Category Archives: Me singing without introductions
Me singing, in whichever character, with no lead in.
Snow flurries
| Playout date: | 2 November 2006 |
| Camera: | Fuji Finepix |
| Post Production: | None |
| Location: | Home |
| Other people featured: | my wife, Elena |
| Genre: | Family, Song acapello, minimal intro |
| Music used: | Acapello rendition of ‘Vdol’ po ulitse, aka “Snow flurries” |
| Languages used: | Russian, English |
| Animals featured: | None |
This video was made as a response to Kenbank, one of my first subbers and a good YT friend. Ken had made a video singing the Russian staple “snow flurries”, or “Vdol’ po ulitse metelitsa metyot”, and since on that particular morning, despite it being only 2nd November, we did indeed have snow flurries out on our terrace, I decided to sing the song a cappella, showing an example of snow flurrying, as it were, while I did it!
Related articles
- Motorists warned about snow fall (autonetinsurance.co.uk)
Come thou fount of every blessing
| Playout date: | 22 October 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | Windows Movie Maker – slight use |
| Location: | Home |
| Other people featured: | None |
| Genre: | Hymn |
| Music used: | Cyberhymnal.net’s arrangement of hymn tune “Hyfrydol“ |
| Languages used: | English |
| Animals featured: | None |
The beautiful hymn by Robert Robinson, this time sung to the tune Hyfrydol.
I did both voices, the melody and the bass part. Can you work out which is the one I’m singing on the video?
An interesting story about this hymn, courtesy of cyberhymnal.org where I also got the midi (this is allowed by them, by the way, as long as you credit, which I am doing)
Robert Robinson had a difficult time with his faith in the latter part of his life, having been converted at 17 and having written this and other hymns as a young man. The story is told of how one day, he encountered a woman who was studying a hymnal, and she asked how he liked the hymn she was humming. In tears, he replied, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.”
Related articles
- Sabbath Evening Post #19: A Hymn That I Love (bluemustang5.wordpress.com)
- A Commentary on Hymns (sjbrown58.wordpress.com)
- Behind The Hymns: Tis Sweet To Sing The Matchless Love (harmonyavenue.wordpress.com)
- Your Sunday Hymn: I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say (nicedeb.wordpress.com)
- Hymn of Praise: #1 Praise to the Lord (thedisconsolategarden.wordpress.com)
We’re not all alone after all
| Playout date: | 11 October 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | None |
| Location: | Office at ul Jazdow 8a, Warsaw |
| Other people featured: | None, but wife calls. |
| Genre: | Intro’d song |
| Music used: | Rita Coolidge, We’re not alone |
| Languages used: | English, Russian |
| Animals featured: | Fish in tank behind |
You might think that you’re alone In the office in the evening and able to sing a song for your admiring public who put more dislikes than likes in the marks, but that is in fact not the case. There’s always the mobile telephone to contend with. Huli gets caught by the missus whilst attempting an all time favorite by the incomparable Rita Coolidge.
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- Divine Feminine | Love Songs from 70′s & 80′s (soundtracksofteki.wordpress.com)
- New Nashville Record Label To Release Impressions’ 50th Anniversary Salute to R&B Legend Curtis Mayfield (prweb.com)
Restu kun mi
| Playout date: | 3 October 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | None |
| Location: | Home |
| Other people featured: | None |
| Genre: | Song only |
| Music used: | Abide with me Karaoke track |
| Languages used: | Esperanto |
| Animals featured: | None |
This is, obviously, Abide with me sung in Esperanto and it has been very well received by Esperantists, some of whom have asked me to do more similar pieces and I have always intended to do them – for reasons of the way my family has developed that intention hasn’t been easy to put into fruition.
For the record I didn’t do the translation – as explained in the comments, most of which are in Esperanto on YT – I took the Esperanto version from the standard little green Esperanto hymnbook “la Esperanta Himnaro” which contains hundreds of well translated hymns from around the Christian world and is a great joy if you can but lay hands on a copy.
Related articles
- The Esperanto Trap (espliego.wordpress.com)
- VN bestseller now in Esperanto – Viet Nam News (abcrsstest.wordpress.com)
Huliganov’s first ever rant!
| Production date: | 30 September 2006 |
| Playout date: | 30 September 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | Windows Movie Maker – slight use |
| Location: | Home |
| Other people featured: | None |
| Genre: | Hulirant |
| Music used: | Gremin’s Aria, Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky |
| Languages used: | English Russian |
| Animals featured: | None |
This piece is the first ever Huliganov rant, and actually I’m a but disappointed that a lot of people who watch and say they enjoy Huli‘s lessons didn’t also look up the rants by the same persona. This remains at under a thousand views, and not much discussion or rating.
Hulliganov offers here his disappreciation of noisy neighbours and his appreciation of the Chinese people for not making themselves unnecessarily tall.
Related Articles
- Eugene Onegin in English (ask.metafilter.com)
- Huliganov’s Speaking Mandarin Video (huliganov.tv)
- Music Review: Need a Gala? Tchaikovsky Is a Go-To Guy (nytimes.com)
- Music Review: Rich Talent and Promising Voices Well Rewarded (nytimes.com)
We’ve got tonight
| Playout date: | 26 September 2006 |
| Location: | Home |
| Other people featured: | None |
| Music used: | Karaoke track of Bob Seger’s “We got tonight” |
| Languages used: | English |
| Animals featured: | None |
This has not been liked much by viewers, with the result of 5 likes and 26 dislikes after 4200 views. It is certainly far from perfect but I didn’t and don’t have time to make really polished pieces.
