The "Virtual Choir" Story

It was an ordinary day. Typing and singing. When I sit at my iMac I usually put one of my favorite songs on iTunes and sing along as I type. Just loud enough so I can hear myself singing in harmony with whatever I'm listening to. Makes typing easier. My wife tells me that I sing or hum all the time or when I'm not singing, I'm taping my fingers. I like to tap to some imaginary beat in my head. Sometimes for days at a time I will hear the same song in my head. I either sing along or tap my fingers. Eventually I will hear something different on TV, CD player or radio and a new tune will replace the old. The other day I was watching the news on TV and there was this really interesting story about a virtual choir. Pretty neat! Story was about Eric Whitacre, who is an American composer, conductor, and lecturer who started a project on YouTube called "Virtual Choir." Now this is for me, I thought. He wrote that last year a friend emailed him a link to a video that featured a young girl, Britlin Losee, singing the soprano part to Sleep, an a Capella choral work he wrote in 2000. He freaked out he said, because it occurred to him that if 100 people all recorded their respective parts (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass) they could line them all up and create a virtual choir. He asked people from around the world to buy the same recording of Sleep from iTunes, post their voices and they were then cut together. The results were outstanding, and I'm ready to be a part of the next venture. I have included three YouTube videos so you can see the sequence as to how he made his "Virtual Choir." The first is the young girl's performance, the second is Eric describing how 185 voices, 243 audio tracks from 12 countries all came together, and the third is the actual performance. See if you don't agree that it is phenomenal. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.