the one where you get musically culture-ified

eric whitacre.

if you already know who i'm talking about, then you basically know what i'm going to talk about.

sheer genius.

he's a choral composer and his pieces are incredible! talk about dissonance. talk about craziness! you can't even hear everything that's going on with all of the 50 kajillion parts singing at the same time.

now, i don't pretend to know anything about choral music, but thankfully i was exposed to several of his pieces in my cute little high school choir.

i randomly heard one of his songs at work today, so it reminded me of this whole genre of music that, let's be honest, i don't listen to very often (but should, because it's great).

so i decided you all should be exposed to some of eric whitacre's pieces.

the first one - sleep - my high school choir did this. there are parts in this song where literally 14 different notes are being sung. is it even possible for our brains to process all 14 of those notes at the same time? i don't know - listen for yourself. eric whitacre did this giant, global-wide, virtual choir. so you'll see people singing from all over the world and he matched them all up and made it into one choir. if you don't get chills at 3:40ish - 4:06, then you need to take a step back and listen more carefully.

another eric whitacre song we did is water night. the lyrics are infinitely weirder, but the dissonances might be even cooler. now think about it - try singing a note when someone next to you is singing a note like a half step down from you! also, not to mention that i sang first soprano, and to this day i still don't know how i ever sang that high.

on another nostalgic, choral sidenote, my choir also sang this song. by the amazing spiritual arranger moses hogan. here it's sung by the motab! (gotta love 'em) remember how i said i was first soprano?? check out 1:44. the really high part. yeah, that was the part that i sang. (it was the C above the C above middle C. eeeeek.) i don't know how i ever did that. haaaa! the quality's not that great, but it's short!

now, one last culture-ification. this was another high school classic. if you have never A) heard this song or B) watched the video, you are seriously missing out. it's hilarious. also, kind of creepy. i assumed everyone knew this song, until recently when i met people that had no idea what it was. enjoy! oh, and don't get too creeped out by the weird purple shag thing. you gotta make it to the end when they end up victorious and defeat the giant space-squid. yeah, it's epic.

well, there you have it for today. it's been real, it's been fun. who knows what i'll blog about next!