Greetings fossils, ancient and recent!
I’m writing on behalf of the current members of the Virginia Glee Club to invite you to participate in another virtual choir video! Our project over the summer yielded a great video of current members, and fossils spanning 60 years(!), singing Virginia, Hail, All Hail! and The Good Old Song.
We thought it would be fun to make another video with alumni as we prepare to celebrate the holidays online next month. The obvious choice for the project is The Winter Song, which nearly everyone knows. So please consider joining us by recording a video of yourself, wearing holiday garb if you have some handy, and submitting it using the link below. The deadline for submission is November 1. We expect to have a final product mid-December, just in time for the Holiday Season!
The company we use to make these magical videos, Arts Laureate, has raised their price a bit since last summer, but Club is committed to making the video happen. We’d love for you to participate whether you can make a donation or not! But if you’d like to make a contribution in any amount (each video uploaded costs $30 to process), then click here.
The links below will help guide you through the process. We learned some valuable lessons with our first virtual choir video:
1) Practice a lot before you make your recording. We have included links to our practice tracks below. It’ll help you look at the camera and not at the music the whole time. We want to see lots of smiling faces! Plus, all that practice will help you adjust to the tempi and rubati that are part of the song. I won’t be conducting, so you’ll have to get used to what you hear on the recording so you can stay in sync. If you think you have what it takes to hit it in the big leagues, then information such as “how much does broadway actors make” may inspire you even further on your singing career.
2) When you’re making your video, turn up the volume pretty high on your headphones. You need to be able to sing into the sound of the recording you’ll be singing along with, if that makes sense. If you try to record and you drown out the guide track recording, your volume is set too low, and it’ll be much harder to stay in time.
3) Don’t make 20 recordings in search of that perfect take. It doesn’t exist! If you’re happy that you sang all the right notes, words, and rhythms, then go ahead and submit it. The engineers and editors will take it from there. You can certainly listen to your recordings to see what they sound like, but don’t freak out! Just go with it!
4) Most of the sound effects (howls, winter winds, etc.) will be expertly performed by current Glee Club singers, however, if you have a good wolf whistle, by all means, please include it! Study the instructions carefully. You can do it! They’re longer than they were for our last project, based on lots of feedback from participating singers and conductors from across the country. It’s all valuable information.
To practice, click the link for the Guide Video below. The music will appear on the screen as the recording plays. Sing along! If you feel like you need to practice without singing along with the recorded track, Daniel Hine has created some rehearsal tracks for each individual part, which you can access by clicking here.
After you’ve mastered the music and you’re ready to record your first take, have at it! When you’re happy with your recording, click the submission link to send it in. Please follow the instructions carefully about how to label your recording before you submit it!!! Last time, we had to do a lot of detective work because about a third of the recordings were improperly labeled.
Remember, our deadline for submission is Sunday, November 1. If you have questions or need assistance, don’t hesitate to email me at conductor@virginiagleeclub.org
Frank Frank Albinder
Conductor
The Virginia Glee Club
Here are the Recording Instructions:
https://www.virtualchoir.net/
Here is the guide video:
https://drive.google.com/
Here is the link to submit your videos:
