“Down To The River To Pray”
September 15, 2018 6:43 PM Subscribe
Beautiful sound. So glad they slowed the tempo to really take advantage of that space.
Hope they get a chance to perform in a stone cathedral, too. Stately choral music in these large spaces can be so sublime.
posted by darkstar at 6:59 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Hope they get a chance to perform in a stone cathedral, too. Stately choral music in these large spaces can be so sublime.
posted by darkstar at 6:59 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
What a joyful noise.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:04 PM on September 15, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 7:04 PM on September 15, 2018 [5 favorites]
Cool! Sounds lovely in there, and I liked the overhead shots. That must have been a really cool experience for the kids too.
posted by aka burlap at 7:08 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by aka burlap at 7:08 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Very, very cool. I like that song and I like that guy and I like everyone who thought that would be a good thing to do.
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:18 PM on September 15, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 7:18 PM on September 15, 2018 [8 favorites]
Great song choice. Just beautiful. Thanks for sharing HuronBob.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 7:21 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 7:21 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
Well, that was lovely. Thanks.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:47 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:47 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]
I was just singing this song with my kid as he sat in the bath tonight, it's one of his favorites. I'll have to show him this tomorrow.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:48 PM on September 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:48 PM on September 15, 2018 [2 favorites]
I needed that tonight. Thanks, HuronBob.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:40 PM on September 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:40 PM on September 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
Beautiful. Thank you.
posted by tuesdayschild at 8:55 PM on September 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tuesdayschild at 8:55 PM on September 15, 2018 [1 favorite]
i went down to the grain bin to sing
with bethel college choir oh hear it ring
it's farmer derek klingenberg's
new grain bin resounding
oh let's go to the grain bin
bring your trombone climb on in
c'mon everybody to the grain bin
let's go down to the grain bin to sing.
(on edit: like to hear a little -- very little, ha -- barbershop in that space)
posted by 20 year lurk at 9:47 PM on September 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
with bethel college choir oh hear it ring
it's farmer derek klingenberg's
new grain bin resounding
oh let's go to the grain bin
bring your trombone climb on in
c'mon everybody to the grain bin
let's go down to the grain bin to sing.
(on edit: like to hear a little -- very little, ha -- barbershop in that space)
posted by 20 year lurk at 9:47 PM on September 15, 2018 [6 favorites]
Stately choral music in these large spaces can be so sublime.
Total sideways comment, but there's an album, Arvo Pärt - Kanon Pokajanen, which is a choral work recorded in a cathedral. I found that when I play it in the player I have that feeds a digital signal into my receiver and I put that receiver on a Dolby Surround setting, it decodes the sound into having a front of the space and a back of the space. It's not literally true 5.1 surround, but it decodes so well that being in my tiny soundbox of a living room feels like I'm in gigantic stone space.
posted by hippybear at 9:54 PM on September 15, 2018 [7 favorites]
Total sideways comment, but there's an album, Arvo Pärt - Kanon Pokajanen, which is a choral work recorded in a cathedral. I found that when I play it in the player I have that feeds a digital signal into my receiver and I put that receiver on a Dolby Surround setting, it decodes the sound into having a front of the space and a back of the space. It's not literally true 5.1 surround, but it decodes so well that being in my tiny soundbox of a living room feels like I'm in gigantic stone space.
posted by hippybear at 9:54 PM on September 15, 2018 [7 favorites]
This is a whole genre on YouTube, one I follow! What you're hearing is a long revert, often 7 or 8 seconds, similar to many classic choral spaces. This recording is a bit muddy with the choir, it probably sounded better in person.
One of my favourites is Tina She. Acoustic spaces are a beautiful thing and I hope they never get 100% replaced with software.
posted by fshgrl at 10:17 PM on September 15, 2018 [7 favorites]
One of my favourites is Tina She. Acoustic spaces are a beautiful thing and I hope they never get 100% replaced with software.
posted by fshgrl at 10:17 PM on September 15, 2018 [7 favorites]
ooh, I literally just came from singing in a concrete tunnel under my town, which we go to to interact with it's amazing echo, and was about to sit down and find some recordings of people singing in echoey spaces to share with my fellow musicians. It's a mind-altering experience to sing in that sort of setting.
There was a previously here about Inchindown Oil Tanks, I think- unused oil storage facility in Scotland. There's also the Rangely Tank Center For Sonic Arts, a former railroad water storage tank now converted to a recording/sound space by a nonprofit. Lots of video and articles online about both, but here's a single singer playing with the echo at Inchindown: https://vimeo.com/167634164
posted by twoplussix at 10:35 PM on September 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
There was a previously here about Inchindown Oil Tanks, I think- unused oil storage facility in Scotland. There's also the Rangely Tank Center For Sonic Arts, a former railroad water storage tank now converted to a recording/sound space by a nonprofit. Lots of video and articles online about both, but here's a single singer playing with the echo at Inchindown: https://vimeo.com/167634164
posted by twoplussix at 10:35 PM on September 15, 2018 [4 favorites]
Came for the grain bin, but sent my brother the shark week.
posted by Trivia Newton John at 11:12 PM on September 15, 2018
posted by Trivia Newton John at 11:12 PM on September 15, 2018
Why in the world was that the thing that made me cry?
posted by eggkeeper at 12:05 AM on September 16, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by eggkeeper at 12:05 AM on September 16, 2018 [5 favorites]
That sound is fantastic, so cool when musicians make use of nontraditional acoustic spaces! Thanks for posting this!
