT
That was interesting, but does anyone else find this contradictory?
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Post by cass on Apr 20, 2016 8:12:55 GMT
That was interesting, but does anyone else find this contradictory? Yeah, and it is. The sample is tiny, limited, and in no way represents an appropriate cross-section. This always needs to be acknowledged and the strength of arguments altered to reflect that, and since the researcher went into this expecting to get a certain result, he fudged the interpretation of the stats to garner the above contradiction. Instead, he should have been looking at the fact that the oboe, clarinet, and trumpet were consistently and significantly identified without the attack and release and asking himself, "Why these?" There's a distinct pattern in which instruments, disregarding statistical significance (which really wasn't interpreted well, anyway), were correctly or incorrectly identified. The first thing that came to mind is that the instruments yielding significant results without attack and release in their recordings is that they're brass and woodwinds, which are together classed as wind instruments (read more here if it suits your fancy) because of how sound is made in them, and they have more easily identifiable frequencies and resonance, which the researcher just completely skipped altogether. Check here for a great explanation of not only the musicality of woodwind acoustics, but the physics and mathematics behind it that provide a starting point for my counterarguments to the main conclusions and actual thesis statement. It's OKAY for your thesis to be ambiguous or wrong! But you gotta acknowledge that, and ask yourself why. This guy didn't. As a ranty aside, including the students' majors and instruments were extraneous variables unless they had a specific analytic purpose, and really should not have been included in the findings without intent to actually use that. Not to say that the information doesn't have value or purpose -- it does, and I think it should have been utilized -- but it's kind of just... there. Why? This is such lazy work and is very poor research quality with very little background to support it, and the actual empirical data is dubious. Also, it sounds like who actually wrote the thing was graduate students who don't understand statistical significance and how it's to be expressed. No researcher/professor worth his doctorate should be writing such drivel, and it's a shame if he actually did this analysis himself. My stats prof and thesis advisor would have flayed me for such a display. Buuuuut, it was written in 1975 and academia has made serious attempts to overcome such mediocrity since then. So. Hmph.
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Post by utility_singer on Apr 20, 2016 20:51:39 GMT
LOL I never even looked at the date on it. But thank you, I thought maybe I was reading it incorrectly.
And ---surprise, surprise---was the line about the violin and cello being consistently mistaken for the other. Two string instruments playing the same pitch, sounding similar? Who'd'a thunk it?
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Post by cass on Apr 21, 2016 7:37:56 GMT
LOL I never even looked at the date on it. But thank you, I thought maybe I was reading it incorrectly. And ---surprise, surprise---was the line about the violin and cello being consistently mistaken for the other. Two string instruments playing the same pitch, sounding similar? Who'd'a thunk it? I was a bit shocked that such a piece of crap qualified itself as a legitimate publication, and it mirrored a lot of papers that I've read in sociolinguistics and political science that come from the 60s and 70s, so I googled the paper to find out when it was published. It's not in the article scan itself (yet another marker of shoddy research and publication, sigh), so you didn't miss it. It's just not there. I was going to carry on with mentioning the violin and cello but I just kept thinking about what crap research and analysis it was and let it go with the instrument family I know best. The contradictions and patterns speak for themselves.
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Post by clarinetjamie on Apr 23, 2016 21:42:58 GMT
I need to read the article, but the attack of a note in a group setting should always be together and you should never hear individual tonguing going on. Notes should be attacked and release with precision. It's called watching and counting.
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Post by sagaofjenny on Apr 23, 2016 23:42:50 GMT
I imagine they used solo instruments
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Post by bluesatinsashes on May 12, 2016 1:52:05 GMT
Oh wow, MAJOR (or should I say minor, diminished, or augmented? ) fail of me for picking out such a crappy article. If I had known. I was wondering why it was hardly cited in other papers. And yeah, I'm pretty sure the recordings were all solo instruments. Gosh, it's been a while since I've posted. I quickly went through some new threads and I'm seeing a lot of new people. And it's only been 3 weeks!
