And the Oscar goes to...

..."We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3, words and music by Randy Newman.

Yay!  The up-tempo won!  I have to confess I was rooting for this one to win.   

I play for a singing competition that is basically drunk-live American Idol, and one week the contestants had to sing a song that had won the Academy Award.  

It. Was. The. Longest. Night. Of. My. Life. 

That is how I learned that ballads are often favored for Oscar songs.  I guess there's something cinematic about a deeply-moving ballad? 

Anyway, I like Randy Newman's quirky voice, and I like the bass riff and the horn arrangment, and I'm more than thrilled that there's one more up-tempo to choose from in the realm of Oscar-winning songs. 

Oscar Medley VIDEO!

Here is my Oscar medley - unfortunately I haven't had time to write my geekery about/analysis of it, so please check back later in the week for that!

The four nominees are (cue suspense):
"If I Rise" from 127 Hours
"Coming Home" from Country Strong
"I See the Light" from Tangled
"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3


And the Oscar goes to... ???

Medley-Makin' Time

With Mom, who is responsible for my language-nerdiness. She is also a pianist.

I nearly misspoke (miswrote?) just now, when I was about to call this post "Mashup-Makin' Time", trying to be cool and hip and preserve my youth as long as possible by using Glee-speak.  Then I googled "mashup", because I'm a giant nerd.  Here is what I discovered: according to the interwebs, the word mashup actually refers to an electronic mix of two (or more) pre-recorded songs.  It is not a clever arrangement of parts of two or more songs cobbled together cleverly (we hope) and live.  No, that would be a medley.  They are two different things. 

You know what I love about the English language?  That it has so many words that we can distinguish between a mashup and a medley.  You know what else?  I love that it is a living language, flexible and constantly evolving.  So I could be pedantic and correct people when they refer to a medley as a mashup, or I could just be cool and hip and go with the flow.  Anyhow, I surmise that "medley" comes from the same root as "muddle" (meaning to mash, as mint leaves with simple syrup in the bottom of a glass). Furthermore, I surmise that 1) I need a drink that involves muddling and 2) my language-nerd mom (who deserves the blame/credit for this tangent) is going to fact-check the etymology of the words medley and muddle.

I'm hedging, really.  I should be working on my Oscar medley right now, since the only time I have to record it is tomorrow around noon.  I almost gave it up earlier today.  My heart's not really in this particular Wish anymore, I thought.  I should use my time for other things.  Then, just for the heck of it, I started noodling around with the Oscar songs for a few minutes before I had to leave for rehearsal.  And of course it was fun and satisfying for my nerdy brain to experiment with muddling (ha) these songs together.  So I'm going to do it, and tomorrow around noon I'm going to B.S. a medley for my videocamera for my next vlog entry.

Know what else I love about English?  How nouns can be verbs.  Like hedge.  And noodle.  And B.S.

Weekly Wish: Oscar-Nominated Songs

Why I am not learning a song a day this year, even though I miss it:
because I'm writing about learning a song a day, a book which is turning out to contain barely any material from last year's blog posts. 

Because I'm learning audition material and working and looking for more work and doing stuff that is higher priority than learning a song every day just for the heck of it. 

And!

Because I'm wishing.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride: so goes the proverb.  I have a beggar, and she is saying, "Please please please let me go back to learning a song every day, just for a little while."  So this week, she will ride on a horse that says, "I wish I could still learn a song a day.  I wish I paid more attention to the movies.  I wish I knew this year's Oscar-nominated songs."

So, I'm going to learn the four songs that are nominated for Best Original Song:
"Coming Home" from Country Strong
"I See the Light" from Tangled
"If I Rise" from 127 Hours
"We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3
 and I am going to make a little medley for solo piano. 

Target date for starting to post videos: on or before Valentine's Day.  Hold me to it, readers!