Useless Earworms
Getting a song stuck in my head is one of the hazards of barbershopping. Sometimes it's a good thing, as when it indicates I've learned a song. If I go around whistling the tenor part, though, it's a little silly. More recently, though, I've been whistling something even sillier: voice training exercises. The disc I picked up at Harmony College has some catchy numbers on it, like "Flah, flah, nee-nee-nee-nee" and humming an arpeggio of scale degrees 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 and 12 going up, 11, 9, 7, 5, 4, 2, and 1 coming back down. It's a bit of a stretch for either of these to be considered great melodies, but they're damn catchy. It's no big deal when I catch myself singing them, but it's ridiculous when I catch myself whistling them.
I'm reminded of an exercise called "Humming the Blues" that we used in Chorus practices back when mab42 was a member. That one came from Karen Oleson's I'm Not Crazy, I'm Vocalizing! along with the classic "Vienneze Nonny Nu". I went to see a URSO concert in which mab42 was playing horn. In the minutes leading up to the concert, I heard a familiar line. It took me a minute to realize that Matt had been playing the melody of "Humming the Blues". Not quite as useless as whistling it, but not too far from it, either.
I'm reminded of an exercise called "Humming the Blues" that we used in Chorus practices back when mab42 was a member. That one came from Karen Oleson's I'm Not Crazy, I'm Vocalizing! along with the classic "Vienneze Nonny Nu". I went to see a URSO concert in which mab42 was playing horn. In the minutes leading up to the concert, I heard a familiar line. It took me a minute to realize that Matt had been playing the melody of "Humming the Blues". Not quite as useless as whistling it, but not too far from it, either.