Live Band Karaoke Question

Madeleine

I put in an absence request early enough that I might actually get to go on JCCC5! (all appendages crossed)

Question: Did any Karaokists ask to perform a song in a key other than the original key? Was the band happy to transpose?

stationary

Having seen one of the videos, I'm pretty sure that I wasn't singing "I'm Your Moon" in the original key, if indeed what I was doing could be said to have been in a key at all.  "Mandelbrot Set" was an octave or three higher than JoCo does it (and fantastic).  Nobody requested transposition, that I recall, but the band know what they're doing .  You only get to know what song you're doing (if you signed up for more than one) as you approach the stage, assuming it's a year that they remember not to leave the setlist on the edge of the stage where it will be photographed and spread on Twit-arrr, so maybe it would have to be a simple transposition.

Bry

No one explicitly requested a key change, but the band seemed happy to transpose mid-song into the key that one singer thought he or she was in -- I'm sure they'd be even happier with advance warning As Roderick reminded us, those guys were working hard.

(That said, a lot of the songs in live band karaoke were staples of the live set list anyway, so they'd have rehearsed those in a specific key. The trouble also seems to be that you don't have a chance to hear back from the band about whether or not they'd be able to accommodate any requests -- there's a sign-up sheet, and sometime later you get called up, and that's about it.)

Madeleine

Thanks!

Chaosdreamer

I could be misremembering things in my old age but I thought JoCo (maybe jokingly?) noted during the JCCC3 live band karaoke that they may not be able to accommodate key changes so the ladies may have a difficult time hitting some of the notes.

Sandrylene

What if we bring capos with us?  :P

Blue

Wait, who changed keys when? I am remembering no spontaneous key changes. I do remember that at least two of us (including ME) started off on the wrong pitch and then fixed it.

BrettGlass

@Sandrylene Tried putting a capo around my neck; didn't work. ;-)

Usually, when I do JoCo songs, I take them down a third to a fifth because he's a tenor and I'm a baritone. There are a few exceptions, though, such as "Re: Your Brains" -- where I want to give Zombie Bob a strained voice and therefore keep him at the very top of my range.

Icemage

@Blue

I don't remember any key changes either.  The only song I know for certain that they played in a different key than the original recording is Still Alive (for obvious reasons).  The rest I'd have to check some video archives to be sure, but I didn't notice any obvious transpositions.

lmac54

I probably should/would have asked the band to play a few keys higher when I got picked to sing Want You Gone, but nerves kind of got the better of me. Not so much stagefright as much as I was worried about being able to sing in that range. Having been vocally trained, I was wary of asking them to transpose because "that's how it's supposed to be, so just suck it up and do it". 

I just feel really lucky that I'm an alto and that the song was relatively high for a tenor part, so I was able to scrape by. I hope?

Bry

(@Blue / @Icemage: let me backtrack -- I thought I heard a modulation mid-song somewhere, but I don't recall precisely where, and I might be completely misremembering. Apologies if I'm mistaken.)

TrishaLynn

So here's my story, some of which I may have babbled at people after I sang "Still Alive." In my head, I know the song. When I got onto the stage (momentarily baffled by how tall it was versus how short I am; thank you, kind gentleman, for lifting me onto the stage like a "hero") and after Jonathan introduced the song, I leaned over and sang what I thought the first line should be like. He gently corrected me, I think I sang it back to him, still completely unsure, and then I thought I was ready to go.

In my head, the song is in a high register, mostly due to the post-production on it for the studio version and the one in the game. I also know that I generally have a tough time singing JoCo songs because I'm an alto/second soprano and he's a tenor. But I thought I could do this one because it's one of the few songs on the list that was originally sung by a female voice. (My other choices were "I'm Your Moon" [which I sang to my husband at our wedding reception] and "Code Monkey.")

So after a breath or two, I "went for it" and what came out of my mouth was something an octave higher than normal. I didn't want to take it back, so I just kept going along, trying to infuse it with life and energy and hoping that the gestures I was making were fun, etc.

Frankly, after following the live band karaoke version of "Mandlebrot Set" I wonder if I looked/sounded stupid in my higher than normal voice. Someone on Twit-arr said it sounded "pretty and powerful" and I want to find that person and hug the stuffing out of them for being so nice. Other people I talked to said they were surprised to hear me sing it like that compared to the all-alto Madonna song I'd done the night before; I'm glad I got a chance to show my range.

Anyway, tl;dr: Having a feminine voice and singing a JoCo song during live band karaoke is a unique challenge.

autojim

@TrishaLynn - I thought your register for "Still Alive" was entirely where it needed to be for the song -- after all, GlaDOS is a soprano. So, yeah, you did great!

Chaosdreamer

@TrishaLynn I also thought you were just doing a darn good job of imitating GLaDOS...

beth

JoCo did indeed state during JCCC3 that some songs were going to be hard for ladies because of the key.  I'm just glad I didn't have to sing Skullcrusher Mountain.

This year they were missing the middle page of lyrics for I Feel Fantastic, and  I blanked and panicked. :-/  Such flail wow.

How do you tell if you are a mezzo or an alto or a contralto?  Sara Quin's recorded version of Still Alive is much more comfortable for me to sing along to than the Ellen McClain version.  I tend to sing progressively lower when I do Rock Band (thanks auto-pitch?)  I never did choir; I play clarinet + bass clarinet, and a teeny amount of piano and guitar.

LeeAnn

Here's a few interesting articles on vocal ranges that include nice charts - notice that they do not completely agree.

http://www.rawilliamsmusic.com/Essays/Essay_Range.html

http://www.netplaces.com/singing/voice-classification/finding-your-vocal-type.htm

http://www.singingexercises.net/vocal-range-chart-and-corresponding-voice-types/

Hope this helps!