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#421 | ||
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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I know you are MUCH better musically informed than I am, but maybe consider checking the rep that you're practicing. Just a thought. If you're not feeling it, I would vote don't even waste your time on it though. Unless someone has already agreed to pay you for it, what's the point of practicing a Bach cantata to perfection if you hate it? ![]() Quote:
Also maybe you're using too much pressure when you try to belt? When I 'belt' into my upper register and do it correctly I feel like I'm lifting off of the pressure rather than increasing it like a lot of my friends do... and I can also belt for a lot longer than some of them can ![]() Sing what's in your heart! ![]() ![]() I gave my dad a voice lesson today for the first time in a long time, and it wasn't till the end that I stumbled on something to really, really help him. He still wants to grab with his throat and sing everything back, and when I told him to jam the sound into his nose he actually managed to be completely nasal AND still a little throaty. It wasn't till I had him humming for a warmdown that I realized that even though his placement was much improved due to the nasal placement, and he was using much less breath pressure, it was still too much breath pressure! It was getting throaty due to overblowing. I had him hum in his falsetto (which is almost impossible to do with too much pressure because the voice will crack a lot), then I had him use that same tiny amount of pressure and BOOM... his humming popped into a good placement. Then I demonstrated for him how I could sing at a moderate level using exactly the same tiny, tiny amount of pressure and air. He was totally flabbergasted. He actually said, "But it's like I'm not doing anything! That's how you sing? There's almost no effort!" ![]() ![]() ![]() For his exercises, rather than saying, "Do X scale Y number of times," I told him to hum that way every single time he gets in the car to drive somewhere, and to check his amount of pressure by doing the falsetto slide... if it cracks as it flips over into chest that's too much breath pressure, if it doesn't crack then you have the correct amount of pressure. I'm excited. Last time we did make progress before he started to blackslide, and this time I have even better 'tools' to use. When he was humming without the excess pressure, I heard a -very- warm, resonant baritone voice in there as opposed to the 'dry' sound I had always heard before. Fingers crossed for good things to come! |
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#422 | ||
Princess of the Noldor (and Administrative Empress of the Lone Islands)
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Imladris (and sometimes Norway)
Posts: 3,304
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Signature picture art - Bard the Bowman - by vigshane Avatar art - Footsteps of Spring (a young Luthien) - by Henning Janssen |
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#423 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TIVnq2kkjY
This is an excellent example of belting. Keep in mind not everyone can belt like her... Sara Ramirez has a very large alto voice, and from what I understand pretty amazing technique. I believe she got a degree in vocal performance at Juliard. You should watch the whole thing because it's funny, but also because at the beginning she is singing very normally. She's using lots of energy, but not a lot of breath pressure. She doesn't start out belting, she sings pretty 'normally' at first. After about 1:15 seconds in she starts belting, and her loudest belting is at about 2:05 seconds in where the holds the final note out. Belting takes a lot more energy, although not toooo much more pressure (unless you want really heavy belting like she does at 2:05 seconds, and then I assume that does just take a lot more pressure and isn't particularly great for your voice), and it's a very brassy, nasal sound. It has a lot to do with where you place your voice, and also how high you keep your soft palate... if you let it drop a little, you'll tend to get a slightly more 'belted' sound than if you keep it high like opera singers do. Also some people will tell you that belting is about dragging your chest voice up higher than you should, but I don't believe that's true ![]() ![]() Last edited by Tessar : 01-23-2010 at 07:56 PM. |
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#424 |
Sapling
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 10
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anyone mariah carey fans???
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#425 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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Not particularly. She shredded her voice... if you listen to her perform live now she can barely sing... I'm sure she must have multiple nodes on her vocal cords.
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#426 | ||||||
Lady of Andúnië
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Andúnië
Posts: 572
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![]() But that's still not the style that is used so extensively around here. ![]() ![]() ![]() Quote:
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" ...But the Exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen, Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue." "Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient, Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion, List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest ... " ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline |
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#427 |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
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Does anyone have any good advice about how to do vibrato? I've looked it up on the internet before but I still haven't really figured it out. I've never been able to do it.
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#428 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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Vibrato is SUCH a tricky thing... and frankly it can make the difference between a beautiful voice and an icky voice. I can think of a few people who have totally gross voices because their tone is beautiful, but they either have an ENORMOUS, wobbly vibrato, or they have a a super, super fast vibrato. I think straight-tone can be very beautiful, and I do like some faster-than-normal vibratos, but super fast vibratos are just awful.
