So I've been working a bit on Project Argonium, which by the way, is moving a bit more slowly than I'd like because of the upcoming Ecological Society of America conference (which I'm presenting at and also presiding over a session on polar & boreal carbon cycles). Anyway, there's two songs by O-Zone that I especially enjoy and have an easy time actually remembering & pronouncing the lyrics. The first is "Despre Tine" and the second is "Dragostea Din Tei". (I love all of their songs actually... and I'm looking forward to what the three guys in the band, particularly Arsenium, are going to come up with). I digress, but anyway, I was heading out to work on some archery after about 2 hours of harp and vocal practice and I was still singing because I was having too much fun. For those of you who've never heard "Dragostea Din Tei", the song opens up with vocalizations that sounds like "Mai-a-hee, mai-a-hoo, mai-a-ho, mai-a-haha!" I was doing that part and I thought I was doing pretty well for someone with very little vocal training, since it does take a pretty wide vocal range to pull it off well.
Then I realized that I had several pairs of eyes on me, including the apartment manager and her adorable little sun conure (aka Napoleon if he were a parrot). The parrot merely started shrieking along with my... singing. Nobody really said anything directly to me, but I had a feeling that I hit on some sore nerves, judging from the puzzled glares I got. It was about 17.00hrs so I didn't think I'd disturb that many people, but now most of my neighbors just look at me funny.
As if that weren't enough, I got caught singing again, except this time I was singing "Despre Tine", which thankfully doesn't have any passages that remind me of a nice operatic aria. Just a simple, catchy tune with an easy vocal line. So I was driving to campus and I emerged from the car singing my heart out. As I was singing, someone who apparently had taken some huge lecture classes with me in the past, stopped me and started to talk to me:
Random Person (RP): Hey, I remember you from classes... what are you singing?
Me: It's a song called "Despre Tine" by O-Zone
RP: Is that Filipino? It doesn't sound Korean or Chinese at all and I can't think of any other language you might be able to sing in.
Me: Nope, it's Romanian.
RP: [makes some kind of funny noise and then wanders off]
To me, Romanian sounds like a linear combination of Spanish and Italian with a bit of Russian. Makes perfect sense to me since Romanian has Latin roots but also evolved near Russia... so go figure :P
Take-home lesson: Singing loudly in unexpected languages is fun!
No comments:
Post a Comment