Friday, March 6, 2009

Canon a 2 Tempi (Take Two)

Look, if I choose to spend the beginning of my Spring Break trying to hone my video score-scrolling techniques, what's the harm? (True, the three children I'm currently "watching" could end up wandering the streets, having OD'd on junkfood and Wiggles videos, but we all have to make sacrifices.)

Anyway, the real answer to my problem (the technical one, not the general personal one) is probably to get some video-editing software more suited to the task, but I've had fun trying to get this to work. The point here is to synchronize the two scrolling scores more precisely with the audio than in the previous version. Ironically, I find the smoothly scrolling staves of Take One to be more aesthetically appealing, but this makes it easier to see exactly what's happening, especially with the measure numbers. The bottom line is: I could sit around doing this and watching the results all day.



Favorite Moments:
  • The gorgeous stacked harmonies when Callas's orchestra is recapping the opening tune in A-flat (m.21), while Fleming's band is working through a B-flat minor 7th chord and an F minor chord (mm.15-16). That this all happens under the word 'morir' is all to the better.
  • Similarly stacked harmonies at m.9/m.6, when the downbeats line up almost perfectly.
  • Watching Maria increase her lead by 1.5 laps...er, measures...while RenĂ©e sits on that A-flat at the end of m.3.
  • A truly canonic little moment when Callas sings m.15, followed by Fleming singing m.11.
  • The quick imitations of A-flats descending to E-flats at 1:20.
  • Fleming sustaining a high A-flat pedal all the way through Callas's m. 17.
  • The way Fleming hangs on to 'Dio' in m.20 to let Callas finish her little 'pieta.'
  • The way the final chord from Callas's orchestra seques into Fleming's orchestra interlude at m.21.
Now, I'm just kicking myself that I didn't think to make this widescreen, given how precious width is in this kind of thing. However, the next task is to report on Wednesday's Piano Hero, Level 3. Hopefully tomorrow...

2 comments:

Monica said...

I just have to say that this is amazing.

chelsea said...

I know Fleming has a tendancy to take the tempo slower than others, but it was really cool to actually see that on the scrolling score against Callas' version. Thanks for that visual!