Songify

Rob recently downloaded an app on his iPhone called Songify which transforms speech into a song, auto-tune style. Well of course we have been having a lot of fun with that app over the past few days, but last night Rob struck gold with his telling of Dumbo to Sara. It's pretty awesome because the climax of the story coincides with the climax of the song without Rob even knowing it. Plus, he gives a pretty darn good synopsis.

Give it a listen by clicking here.

Rob's auto-tuned version of Dumbo as told to Sara:

"When dumbo was born he had really big ears and none of the elephants liked him except for his mother. And when his mother defended him she got locked in a cage, and Dumbo was sad till he met Timothy Mouse who showed Dumbo he could fly, but he needed a magic feather. And one day Dumbo was falling and dropped his feather. He was going to hit the ground! Oh no, Dumbo don't hit the ground! And then he realized he could always fly and flew away. Go Dumbo go! Good job Dumbo. Good job."

I love it. :)

singer/songwriter

Sara loves singing and playing the piano. She gave a wonderful performance today that I would like to share with you.

Here she is singing a rather recognizable song:

But here is one that is not so recognizable. I have no idea what she is saying, but at least she's singing with some gusto!

And here is a song she made up all by herself:

"No Put Away the Keys"

Lyrics:

Put the keys away, put the keys awaaaay.

Put the keys, we put the keys, don't put the keys, no put the keeeeey.

{spoken: no put away the keys!}

No put away the keys, grandpa you can't put away your keys. Noooo no.

{spoken: no keys. Ya, a sad song.}

...put away, put away, put away, put away, won't you put away.

I have no idea where the inspiration for that song came from! Dad, Stuart, did either of you lose your keys recently? Don't you know you should put your keys away?! :)

Other topics she sang about during her performance include:

• a castle
• on the swing
• you so sad the baby
• monkey tail
• no tent
• Cat in the Hat
• Mommy and Dad

and a whole bunch of other unintelligible stuff. Now all we have to do is get the piano playing up to par with the singing and we'll be set!


p.s. sorry the video is such poor quality. Trying to figure out a better way to get it on here.

We've got ourselves a little musician

 

 

Thumbs Down

Did you know Pandora has a monthly listening limit?
I did.
I just found out yesterday.


Apparently they only allow 40 free hours of listening per computer per month. What?!! ... The fact that I have already reached this limit and it's only St. Patty's day (aka the middle of the month) means, I do a lot of Pandora listening. A LOT. As in, it's on all the time. I like to have music on in the background as I go about my day, and I like the variety and new songs I hear from giving my thumbs up or down on Pandora. So now my dilemma is, do I want to pay the requisite $0.99 to be able to keep listening for the rest of the month? (It's only a dollar, but it's just the principle of the thing. Free stuff should stay free, ya know?!) Or do I want to go old-school and bust out some CD's to listen to during the day? But then I don't have the luxury of song shuffling (I got rid of my bulky college-era three disc changer long ago) or of hearing new artists based on ones I know I already like. I guess a compromise would be to start downloading all my CD's onto iTunes so it can shuffle them for me, but that just takes time! Well I guess it's worth a try, 'cause I can't suffer through 14 more days of all this silence!

"One of the best videos of all time"

Thinking of Pioneers

You can't see my face (the video is kinda poor quality and taken from far away) but I'm in there somewhere. This is one of the 6 songs we sang.

Preaching to the Choir

So a little more info about the Sunrise Service choir I'm singing in at the Tabernacle on Temple Square THIS FRIDAY July 24th at 7:00 AM.

It is a multi-Stake choir from up here in Davis County. I was so excited when they announced it, and glad I got picked to sing! (only 9 of each part from each Stake, so I was one of 9 altos from my Stake--yay!!) Coincidentally (or perhaps not) it was one of my life goals to sing in a "real choir" again (aka, not just the Ward choir) and I'm counting this as fulfilling that goal! There are 300+ people in the choir (enough to fill the choir seats in the Tabernacle) and the director is awesome. We've been practicing twice a week for the past two weeks, and each practice is 2 1/2 hours long!! We're not messing around!

So I know 7:00 AM is super early to try to attend this thing, so if anybody wants to attend the dress rehearsal you are welcome to do so. It won't be the same as the actual performance, but it could be fun to watch. It's tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 7:00 PM in the Tabernacle. Oh ya, and children are welcome to attend both the dress rehearsal and performance, so bring 'em along if you decide to come!

Sunrise Service

Here in Utah we have a State holiday on July 24th, Pioneer Day, that celebrates the arrival of the first pioneer settlers to the Salt Lake Valley. Well this year I will be singing in the choir for the Sunrise Service at 7:00 AM in the Tabernacle on Temple Square, and you are all invited to attend!! It should be really great. The choir will be led by Michael Huff who is a Music Professor at the University of Utah and also the Musical Director of the Salt Lake Symphonic Choir. We are singing 6 great musical numbers and there will also be a speaker and other musical performances. And IT'S FREE! No tickets required. So for anybody who likes getting up with the sun on your holidays (and I know you all do!) come and join us! I'd love to see you there!!