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Post by augiesannie on May 16, 2016 0:45:50 GMT
Hmm I learned in high school music that it is "start sound" of the instrument that allows our ears to distinguish it from others. For example, in string instruments, the moment the musician starts playing their first note, we hear a "crunch" sound as the player places the bow against the string. For the flute, the moment he/she plays their first note, we hear a soft tonguing sound (as if they're quietly saying the letter "t"). According to my music teacher, a study was done (somewhere in the world, I don't know) where participants listened to individual recordings of different instruments playing a single note. However, the "start sound" of the instrument was removed. This was done by playing the recording 1 or 2 seconds in, after the player started playing the note. Participants had to identify the instruments. The results? Some participants believed they heard a flute when it was, in fact, a trumpet. When they heard the recording of an oboe, they thought it was the human voice. Interesting, isn't it? Hope I explained it clearly, especially to those who don't have a background in music. Perhaps clarinetjamie and sagaofjenny will know what I'm talking about? the "technical term" for the quality that distinguishes between different "tone colors" is timbre. I'm not really sure how to explain it well but I'm sure if you google timbre someone will explain it far better than I can. however, I do visualize music quite distinctly in terms of both color and texture; as I said, it's a synesthetic kind of thing, and I'm sure it's different for everyone, and that's why it makes so much sense to me that julie describes her voice as white. as for that study, bluesatinsashes , I actually have a difficult time wrapping my head around that. as far as I understand it, timbre is mostly a result of all the frequencies (most of which are overtones) in the sound, with the actual pitch that we hear determined by the peak frequency. with this in mind, it seems to me like the beginning of the note (which is more of a characterization of the physical properties and appropriate technique of whatever instrument is being played) would help, but you should still be able to tell from the middle of the note. buuuut I've never taken any kind of acoustics class so keep in mind this is just my general understanding/thoughts anyway, back to the topic at hand - yes, I believe julie's description is mostly meant to describe her voice as being somewhat thinner and lighter than what is required for most opera. put her next to most any professional operatic singer and you'd definitely understand what she meant someone referred to this thread as going on a tangent. I thought it was fascinating and a perfect demonstration of why this is such an interesting, accomplished and fascinating fandom!
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Post by indigoblue on Mar 19, 2021 0:09:38 GMT
Bringing up this old, fascinating post which starts off as a clip of unused music from TSOM and morphs into an in-depth discussion about the technicalities of Julie's voice. Enjoy and post away!
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Post by reverendcaptain on Apr 8, 2021 17:47:31 GMT
First, I also really like the beginning of the 16 going on 17 reprise. It makes me smile whenever it comes up on my playlist because I feel like it's kind of a secret just for those of us that listen to the soundtrack.
Second, everyone's musical knowledge on this thread is amazing! I know nothing about vocals other than what I find pleasing to my ear. Julie, to me, sounds very clean. Every syllable is perfectly clear. There doesn't seem to be as much vibrato to her singing as compared to other leading ladies, which I like. I recently watched The Music Man and Oklahoma!, both of which star Shirley Jones. While I like her voice, it just isn't as...I don't know...effortless sounding maybe...as Julie's. I could listen to Julie all day long.
For some reason, I especially like her songs that end on a long fabulous note - I Have Confidence, DoReMi Reprise, I Could Have Danced All Night, etc. Can anyone think of any others? I'm always looking to add to my Julie Playlist.
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Post by bluesatinsashes on Mar 30, 2023 22:52:55 GMT
I re-listened to the song last night and I just noticed something!
So as you know, the song starts off with the orchestra (this is featured in the movie) but when she starts singing "A bell is no bell 'til you ring it", I noticed two things:
1) the audio quality is scratchier 2) there is only piano accompaniment
And when she goes into the chorus "When you're sixteen, going on seventeen", we hear the orchestra again and the audio quality is restored.
My guess is that she recorded a rough take of "A bell is no bell" which never made the final recording but was retroactively inserted for the 35th anniversary collector's album.
Anyhow, I'm still happy they kept those rough takes. Who knows what other ones may be lying around!
First, I also really like the beginning of the 16 going on 17 reprise. It makes me smile whenever it comes up on my playlist because I feel like it's kind of a secret just for those of us that listen to the soundtrack. Second, everyone's musical knowledge on this thread is amazing! I know nothing about vocals other than what I find pleasing to my ear. Julie, to me, sounds very clean. Every syllable is perfectly clear. There doesn't seem to be as much vibrato to her singing as compared to other leading ladies, which I like. I recently watched The Music Man and Oklahoma!, both of which star Shirley Jones. While I like her voice, it just isn't as...I don't know...effortless sounding maybe...as Julie's. I could listen to Julie all day long. For some reason, I especially like her songs that end on a long fabulous note - I Have Confidence, DoReMi Reprise, I Could Have Danced All Night, etc. Can anyone think of any others? I'm always looking to add to my Julie Playlist. Thinking quickly on my toes here...maybe Le Jazz Hot?
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Post by augiesannie on Apr 10, 2023 10:20:24 GMT
wow, it is really amazing what you can pick up even after 0000s of watches bluesatinsashes!
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