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On April 24, 1983, myself and three other Hagerstown
Junior College choir members (Bill Garrott, Aaron Light,
and Michael Rice) performed the famous French drinking
song "Viva L'Amore" during the annual Spring Concert.
Fast forward to 1984, when I took a Music Appreciation
class during my sophomore year. For the class final
project, each student was to come up with their own unique
idea for something to show to the class &emdash; the
only stipulation was that it had to be musical in nature.
One person baked a cake in the shape of a guitar. Another
performed a solo on the clarinet. I decided to perform
the same barbershop quartet song I had sung a year earlier.
However, mine would be unusual in that I planned to sing
all four parts myself!
I already had the sheet music in four-part harmony from
the original performance. So I practiced and learned the
other three parts (including the bass!), and then asked
my church music minister Terry Ross to assist me with
the taping.
Using the church sound system and audio equipment, I
recorded myself singing the First Tenor part. Then,
Terry played that back to me through headphones, while
I sang and recorded the Second Tenor part (mixing this
new part in with the original First Tenor recording).
We repeated this two more times, adding the Baritone
and Bass parts. It was a little tricky because I
didn't use a metronome; therefore some of the timing
got a little off. Also, since we didn't have a four track
recorder, each re-recording had the side effect of
some generation loss and adding some extra hiss; but all in
all, the final tape was good enough to use for my
final project. I got an "A" for the project, and
many in the classroom still couldn't understand how
that was me singing all four parts, even though I
explained the method to the class :)
So here, without further ado, is an MP3 file that I
made from the original tape. Feel free to give it
a listen and sing along!!
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