(Click here for more info.)

Called it

Camille and Lindsey, today was payback for all those horrible days of misery you suffered (and continue to suffer for Camille!!) when I made you ward organists. Guess who is the best piano player in her new ward and therefore has been asked to be the new organist? Oh that's right, you guessed it. And you both are oh-so aware of my level of piano skills (or lack there of !), so me being the best pianist is pretty sad. Okay, so maybe I'm not the best pianist, but apparently I'm the only one who's had previous organ experience (blast!) so I was pretty much a shoe-in. Thank goodness this is a new electric organ with a bass coupler, so I can fake the foot pedals. :)

Ahh karma. Isn't it great? I totally saw this coming.

Pandora

For those of you who haven't already discovered the best online streaming music station, you are missing out. Everybody needs to visit http://www.pandora.com/. Not only is it FREE, it's completely awesome. You can add personalized radio stations based on an artist or specific song, and then that 'station' plays that artist and other songs and artists similar to them. Plus, there's no commercials. I've used other online music stations that have annoying commercials every 5 songs. Not Pandora. Also, for those of you who haven't already heard and fallen in love with Sara Bareilles, you absolutely must create a Sara Bareilles station on Pandora. She's the best female artist I've heard in a long time. Granted, I've been out of touch with the music world lately, so maybe she's old news, but she's my new fave. Plus, when you create a station of her music, Pandora also plays a bunch of other similarly amazing artists who you will also fall in love with. Or at least I have. Anyway, that's all. Pandora and Sara Bareilles. My two new loves.

Temporary Threshold Shift

Rob and I got the chance to go to the American Idol tour for FREE last night! My boss got a suite at the E-center for the whole office! It was a good show. The top 10 performed and sang 3 songs each, except David Cook (the winner) who sang three and then came back out for an encore; his performance of Billy Jean which was my favorite song that David performed during the season. He sang Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave's arrangement of the song, which is amazing! I took a video of part of it (see below) so you can hear for yourself. The video quality is quite poor, but the sound quality is good. The parts where I pan away from the stage is me trying to film the large screens they had off to the side. That part didn't work so well. Again, it's mostly just the sound that's important anyway!

I also snapped a few photos. Here's some of the ones that actually turned out okay.

The top 10 performing the last song

David Cook rockin' out on his lefty guitar

David Cook on stage

David Archuleta. I like this photo because I got him on stage and on the large screen behind him in the same shot.

When Archy came on stage, the crowd went CRAZY!!! He's from Utah as you know, so he's got a lot of fans here. It was funny because every contestant who performed before him said, "wow, you guys are really loud." But it got even louder when Archuleta came out. I even plugged my ears for a bit during all the screaming to prevent any short-term hearing losses!

Carly Smithson on stage

Michael Johns on stage.

MJ on the big screen

Jason Castro - one of the girls at work is 'in love' with him and she freaked out when he came on stage. She was desperately trying to figure out a way to meet him after the show.

Brooke White

It was a fun show! I'm glad we were able to go. I have been a fan of American Idol on and off for the the past few seasons, but I really liked this season. There were several contestants that I liked, which is different compared to years past when there was only one or two who stood out (in my opinion).

Okay, that's it. Yay for American Idol!!

The Cradle will Rock

Just because you've had a baby doesn't mean you have to compromise your musical taste. Checkout these awesome lullaby renditions of popular Rock artists. This is awesome! Some titles are also available here, and are a little cheaper. I bought the Bob Marley one for my brother and his little boy (and soon-to-be little girl as well). I hope they enjoy it! I want to buy some for myself too, and I don't even have any kids yet!

Flight of the Conchords

Ok, so Rob and I and some of our friends have been listening to these guys, rather watching their live performances on YouTube, over and over for the the past month or so. They're a "Folk-Parody Duo" from New Zealand, and their songs are hilarious! They might be an acquired taste for some, but we loved them right from the start. Just to give you a taste of their genius, here's one of their songs, "Think About It, Think Think About It" - this one's got a long monologue before it, but it's just as funny as the song, so listen to both.



We love watching all of their live performances. We think they're funnier than their Music Videos which you can also find on YouTube. Seriously, all of their live performances are so hilarious. We like them better than their music videos because they're more raw; less polished. We really like the authenticity of a live performance.

Here's another one to wet your palate, "Beautiful Girl"



I won't embed any more videos here, but if you enjoyed these, you really should check out their other songs on YouTube. But just a fair warning, some have mild language and sexual innuendos. Here are links to some more of our favorites:

- Business Time - this one really is our favorite, but I might warn that it is for mature/married audiences only. They talk about "making love" but not in a dirty way. It's funny actually. Check it out if you dare!
- Jenny - an awkward conversation on a park bench.
- Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros - gansta/rap battle. (mild language)
- Albi - about a dragon, perhaps related to Puff.
- Bowie's in Space - great if you know Bowie's music, or even if you don't! (mild drug references)

Enjoy!
(No really, listen to them! I think you'll enjoy!)