I'm on a Cole Porter kick again. Periodically I try to learn the tune to "Night and Day." The words are simple enough, but getting all of the intonations, inflextions and whatnot correct for this piece has always been a challenge... all the moreso because I do most of my singing in the shower and in the car and neither of these locatiosn has a piano.
I'm a reasonable singer - nothing all that special, but I can hold my own in a church choir, chorus section or even when faced with my dog rolling his eyes as I search for notes. I have three different recordings of "Night and Day" on itunes. Fred Astaire's rendition has only suceeded in further confusing me, but a few more rounds with John (De-Lovely) Barrowman and I might actually get part of it right.
Meanwhile, I leave you with this career advice from Porter's "Be A Clown" -
A college education I should never propose
A Bachelor's degree won't even keep you in clothes
But millions you will win if you can spin on your nose
Be a clown!
2 comments:
When I was playing a run of Porter's Anything Goes, our conductor told us that he wrote "All Through The Night" to piss off a singer who was bugging him. The entire song is a series of descending chromatic scales broken with occasional giant leaps up and modulating frequently. It is extremely difficult to sing in tune. I don't know if the story's true or not, but I like it. Night and Day has many of the same issues, but not quite as evil.
Lemming, where are you? Are you lost in Cole Porter's music? Do you need someone to play a little of Judy Collins' "Send in the Clowns"?
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