Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (widescreen)

My previous article about parodying "Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" included info about raking leaves chores and implements, and parts collection for the music videos. (It points to the YouTube video that integrates content, scrolling lyrics, and vocals.) This article, besides pointing to the widescreen video, describes some of my processes and the lessons learned for picking, creating, and integrating items into both video versions.

INSPIRATION and LYRICS
After deciding that raking chores were both fun and not fun, we decided Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" would be doable for music and lyrical twists. For refamiliarizing myself with the music, I poked around YouTube for instances of both vocal and instrumental versions. It took me a few tries of writing leaf-rake-theme lyrics, with occasional recent tweaking, to mimic Breaking's rhyme scheme and meter.

VISUALS ACCUMULATION
In December, I shot videos of mostly leaf blowing and stills of items I thought might be usable. In January, I shot videos of myself with leaf-raking implements. Over time, I took and edited screenshots and scans—sizing, placements, enhancements.

I compiled an initial video using clips. For creating the scrolling-lyrics version (narrow-screen), I then recorded a widescreen mid-section, but with the action area to the left and a blank area to the right. I then severely edited out dead-action sections of the narrow-screen video. Afterward, I revisited the initial video, editing and matching clip durations of the narrow-screen version.

VOCALS
The vocals were challenging. I've not sung in a group for, uh, a long time. Singing melody's easier than singing harmony. My range and timing are not so hot; I'm not planning to go pro anytime soon.

Initial Distortion Issues and Resolution
Major lesson learned was recording of the vocals. (I used the microphone in my Canon PowerShot.) Some of my recording attempts resulted in distortions:

• Recording with the camera too close to the speaker (~15 inches away).
• Having the speaker volume too high.

I resolved the issues by being sure to mount the camera on a tripod, about a yard away from the speaker, high enough for me stand and sing while holding the lyrics sheet. Because the earlier recording also showed the background in viewfinder, I was able to position the camera in the same place the next day.

Takes, Vocals Timings
I created multiple tracks of instrumental sections—intro, which also served as the song ending, verse 1 and 2 together (v1v2), and bridge with verse 3 (bridgeandv3). I sang into these tracks to emulate multiple takes to lessen the number of start/stop times. After reviewing recordings, I could hear problems—hurrying, lagging, mispronunciations, off-key notes. Audio graphs made me think of marching band members that are out of step.

I had recorded separate soprano and alto sections for v1v2 and bridgeandv3. Attempts to mesh each song part resulted in awfulness. Subsequently, recording multiple takes of soprano during playback of alto worked reasonably well.

INTEGRATION
The initial integrated videos amounted to a little over 2 minutes. The audio, consisting of intro, v1v2, bridgeandv3 twice, and intro again, amounted to almost 2 1/2 minutes. (The final audio drove the videos.) To align the story telling, I duplicated appropriate visual parts for matching lyrics, varying speed rates of clips and durations of images. Lyrics follow.

Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do

Do do do darn, lots of leaves are down!
Come on, get the rakes and leaf bags now,
Come on, get the blower, chute, and dust pan, too,
Raking leaves ain’t hard to do!

Don't bellyache, complain to me.
Don't you think it's time to rake the leaves?
If you leave, then I'll feel blue,
Coz raking 'lone's no fun to do.

Remember when you'd nag me times,
That we had a lot of leaves in sight?
Think of bags that we've gone through,
But raking wasn't hard to do.

You often say that raking's a drudge to do,
Now you know it isn’t quite true,
Don’t grump or be in a funk,
Instead of feeling dreary,
I wish that we were being cheery.

I'm telling you, we'll have good fun,
Movin' leaves around and raking them up,
Sacking, packing bags in rows of two,
Raking leaves ain't hard to do.

[Repeat bridge and subsequent verse.]

Do do do darn, lots of leaves are down!
Come on, get the rakes and leaf bags now,
Come on, get the blower, chute, and dust pan, too,
Raking leaves ain’t hard to do!

If you prefer, you can view lyrics in the YouTube video "Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (with scrolling lyrics)".

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Related, "Can't Rush Fall Leaves, Parody of Can't Hurry Love" (video, article)