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 3:33 AM on September 16, 2018
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 3:33 AM on September 16, 2018
You gotta wait for it, but when the basses kick in, it's sublime. And when they hold hands. Aww, man.
posted by Modest House at 6:29 AM on September 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Modest House at 6:29 AM on September 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
I was reminded of the New Yorker article about the use of an old water tank in Colorado as a performance space.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:33 AM on September 16, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 6:33 AM on September 16, 2018 [4 favorites]
Music is such a big part of the religious experience. I can't really believe in anything I haven't experienced firsthand or at least secondhand (assuming credible sources), so organized religion is pretty much off the table. That being said, I find (esp. as I get older) that there are still plenty of ways to have a straight up religious experience directly through the five senses. I'm grateful for that - and for this post - on a rainy Sunday morning here in Cackalacky, with rain pouring down all around & my dog (a 3 month old puppy) staring out the window then back at me like "What is this world?"
posted by Bob Regular at 6:34 AM on September 16, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Bob Regular at 6:34 AM on September 16, 2018 [6 favorites]
One of my side projects is working with kids at a farm in Wisconsin and they LOVE it when I show them the silo and what it can do. I mean, I can't resist bellowing things out off-key...
Get kids who are kinda shy and not really aware of their own voices and their abilities and all of the sudden they just open up and let it rip.
Silos are magical.
posted by Tchad at 7:11 AM on September 16, 2018 [4 favorites]
Get kids who are kinda shy and not really aware of their own voices and their abilities and all of the sudden they just open up and let it rip.
Silos are magical.
posted by Tchad at 7:11 AM on September 16, 2018 [4 favorites]
That's wonderful, and I love that they blended in the insect noises from the fields at the end. It's really something to hear how the space resonates, creating a general drone effect and lots of overtones.
One of my favorite memories of this sort is visiting Fort McHenry on a work trip. I worked with a lot of musicians at the time, and while touring the underground bunkers we noticed the amazing reverb. A few of the singers on staff led us all in singing a few songs - sea chanteys and the Star-Spangled Banner. Nothing's ever sounded so amazing.
posted by Miko at 7:38 AM on September 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
One of my favorite memories of this sort is visiting Fort McHenry on a work trip. I worked with a lot of musicians at the time, and while touring the underground bunkers we noticed the amazing reverb. A few of the singers on staff led us all in singing a few songs - sea chanteys and the Star-Spangled Banner. Nothing's ever sounded so amazing.
posted by Miko at 7:38 AM on September 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
There is a group of Sacred Harp (shape note) singers in Bremen, Germany that found an old, beautifully resonant brick-and-mortar water tower to sing in. They sound glorious and it has inspired me to find spaces like that to sing in. Big open rooms with barrel-vaulted ceilings can sound a bit like this.
posted by JohnFredra at 8:42 AM on September 16, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by JohnFredra at 8:42 AM on September 16, 2018 [5 favorites]
On one of the sites for the Inchindown Oil Tanks, there are Impulse Response files. These are audio files that in essence describe the shape and duration of the echos. With a convolution reverb plug-in you can load the IR file and have the same huge echoey space in your small apartment. Grab a mic, put on head phones, close your eyes, and sing. I’ve done it, and it’s amazing. These long reverb spaces are amazing and also really difficult to control. You have to learn how to use the space effectively. It’s really easy to get the sound to be all muddy, like out of control paint on a canvas, but with some experimentation you get the hang of it, and the magic begins.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:27 AM on September 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 9:27 AM on September 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
I mean, I coulda used a little less of the intro (and the intro music), but this was fantastic.
Like darkstar, I liked how the director subtly but definitely slowed the tempo after the first line and put longer spaces between the phrases so the music could ring out and to help intelligibility.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:50 AM on September 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
Like darkstar, I liked how the director subtly but definitely slowed the tempo after the first line and put longer spaces between the phrases so the music could ring out and to help intelligibility.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:50 AM on September 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's really too bad about the trombone clipping, it's a difficult instrument to record properly.
The space is a joy to listen to. If your into such things, Deep Listening (trombone, voice, accordion, electronics, recorded in a massive cistern) is a must listen, and the standard to judge the rest by.
posted by idiopath at 10:03 AM on September 16, 2018 [2 favorites]
The space is a joy to listen to. If your into such things, Deep Listening (trombone, voice, accordion, electronics, recorded in a massive cistern) is a must listen, and the standard to judge the rest by.
posted by idiopath at 10:03 AM on September 16, 2018 [2 favorites]
A friend was trying to explain AMSR to me and showed me some videos with that tag. None had any effect and I was not really understanding what the effect was supposed to feel like. I think this video does it for me. Got chills up the spine and ended up crying. It wasn't that it's a religious song; I'm an atheist.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 4:57 PM on September 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by a humble nudibranch at 4:57 PM on September 16, 2018 [3 favorites]
A farily low-fi recording, but here's Árstíðir singing the Icelandic hymn Heyr himna smiður in a German train station.
posted by Harald74 at 12:22 AM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Harald74 at 12:22 AM on September 18, 2018 [1 favorite]
Just finding this post, after reading about the performance in the Mennonite World Review. Thanks for all the lovely comments and links to similar things. We have a small "demonstration silo" in Kalamazoo, Michigan where we have sung Sacred Harp a few times. They use to make vitreous tiled silos here.
posted by willF at 9:22 AM on October 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by willF at 9:22 AM on October 13, 2018 [1 favorite]
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posted by aetg at 6:51 PM on September 15, 2018 [3 favorites]