A chorus of one, and sea shanties

[FNH]

I was recording a sea shanty (chanty/chantey) and thought I see if I could create a chorus by myself. Here's a link to what I came up with.

http://www.archive.org/details/SoloChorusExperiment

Here's what I did, in case you want to do something similar.

Recorded a once through of the whole thing. Duplicated the track and muted the lead singer on the duplicate track, thereby creating a chorus track.

Then I duplicated the chorus track 5 more times.

I knocked the volume down on all of the chorus tracks as they became extremely loud!

Then I offset each track to the left or right by differing amounts.

The next phase was to add a tiny slice of silence to the beginning of some chorus tracks and remove a similar slice from others so that they were not exactly in time with each other. Additionally on one track I added a second tiny slice half way through, so that it went out-of-time.

Then I started changing the pitch on each track, mostly downwards by differing amounts, but one of them I pitched upwards. I also added bass-boost of different amounts to two of the tracks.

Does Librivox have a collection of shanties? I couldn't see one when I did a search. Wouldn't that be a neat project

[Peter Why]

I have two collections of sea songs which I had been thinking of recording as solos, but had put aside because I'm only marginally competent musically. I only have one of them to hand: "Sea Songs, Ships and Shanties" by W.B. Whall, published in 1913. It's around 130 pages long with around fifty songs (with the music). I can't remember the title of the other collection.

If you'd like to do this collection, I'd be happy to scan it for you. The book also has little 1-2 page essays about famous sailing ships of the time.

The chorus you recorded sounds a little woolly to my ears, in that I can't hear what they're singing. Perhaps fewer voices, or bringing the first consonant of each phrase closer to simultaneous for all the singers?

I think that if I were recording these songs for Librivox, I'd go for clarity rather than reality, and just have a chorus of two or three voices ... but, obviously, if you took it on, that would be your choice.

..... looking again at the book, it really does need recording. Here's the last paragraph in the introduction:

Since 1872 I have not heard a Shanty or Song worth the name. Steam spoilt them. A young generation of seamen took the place of the old sea dog. (In my first year or two at sea I was shipmates with old men-of-war's men who had served at sea before 1815, the year of peace, and who were of the old school.) With the new generation true sea Songs and Shanties practically disappeared. Echoes of them, it is true, still exist, but that is all. The real thing has gone forever.

Peter

[RuthieG]

I only have one of them to hand: "Sea Songs, Ships and Shanties" by W.B. Whall, published in 1913. It's around 130 pages long with around fifty songs (with the music).the title of the other collection.

If you'd like to do this collection, I'd be happy to scan it for you. The book also has little 1-2 page essays about famous sailing ships of the time.

Super, super book. But the good news is that you don't have to scan it, Peter. It is already on the Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/details/shipsseasongssha00whal

And another:

Songs of Sea Labours http://www.archive.org/details/songsofsealabour1914bull

Ruth

[RuthieG]

Or, if you fancy a spot of morris dancing, these are lovely:
The Esperance Morris Book (Volume 1)
The Esperance Morris Book (Volume 2)

Vol. 2 also has some sea shanties in it, including my favourite, Shenandoah.

Ruth

[Peter Why]

They are lovely, aren't they .... those photos!

Whall has Shenandoah, too, on page 1. He also has one of my favourites, Lowlands, but the words of the verses are completely different to the ones I learned.

Peter