Old 04-02-2010, 12:27 PM
  #8  
MCH
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: San Francisco Bay area
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Wow! So much better than the miserable saxaphone player who sometimes plays the SSB @ San Jose Sharks' games. His performance sounds as if someone stepped on a dog's squeak toy...hurts the ears.

The SSB sung without musical accompanyment is a delight to the ear. A couple of years ago, the PA system at the San Jose arena went out, just before the start of the hockey game. You haven't heard the SSB sung until you've heard it sung without instrumental accompanymet by 15,000 hockey fans.

One of the traps that people who sing it (as well as those who play it as a solo on an instrument)fall into is to perform it as a dirge (something played at a funeral)...entirely too slowly, perform it as a lullaby and they "slide" from one note to another.

I'll give these youngsters a "10" for their harmonies, but they, too, fell into the "tempo of a dirge" trap.

I've performed this song numerous times with a large band and the conductor put it at the tempo of a John Philip Sousa march (approx. 120 beats / minute).

And, in the words of the late Paul Harvey, here's the "rest of the story".

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0194015.html

The kids were great.
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