Calling our Singers! Tell me about A cappella and how it's typically used

Cafe Society
1

I’m lostening to this recording with the best audio-mixing, headphones that I own

Alison is A cappella for the first bar.

I don’t think the guitarist got caught daydreaming. He’s coming in exactly on the downbeat of the 2nd bar.

I’m vaugely aware of A cappella. Vocalists in religious hynns will use it as a effect in a performance.

Is doing it on only the first bar a thing?

We’re doing it as a church special. I’ll play a full intro bar and let my partner hear the key.

Screen shot of the sheet music

[Album] imgur.com
2

Here’s the actual sheet music image:

3

Be Thou is an incredibly beautiful Irish hymn.

I could see a beautiful voice singing several bars without instruments.

Someone as highly trained and experienced like Alison Krauss can easily stay in key.

One bar without instruments sounds almost like a mistake.

4

All you need to know about a cappella singing:

5

There are numerous musical groups which sing entirely a cappella, and not just for religious music. A couple which have been popular in recent years (though there are many others) are Pentatonix and Straight No Chaser.

Pentatonix, “White Winter Hymnal”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o10drRI3VQ0

Straight No Chaser, “Twelve Days of Christmas”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OzQeitJ-5c

What exactly is your question about a cappella signing?

6

Todd Rundgen and Petra Haden put out a cappella albums with their own unique twist. A couple of sample tracks:
Something To Fall Back On

I Can See For Miles

7

I love the Rundgren album, though, as you note, while everything on the album is his voice, he’s fed his voice through digital tools to “create” instrument tracks on the songs.

8

Do people think Alison choose to sing only the first bar a cappella?

Or was this a miscommunication with the guitarist?

He came in strongly on the downbeat of bar 2. A nice recovery if there was a mix-up.

I’m not offering any criticism.
This is stunning performance by Alison Krauss.

I get inspired everytime that I hear this song performed.

9

I think that if it was an actual mistake, the producer would have stopped it and had it redone properly.

10

It’s a studio recording. I’m 99.9% sure that she intentionally sang the first bar a cappella, and it’s not a mistake.

For all we know, the vocal track and the guitar track were recorded at different times.

Exactly this, and even that assumes that Krauss and the guitarist were recording their takes together.

11

I thought it was live. Maybe a church performance? Just my 2 cents.

The choir or a vocal background group comes in later in the song.

Then Alison sings the last verse without the other vocalists.

:thinking: 4th verse is that a group of vocalists or Alison’s voice doubled with reverb?

It’s on Thou Mine Inheritance Now and Always

2:20 mark

12

I think it’s hard to tell for certain.

As I listen to it again, the quality of the sound, and the echo to her voice, does feel like it could have been done live. There are a number of other Youtube videos of her doing this song, which do say “live.” There’s no audience reaction on this track (which is common on live tracks which were recorded at concerts).

Even if it was recorded “live,” at a church or somewhere, all in one take, my suspicion is that it wasn’t recorded as part of a live performance in front of an audience. If that’s the case, then even if Krauss or her guitarist had fluffed the opening, the engineer and producer would have just done another take to get it right.

tl;dr: recorded live or not, I still don’t think it was a mistake.

13

Thanks

I was just Curious.

I’ve searched Alison’s discography trying to find where this track was published. I’d buy the cd.

That’s a frustration with YouTube.
Somebody randomly posted this 9 years ago.

How did they find it?

Beats the hell out of me. I’ve searched.

The channel history shows they post very infrequently. I guess they post whenever they occasionally find an interesting music clip.

I remember on Usenet people posted whatever crap was on their drive before deleting and freeing up precious disk space.

It would be in the subject header. “Posting before I delete” and there might be three days of porn go out their modems.

14

I took a quick look, too. I’m not sure that it was ever released on an album (at least, not one of hers).

15

It’s done for effect from time to time. The Who started out a capella in the beginning for “A Quick One While He’s Away.”

The Beach Boys did it with “Barbara Ann.”

16

And the Eagles did it (in a live recording, much less) on “Seven Bridges Road.”

17

I enjoy Barber Shop Quartet

In small doses

It’s amazing what 4 voices can do without any musical instruments.