Post by stargazer1682 on Oct 24, 2019 15:04:59 GMT
I loved the Bitter Suite. This came out around the time I was in high school; and we could take independent study classes for different subjects. Another student had done an independent study where they got to direct a song for choir, so I became determined to direct War & Peace from The Bitter Suite, only the sheet music wasn't available anywhere from what I could find - and this was the mid/late 90s, so I couldn't find anything useful online. Even now, in a cursory search, I still don't find anything, which surprises me slightly. So in order to fulfill my plan to do this, I had to transcribe the song, listening closely to every second and trying to figure out which note each part being song was and plotting it out; which took forever, because I'm not all that music literate. I probably became slightly more proficient remembering which note was which, but only just; and after 20 years I can say with a fair amount of confidence I've forgotten anything I might have learned from that, unfortunately. It took me so long that I ended up rolling the project over into the next year; a decision that didn't affect my grade for that class when I was working on it in my Junior year. The problem I ran into was a culmination of factors, starting with the fact that what I ultimately completed lacked all musical nuance of whole note and quarter notes, or other notation - a fact pointed out to me by the new choir teach my senior year in a less than tactful way, before saying just as unceremoniously that it didn't matter, since I wasn't going to be allowed it to direct it anyway. She then proceeded to give me a D for the independent study class for not completing an essay or something that she had made an offhand suggestion of doing at the start of the semester, but at no point had either of us had any serious discussion of that being an actual assignment; and prior to that year independent study classes were rather nebulously designed for students to set their objective - but that's neither here nor there. She was a horrible teacher and the bane of my senior year for additional reasons...
At any rate, I always appreciated Xena for setting the standard by which other shows would later follow with the "special musical episode"; and there was a time when I knew that soundtrack inside and out. I remember one time getting something stuck in my head that sounded like part of a phrase or refrain of something I could not quite remember; and I spent at least a day or more trying to figure where it was from, until I eventually realized it was from "Hate is the Star" and proceeded to listen to it for the first time in ages.
I think it will always hold a special place in my heart, though as I get older the style of the music doesn't thrill me as much as it used to; and some of the more....jauntier tunes from musical episodes like Buffy or Scrubs appeal to me more.
It's still superior to say, the Flash/Supergirl "musical", which was basically an episode of Glee. I'll also take Bitter Suite over Lyre, Lyre, but in spite of the latter's cheesiness, I'll always think of Xena on the odd occasion "Dancing in the Moonlight" happens to be playing over the intercom at a store or something.
At any rate, I always appreciated Xena for setting the standard by which other shows would later follow with the "special musical episode"; and there was a time when I knew that soundtrack inside and out. I remember one time getting something stuck in my head that sounded like part of a phrase or refrain of something I could not quite remember; and I spent at least a day or more trying to figure where it was from, until I eventually realized it was from "Hate is the Star" and proceeded to listen to it for the first time in ages.
I think it will always hold a special place in my heart, though as I get older the style of the music doesn't thrill me as much as it used to; and some of the more....jauntier tunes from musical episodes like Buffy or Scrubs appeal to me more.
It's still superior to say, the Flash/Supergirl "musical", which was basically an episode of Glee. I'll also take Bitter Suite over Lyre, Lyre, but in spite of the latter's cheesiness, I'll always think of Xena on the odd occasion "Dancing in the Moonlight" happens to be playing over the intercom at a store or something.