I poked around old notes, remembering I had scribbled a followup
verse. I found it, long after I crafted a newer set of lyrics to go with
Neil Sedaka's monster hit. My lyrics came pretty fast. However, the
later fine-tuning of fitting words to meter was slower. The longest
process was actually singing the parts.
My methodology involved using Audacity to make multiple
strung-together pieces of the karaoke music, then singing into several
tracks. I made each snippet a series of 12 pieces, then separated them,
playing them to decide the best six to have as my "chorus".
I noticed in recording that I was often late starting to sing. The
first line (a few bars) would be ghastly. The latter lines were much
better. BTW, because I don't sing, professionally or otherwise, I had
multiple sessions of recording each snippet to arrive at my 12 pieces
per snippet.
I hope my music parody video entertains you. It took a lot of effort, but it was fun and educational for me.
Autumn! Good time of the year for improved leaf tasking! My blog topic is a DIY plywood leaf pusher. It's related to my raking leaves blog articles and parody videos (widescreen, scrolling text).
My leaf pusher at the time of the parodies was a Rubbermaid dustpan,
still flexible, uncracked, and unbroken after years of leaf pile
gathering and compressing. (For smallish piles, I still use the
dustpan.)
My inspiration for my plywood presser pusher is
"How To Rake (Bag) Leaves - the EASY WAY!", starting just before the 5-minute mark, where he shows his leaf presser. He used
plywood, drilled holes, and attached cabinet handles. BTW, I advise
skipping the part about drilling holes in trash receptacle and also
using plastic bags. (Plastic is not acceptable for yard waste or compost
pickups.)
The Home Depot door handle I used is no longer available. You can view similar door handles
on the web. BTW, I think each handle with one hole at each end is
adequate and more economical than two holes at each end. Another
suggestion: Rather than using the wood screws that come in the package,
use machine screws and nuts for securing the handles to the plywood. (I
used 3/4" screws, washers, and hex nuts.)
My info is advisory. You can decide to skip using a template or
preplanning. After mulling a few template shapes (rectangular, circular,
octagonal, stop sign), I made the 11" x 15" rectangular plywood presser
pusher so that it'd fit in a lawn/leaf bag that measured 11 1/2" x 16"
but also fit into a typical round, 32-gallon plastic trash can.
If you choose to make your own plywood presser pusher for leaves, be
careful about safety WRT power tools, splinters, sawdust, rakes, and
tripping. Watch the video before and during the project, pausing as sensible. Good luck! Let me know what you made and how it's working out for you!
Plywood Resources
I referred to my plywood as being 3/8" thick. I recall that wood
dimensions tending to not be actual measured sizes. A resource with
table info is "Actual Plywood Thickness and Size". The actual thickness is 11/32". Not easy to measure 1/32" difference.
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!
Early December, raking chores inspired me to parody "Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do". I wrote and sang (not greatly) words to go with "Breaking Up" instrumental music. This article points to the YouTube video that integrates original content, scrolling lyrics, and vocals.
For working items, I shot videos of blowing leaves using a blower and holding up equipment (rakes, leaf bags, blower, leaf chute, and dust pan). For still images, I shot pictures, created and edited images. I created widescreen and narrow-view videos. This narrow-view version shows scrolling lyrics at the right side.
Note: The resolution is less sharp than with original video clips. I had displayed and recorded the clips so the visuals would show up narrow and offset, with a solid section to the right for later addition of scrolling lyrics.
"Raking Leaves Ain't Hard to Do (widescreen)"
links to the widescreen version, which shows no scrolling lyrics, but
more of the backgrounds. It also describes some of the lessons learned
for picking, creating, and integrating items into the two video
versions.
I've pasted part of the parody lyrics; the rest are available at the YouTube video.
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?
….
Related, "Can't Rush Fall Leaves, Parody of Can't Hurry Love" (video, article)
My profession had been technical writer/editor. Through TheWriteJob clublet (blog at http://thewritejob.blogspot.com), I have been exploring my inner creative writing, which includes mostly language enlightenment, entertainment, and a-muse-meant. Over time, I have become more active with images and my YouTube channel.
