English (UK) 
Nederlands From the (then) five-part Intermezzo we work ourselves, via the all-acclaimed The King's Singers to six-part scores. Take 6 is, according to many, the summit of six-part. We'll have a carefull peek into their engine room: we review a non official four-part song!
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Artist: | Intermezzo |
| Album: | STILL CRAZY (1994) | |
| Track: | 01 Still Crazy |
Download the pdf file (and midi file) of the transcription.
- Transcription: Ton Schreuders
Downloads:
;SIMON / OVERMARS / VAN DER LOO
Thursday, 03 May 2012 02:00
114.93 KB
2,388
Thursday, 03 May 2012 02:00 11.19 KB 2,127 |
| The solo is ‘freely'. Sometimes I wrote the embellishments down literally because it was easy to do. Sometimes it was harder; in those cases I skipped them. |
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Artist: | The King's Singers |
| Album: | GOOD VIBRATIONS (1989) | |
| Track: | 09 Some Folk's Lives Roll Easy |
A lot of choices has been made in the transcription of this six-part song. Meaning: the ear is inconclusive, so the brain must come up with a solution.
Make your own transcription and compare!
- Transcription: Ton Schreuders
;SIMON / JACKMANThursday, 03 May 2012 02:00 112.51 KB 2,158Thursday, 03 May 2012 02:00 8.49 KB 2,165 |
| Baritone and 2nd tenor are hardly audible on the third beat of bar 3! | Because the ‘a' in bar 12 is so conspicuous and flows so fluently to the b, I chose to write down an extra ‘a' at treble 2. The b that follows is without a doubt, but the a is kind of a guess. It would be more logical if the tenor would have that a, but he's busy with that embellishment. |
| I doubted a long time whether in bar 7 and 15 the 2nd treble OR the 1st tenor is part of the four-part section. The choice I made was initially based on the following observations: 1) the quadruplet in bar 7 is probably running to the b in bar 8, while ABOVE that an extra (more thin) g can be heard. 2) the second half of bar 22 has a lighter (treble 2) attack; that could mean that the tenor is abandoning, while treble 2 takes over. Objections however are: 1) the quadruplet in bar 15 is sung very lightly (falsetto? So it's treble 2?) 2) the b of bar 16 (the entry of treble 2) sounds ‘fatter' than the falset register could produce. So it has to be sung by a tenor. On the other hand, the rest of my tenor part would then be really low for treble 2; it is sounding however pretty full. Decisive was the following: 1) Knowing the King's Singers, there will be no difference between bar 7 and 15, meaning the SAME people will be singing; 2) assuming the PANNING remains constant, one can conclude that the gents are lined up left to right = top to bottom. In that case the b of bar 16 (entry of treble 2) MORE to the left than the tenor-part written by me! |
| Bar 28 is tricky again; the individual voices of the baritone, 1st and 2nd tenor are barely distinguishable. The following notes are ‘guesses': bar 28: 1st and 3rd note of the baritone; the first 2 notes of the 2nd tenor. |
| Bar 30 is a MISTERY when it comes to the 2nd treble. He's singing só soft! Actually he does from bar 26 on... Only on the second half of bar 30 it is certain that the f-sharp belongs to him. All that predecesses can be determined by either a long time listening, or assessing the ‘sound sensation', like the 1st note of bar 30. (That first note can be a b, c-sharp, d or e. The b is not probable, otherwise it would be heard more clearly, so the choice is between c-sharp, d or e. C-sharp gives a clear ‘suspension character' to the chord; however the recording does not suggest such a sound; the e gives a somewhat ‘pale' sound, so the d remains (giving a ‘regular' sound - which in my opinion agrees with the recording most). |
| Can someone tell me what the second tenor is doing in bar 32?? That first c is very soft already, but after that it becomes totally unclear. You'll understand that the solution presented here is made because of the strange jump in the first tenor. That jump is very clearly heard. (Although not entirely certain that it belongs to him; it seems to originate from the second treble, but that would be illogical.) |
| In bar 36, the second tenor is off-pitch on the second quaver! Yes! He sings a kind of a-flat. Logic dictates that it should be an a, so I wrote down an a.... |
| Bar 43: 2nd tenor and baritone are problematic on the last quaver. The written down baritone note is suddenly very clear. That could mean: a) a ‘spike' of the baritone b) baritone and second tenor on the same a. Somewhere I seem to hear that c-sharp that the 1st treble is doubling; on top of that, it's a melody note; moreover that a is very fat (which is more like a baritone than a tenor). So option a remains. It's peculiar though that I can't hear the melody in the tenor anymore in the next bar. And what is the baritone doing? It seems if he's dropping to a low g on the first beat, but it's more likely that only the second quaver is doubling the bass. The 2nd tenor is amplifying the 1st tenor then (that voice is suddenly clearer too). In any case, it's a difficult spot. |
| And last but not least those last bars: 53 and on. Starting at bar 53 the 1st tenor has got an improbable long d. But... it's there. And what about the peculiar part crossing in bar 55-56 in the 2nd tenor... Does anyone has a better solution? Or is this correct after all? |
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Artist: | The King's Singers |
| Album: | LOS IMPOSSIBLES (2009) van L'Arpeggiata | |
| Track: | 15 Villancico Catalàn |
The King's Singers are guest performers on this album of L'Arpeggiata. The Catalan folk song (for Christmas time) was re-recorded for this album (you can hear it on the 1989 album A Little Christmas Music; see Youtube). But the depth of performance is much greater on the album of L'Arpeggiata.
- Transcription: Ton Schreuders
;TRAD / RICHARDSThursday, 03 May 2012 02:00 93.5 KB 2,257Thursday, 03 May 2012 02:00 6.75 KB 2,107 |
| Whát a magnificent performance of this song. Making a transcription of it is absolute bliss. |
| The lyrics pose me a problem. I don't speek Catalan, but I do notice that the lyrics in the album leaflet now and then differ from what the group is singing; besides the lyrics found on the internet are different again. I use words as I hear them on the recording. |
| Bar 12-15 are particularly tricky, because the group is blending tremendously. |
| The same goes for bar 18-19. Placement of the lyrics in bar 37 is a guess, because one really cannot follow this when one doesn't speek Catalan. |
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Artist: | Take 6 |
| Album: | (radio broadcast) | |
| Track: | Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire |
This is NOT the six-part The Christmas Song from the album 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' (1999) but a four-part version Mark wrote before.
The mp3 below plays the song (apologies for the bad audio quality); it's a live recording of Japanese radio and as far as I know the only registration of the song.
Four-part... but still Take 6!
- Transcription: Ton Schreuders
;TORMÉ / WELLS / KIBBLEThursday, 03 May 2012 02:00 77.93 KB 2,285Thursday, 03 May 2012 02:00 5.56 KB 2,165
Saturday, 08 August 2020 20:39 3.51 MB 651 |
| Mark's embellishments included! |
| A joy to sing along with. But not that simple to write down... |