One of the problems always in producing versions of songs that some people really like – and I really like the original of this song too, don’t get me wrong – is that you’ll find that people looking for the original on YT will come up against your cover and of course if they get that one before they get the one they remember, they’ll be frustrated and press the dislike button.
On top of that they might write some disparaging comments such as the few I got here. Some were positive because one or two liked the way I made a comedy ending.
Reunchaining the melody
| Playout date: | 11 September 2006 |
| Location: | Home, Ochota |
| Other people featured: | None |
| Music used: | Karaoke track of Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers |
| Languages used: | English |
| Animals featured: | None |
This is probably the most disliked-to-liked video in my whole history of fillummakering, and it is not hard to see why. The rendition is dire. There’s no other word for it. But this stays in as proof of my dogged determination not to flinch at criticism, but to let it happen!
This melody became famous because of the film “Ghost” but this version is much more eery and spooky than the one that Demi Moore is listening to when she makes her pot!
Related Articles
- Righteous Brothers’ Bill Medley Works on his Bucket List in Branson (prweb.com)
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Besame!
| Video number in my collection | 75 |
| Production date: | 31 July 2006 |
| Playout date: | 8 September 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | None |
| Location: | Office at Jazdow |
| Other people featured: | Antonio Salvador Bau Montoro |
| Genre: | Duet |
| Soundtrack info: | Besame, a capello, |
| Languages used: | Spanish |
| Animals featured: | None |
| Date added here: | 31 October 2010 |
| Number of days this video was up at time of posting: | 1 514 |
| Number of views at time of posting: | 649 |
| Number of views per day: | 0,4 |
| Number of comments at time of posting (don’t forget to click through to read the comments!): | 2 |
| Comments per thousand views: | 3,1 |
| Likes at time of posting: | 6 |
| Dislikes at time of posting: | 5 |
| Likes to dislikes ratio: | 1,2 |
| Votes per thousand views: | 16,9 |
| Ratio of comments to votes: | 18% |
Unusually low ratio of comments to votes, but what is there to say? Just two guys mucking around having fun. Sure, we killed the song, but that’s the time honoured tradition for this particular song!
Granada!
| Video number in my collection | 71 |
| Production date: | 31 July 2006 |
| Playout date: | 31 July 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | None |
| Location: | Office at Jazdow |
| Other people featured: | Antonio Salvador Bau Montoro |
| Genre: | Duet |
| Soundtrack info: | Granada, a capello, Lara |
| Languages used: | Spanish |
| Animals featured: | None |
| Date added here: | 10 October 2010 |
| Number of days this video was up at time of posting: | 1 532 |
| Number of views at time of posting: | 663 |
| Number of views per day: | 0,4 |
| Number of comments at time of posting (don’t forget to click through to read the comments!): | 3 |
| Comments per thousand views: | 4,5 |
| Likes at time of posting: | 4 |
| Dislikes at time of posting: | 7 |
| Likes to dislikes ratio: | 0,6 |
| Votes per thousand views: | 16,6 |
| Ratio of comments to votes: | 27% |
A second impromptu duet with my Spanish friend Antonio Salvador Bau Montoro, who visited me at the office one day, taking time away from his massive Aloe farm in Brazil. This version of Lara’s song was not practiced, just off the cuff, and the website with the words had them all muddled up, so once again this is far from perfect, but great fun.
Amapola a la Polska
| Video number in my collection | 70 |
| Production date: | 31 July 2006 |
| Playout date: | 31 July 2006 |
| Camera: | Logitech Webcam |
| Post Production: | None |
| Location: | Home on the terrace |
| Genre: | Duet |
| Soundtrack info: | Amapola, Spanish folk song |
| Languages used: | Spanish |
| Animals featured: | None |
| Date added here: | 9 October 2010 |
| Number of days this video was up at time of posting: | 1 531 |
| Number of views at time of posting: | 997 |
| Number of views per day: | 0,7 |
| Number of comments at time of posting (don’t forget to click through to read the comments!): | 7 |
| Comments per thousand views: | 7,0 |
| Likes at time of posting: | 4 |
| Dislikes at time of posting: | 5 |
| Likes to dislikes ratio: | 0,8 |
| Votes per thousand views: | 9,0 |
| Ratio of comments to votes: | 78% |
Fue visitado por Antonio Salvador Bau Montoro, un conocido artista y amigo mio de Espana, y cantamos juntos la cancion “Amapola”.
I was visited at the office by a friend of mine from Spain, the well-known singer and Aloe vera farmer Antonio Salvador Bau Montoro, and we sang the song Amapola for your enjoyment together, the first of three Spanish duets we did off the cuff.
Unfortunately we hadn’t had time to practice, it was all off the cuff, and we weren’t anticipating the frequent key changes in the track. We also couldn’t hear it as well as the computer picked it up, so the last verse is truly discordant on this. That is probably why more folk have disliked this one than liked it. It was fun though.
