A Capella Tribute to John Williams

By Shamus Posted Saturday Nov 8, 2008

Filed under: Movies 46 comments


Link (YouTube)

That’s talent!

 


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46 thoughts on “A Capella Tribute to John Williams

  1. Wood says:

    That was pretty awesome. Each corner seemed to be filmed all in a row, too. I have no idea how he did that.

  2. Jim says:

    Simply awesome.

  3. Brandon says:

    Thanks for the link below the movie, Shamus. I watch the RSS in Thunderbird, and the movies never show up.
    (And apparently I can’t post a comment from Thunderbird either…)

  4. Riksa says:

    Nice. He recorded the song beforehand and then lipsynced the parts one by one in front of the camera. The bass part, for example, seems to be sung close to the microphone, because his lower register isn’t strong enough to sound like that from a distance. He seems to be a high-ish baritone. Or the song could be recorded by several singers, but it does sound like just one person. Well done, anyway, especially if he did the arranging, too.

    I just hope the correct italian spelling “a cappella” would once again become the norm.

  5. Tango says:

    Wow, that got to you fast!

  6. The Gneech says:

    Pure awesome in distilled form!

    -The Gneech

  7. Laura says:

    If you look at the video info on Youtube, you’ll see the reference to the group that actually sang it – moosebutter, an a cappella comedy group. http://www.moosebutter.com/
    (Corey did the youtube video with their permission)

  8. Kel'Thuzad says:

    I went from a little skeptic to a fit of laughter. Thank you Shamus, thank you.

  9. Kevin says:

    That was amazing. Thanks big for linking it!

  10. Lochiel says:

    Laura beat me to it… the audio is all MooseButter. Corey did a great job syncing all of his recordings together and syncing himself with the music.

  11. Riksa says:

    That’s it then. I must say the group’s voices blend together remarkably well.

    /homeresque grumbling
    Bunch of lousy, same-sounding singers, making me be wrong… …in my day, we had instruments, and no one complained… …but NO, we’ll just be four SEPARATE people…
    /end homeresque grumbling

  12. vdgmprgrmr says:

    Oh wow, do you guys know how vulnerable to a rickroll we were just now?

    I mean…

    Wow.

  13. Spider Dave says:

    Heh, I ran into this the other day. I sent it to all of my musically or star wars inclined friends.

  14. Carra says:

    Nice clip :)

  15. Loneduck3 says:

    Well done. A capella isn’t really my thing, but it obviously takes talent, so kudos to them.

  16. Rebby says:

    I saw this a few days ago – it was really impressive then as now :)

  17. Arson55 says:

    Wow, that was really well done.

  18. Rolaran says:

    Very impressive… they even managed to get the right amount of whiney into Luke’s voice.

  19. Rawling says:

    The start had me worried, but the rest was awesome :D

  20. ima420r says:

    HA! That was fantastic! Great music, very entertaining, had me laughing! I loved it and I must share it with friends.

  21. Woerlan says:

    MOST impressive. *applauds*

  22. Klay says:

    I know this will net me huge nerd points but I’m going to say it anyway. At 1:50 he says he’s going to Tashi Station for power converters. Its actually Tosche (pronounced Toe-shi). Besides that admittedly very small error, it was very well done.

  23. Huckleberry says:

    Off topic, but still:

    Legend of the Seeker (based on Terry Goodkind’s “Sword of Truth”) has started airing, and so far it’s really great — wonderful fantasy adventure stories complete with wizards and a hero and an evil villain; it’s a beautiful production; and, if you want, you can really imagine the roleplaying going on …

  24. Jock says:

    Klay, not sure if you’re being serious or not, but Luke IN THE MOVIE pronounces it Ta-shi, so, yeah.

    Awesome find btw, Shamus. How do you keep finding these?

  25. anachronist says:

    I once tried recording myself a capella. It’s harder than it looks. Even if this was a lip sync, I’m still impressed.

    Huckleberry: Yeah, Legend of the Seeker is pretty good, but don’t read the book first (Wizard’s First Rule) or you’ll be disappointed in the dramatic departures from the plot taken by the show. By episode 3, there’s hardly any resemblance to the original story except for the principal characters in it. Still, I can enjoy the show for what it is. The book is awesome, though.
    -A

  26. Klay says:

    Jock, in every version I’ve ever seen, he pronounces it Toe-shi. Maybe I’m wrong but I could swear its Toe-shi.

  27. Jock says:

    Don’t know what versions you’re seeing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKvdrqFSwhQ

    Are you watching it in another language, maybe?

  28. Robyrt says:

    As a former a cappella singer / arranger myself, this is good stuff. Clearly one tenor with lots of free time – it’s pretty easy to record on top of yourself by “singing along” to the parts you did earlier, and everybody sounds the same. You could get the same result by serious SoundForge tinkering with a full-size group, but in that case I’d have acquired a better bass ;)

  29. LintMan says:

    The fact that he’s just lip-syncing all the parts reduces the magnitude of coolness by a factor of 10 or so for me. I’d much rather see the real singers performing it than a lip-sync by some other guy – what’s his value-added, really?

  30. Huckleberry says:

    [Warning: OT answer to comment above]

    @ anachronist —
    That’s what seems to be the consensus among people who’ve read the series by Goodkind. I haven’t, and I enjoy the TV series for what it does: it just maps so well to a well-run and cliché (in all the good ways) p&p rpg. I have lots of fun waching…

    [I’m also thinking about putting the first novel on my Christmas wishlist.]

  31. SiliconScout says:

    Stop there though.

    The first book is gold but it drops steadily, and with increasing velocity, from there.

  32. Tesh says:

    I’ve seen moosebutter (yes, they don’t capitalize their own name) perform live. They are a blast to see, and well worth the entry cost. Their CDs are packed with this kind of zany brilliance and talent. They are just a bunch of goofy, affable guys with plenty of skill and weirdness.

    The video in question was pure lipsynch, done with moosebutter’s blessing. (They mention it on their site.)

    “John Williams is the man” indeed. :D

  33. Volatar says:

    Thanks for this great video. I still have it in my head today. I have been sending it to all my friends, I find it so awesome.

  34. Jeff says:

    @Huckleberry:
    That’s hilarious. I’ve never seen it, but I have a friend who’s a huge fan of the books, and she mocks the show endlessly.

  35. Dragonbane says:

    @SiliconScout: I actually enjoyed most of the series. To me, there is a big drop in book 4, and it doesn’t recover until midway through book 5… but after that I was very happy with the series again.

  36. Cuthalion says:

    Youtube’s blocked on my network, so I just listened to moosebutter’s audio. It was hilarious. I can only imagine what the lipsynch must look like.

  37. davwalp says:

    OMG….thank you for finding this.

    I know it’s lip-synced but I don’t care.

    Absolutely made my day!

  38. Huckleberry says:

    [Continues OT…]

    The third Seeker episode (4th, if you count the pilot as two), unfortunatly, was quite abysmal…

    It’s still good fun, though, as I watch them as role-playing-sessions; and in this session, the GM created gaping plotholes, and the players were somehow ‘distracted’, gave up thinking and just acted randomly…

    [Shamus, do you think we could have an open thread every now an then, for random suggestions, quick questions etc? “Open” excluding politics, of course.]

  39. mephane says:

    Best Youtube video ever!

    Btw: Indy band + no DRM + fair price = bought! :D

  40. Damian says:

    They’ve just posted a live version of the same video, done by the actual singers.

    I think I just found myself my birthday present.

  41. Bailee says:

    I saw this video in our chorus class and I found this and my teacher was like blown away and same here its awsome and funny GREAT JOB COREY!!!!!!

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