Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of beatboxing videos on youtube.
These are just two videos that are blowing my fucking mind as of lately. These videos are from the beatboxing world competition wildcard division. The first video is from Julia Dales (who actually won the category) and the second is from a Daichi who didn’t even place, but in my opinion could’ve easily taken first or second place. Both beatboxers have some amazing control of the entire envelope of each different sound.
The reason why I’ve been watching videos like these is because I’m trying to find some crossover applications to playing a wind instrument; specifically trombone. There are some literal attempts of applying the ‘beatboxing’ to wind instruments, such as the beatboxing flautist and some decent beatboxing tuba-ists (is it tubaist? I prefer tubist) on youtube. However, I don’t really think those attempts have really examined all the parameters.
But thats not really what I’m here assert/insert my opinion about…
Under the ‘related videos’ category on the aforementioned Julia Dales video is a video of what I originally thought was a 5 year-old Julia Dales beatboxing ‘Merica’s national anthem. Wrong. Its a completely unrelated little girl singing the national anthem in probably her parents living room. Which blows, ’cause I really wanted there to be a beatboxing prodigy. Damnit… But, after being mildly dissapointed at first, I was soon rendered speechless…then, I couldn’t stop laughing.
Don’t get me wrong. I know its a tough little fight song to sing. And I know she’s only 5. I know some of the lyrics are a little graphic… BTW, here are some translations of some other countries national anthems that are awesome-ly gory:
Algeria
“We swear by the lightning that destroys, By the streams of generous blood being shed”
“When we spoke, none listened to us, So we have taken the noise of gunpowder as our rhythm, And the sound of machine guns as our melody”
Italy
“Mercenary swords, they’re feeble reeds. The Austrian eagle has already lost its plumes. The blood of Italy and the Polish blood it drank, along with the Cossack. But it burned its heart.”
Hungary
“No freedom’s flowers return, from the spilt blood of the dead, and the tears of slavery burn, which the eyes of orphans shed.”
There are more at this link.
Anyways…I was laughing at the 5 year-old because of the musical humour of modulating at the end of each phrase, something at the beginnging of new phrase…Its so fucking funny to me. There’s also another funny video of a police officer really fucking up the national anthem:
…
On another topic of videos/songs I have been watching recently that are blowing my fucking mind is this:
Nick Cave’s “Mercy Seat,” live, with a little intro from Nick about the staying power of this AMAZING song.
This goddamn song has been stuck in my head for about a solid 3 weeks now. I cannot get it out of my head. I’ve had dreams of hearing it or singing. I’m trying to find as many different versions as I can. In the intro, Nick explains that its a song that the Bad Seeds (almost) always play at every show and that its the kind of song thats so good it can be played in many different ways and still remain effective. I agree. But, the lyrics are also pretty fucking good, Mr. Cave.