Sunday, July 8, 2007

Music for a summer's day . . .



The lazy summer blog schedule continues - but, at least I've been putting my free time to good use, taking bike rides with my daughters. The 8-year old has just become comfortable enough to get out on the open road (well, the open bike trail) and the 2-year old has discovered the joys of riding shotgun on my bike. All in all, it's a pretty satisfying activity, even if we don't move all that fast. This video features trips along the fantastic Minuteman Bike Trail and along the part of Memorial Drive in Cambridge that's closed off to cars on Sunday afternoons. (For the eight or so years I lived in Cambridge, I always found the Sunday closing of Memorial Drive to be a big pain, especially when trying to drive into Fenway. Now, I see the wisdom of it, at least if you have little ones.)

Best of all, this video features some fantastic music about which I know almost nothing, although it certainly seems to have a 40's-50's vibe. (UPDATE 16 YEARS LATER: The music is by Les Baxter and may be heard here.)  I stole the music from the infectious ad for the Conference Bike that you can see here. (Quicktime format; someone needs to get that ad up on Youtube.) I first saw that web ad a couple of years back; a couple of weeks ago, I actually saw a conference bike in person for the first time; it seemed to be transporting some fans to Fenway from a satellite parking zone. So, it all comes back to baseball. Anyway, I love this music, especially the use of chorus - what my siblings and I always called the "Disney Chorus" sound. Can choruses still make that sound, or is it a lost art? ( . . . not that that would be a bad thing.)

My own video is no polished product (most of the footage was shot this afternoon), but the subjects are cute enough to make up for some jittery editing.

3 comments:

Patty said...

Did you take this while you were riding? I'm trying to figure out how you did this!

TOO cute. Your girls are adorable and that music was wonderful. :-)

MICHAEL MONROE said...

Yes, I did take the video while riding. I have lots of extra footage of tops of helmets, etc. to prove it, but I was pleased to get so much good stuff as well. I just used my little Canon digital camera (strapped to my wrist) which takes very good video for a primarily still camera. Some of the panning effects are a bit dizzying, but then so are those high, chromatic violin passages.

Patty said...

Wow ... mighty impressive that you could manage the filming!

(My husband always had our kids on the back of his bike, and then on their own as soon as they were old enough. Now our youngest, age 18 next week, is beginning bike racing ... better be prepared for what you might be leading up to! :-)