In an effort to encourage our daughter towards musical tastes, I sometimes play, uh, musicals. Sometimes at dinner the FP Gal and I sing the 'Fruma Sarah' song from 'Fiddler' which is fine now but I'm sure would cause nightmares if she had any idea what we were singing about. Today I popped in 'Sound of Music' in honor of my dear Mother's trip to Germany, Austria and the Alps in general (details here and more funnily here).
She wasn't riveted to the TV or anything but one song did catch her attention. The yodeling song, of course. I sang along with it, clumsily of course. My theory is that there is no official set of words for it, merely syllables that approximate the intent of the song. Near the end she was singing too, no doubt with as much accuracy as I was.
Bonus Musical Question: is there any famous musical in which the songs in the second half are as strong as the first half? (I sure can't think of any.)
9 comments:
here are the lyrics. Yes, there are lyrics
http://tinyurl.com/qylclv
Here's my favorite version of the song
http://tinyurl.com/5aab89
And a bonus do re mi that makes me feel good about people
http://tinyurl.com/dm865v
I didn't say that there aren't lyrics. I just think that there are no official order of the syllables that are used. Think of it as Swiss scat.
The fact that I know all the words to every single musical known to man must explain something about my childhood.
My girls adore that movie & the yodeling song is their favorite, too!
Dang it. Now you have me pondering your question about the 2nd half of musicals. And no, I can't think of any.
Hmmmm...
Considering most musicals are (technically) comedies, especially the farcical works of Andrew Lloyd Weber, the whole second-half weakness makes sense, since that's the time when the whole plot is thrown into chaos, the villain is triumphing, etc., until there's the Grand Finale and scene at the end, where All Is Resolved Happily Ever After.
Unless it's a newfangled musical where the actors all die of a disease, or the helicopter comes down from the ceiling and kicks tear gas into the audience or something, but that can be fun, too, I suppose.
Thank you for saying I'm more funnily...!
BTW, I'm kind of surprised that your mother didn't mention that we listened to "The Sound of Music" a few times while we were down in Garmisch. Josiah loves "Do, Re, Mi" and he actually watched almost all of the movie with me a couple of weeks ago...but to be fair, I could barely stay awake, too. I forgot that it's so long!
If you ever get the chance to take the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, do it.
I also took the tour in Salzburg. It was excellent.
I hope Relia doesn't start singing the dream that Tevia has with the mother-in-law from "Fiddler On The Roof".
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