Teaching vibrato to someone who has none is a very interesting subject, and I don't think I've ever met a teacher who claims they have 'the absolute' method for teaching it. There are also different kinds of vibrato, some very unhealthy. There's jaw vibrato, which a lot of pop/gospel singers use and even a good number of opera singers. It looks SUPER cool, but it's basically where your jaw gets so tight that it 'shakes' up and down as you sing, and that is extremely unhealthy for your voice, and will eventually evolve into an uncontrollable vocal wobble as they get to their 30's and 40's. There's 'stomach' vibrato, which I don't think is very healthy either... and that's where you basically 'pulse' your stomach a little bit to create the vibrato. My suspicion is that it's another unhealthy technique, because any time you 'flex' the abs like that you're sending a tiny extra burst of air through the cords, and I don't think doing it THAT much is healthy. There's larynx vibrato, which I believe is not always unhealthy in and of itself, but it is unhealthy in that it happens because of excessive tension in the throat/neck/jaw area. It's when you see someone's larynx bob up and down in perfect unison with the speed of their vibrato... it's also very distracting to look at. It's a problem I have, but it's slowly going away as I learn to place my voice better and take the tension out of my neck and throat ![]() My only real suggestion for beginning to discover how to create a healthy vibrato is this: imitate a ghost. Go, 'oooo' or 'wooo' in a spooky, light voice using as little breath 'pressure' as possible and slide up and down in your upper/middle voice making that spooky, shaking tone. Keep in mind that isn't how you want to actually continually create your vibrato, but it's the healthiest method I know of to discover the beginnings of how to develop a vibrato. I've found very few teachers who know of healthy methods... and it has been suggested that some voices just aren't really meant to sing with a lot of vibrato. I don't know how I feel about that, but there are so many things we don't know about the voice that I suppose it could be 100% true. ![]() I learned my vibrato just by imitating my very first teacher, and I had none before my voice changed (boy sopranos/altos do not usually have a natural vibrato). |
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#429 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
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As a rule, certainly, but the exceptions can be interesting. There was a boy soprano in the 80s called Bejun Mehta with absolutely gorgeous vibrato.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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#430 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
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Posts: 6,433
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That's a really beautiful voice, Gwai. He's also apparently got quite a career as a counter-tenor now, and I love his adult voice too.
Worked with my dad again today... he had started humming with a lot of breath pressure again, so I had to make him back it off again. We added a falsetto exercise where he slides on 'oo' from his falsetto into his chest, and I showed him that when he does it without pressure he can slide from falsetto down to fry without an obvious vocal break. Then we did the falsetto slide on 'ah', which requires more developed muscles because unlike the 'oo,' where you can get away doing it without any 'support' from the low support muscles, it's almost impossible to do it on 'ah' without support, because otherwise you can't control the volume of the 'ah' (unless you modify the vowel, of course). So this week he's supposed to keep humming, and add in the falsetto slides on 'oo' and 'ah' to develop the low-pressure vocalizing and help develop his support muscles. I think the falsetto one is also SUPER AWESOME for his voice, because he gets a delayed onset of sound if he begins the note with too much pressure, or it 'glitches' at the onset of sound. I showed him the difference between the glitchy or delayed onset and a smooth, instantaneous onset that comes from a balanced support and low pressure onset... and he seemed to understand and was able to replicate it a couple of times. |
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#431 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
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I know, isn't it? And very distinctive; a far cry from your steretypical "Pie Jesu" treble! And even more than the voice, I'm impressed with his musicality. He knows what he's doing with the music more than any other boy soprano I've ever heard.
That said, I'm not terribly keen on his countertenor. He's good, decent voice, good technique, but he's not really anything special. Perhaps I'm more disillusioned than anything; I would have hoped that he would have matured into something great, not something good.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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#432 | |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
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I think I will work on that when I'm not around people. Everyone already thinks I'm weird, I don't need to make it worse. |
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#433 |
Lady of Andúnië
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Andúnië
Posts: 572
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Katya, i think Tessar explained well how to at least begin freeing your voice. Ironically, you have to gain relaxation and freedom in your voice before you can achieve control. But controlling the vibrato is not something you ever want to do.
Vibrato is something that, ideally, happens naturally. Some voices have more than others. It should never be forced or otherwise manufactured. It's one of those things that, once the singer learns enough technique to have at least a foundation of vocal production that is free from tensions, should be allowed to 'just happen'. Voices with no vibrato are either very tense (a technical problem) or are doing the opposite of artificially manufacturing a vibrato - they are artificially suppressing it. Either way is unhealthy and unnatural and eventually leads to all kinds of vocal problems. ![]() Tessar, it sounds as if the falsetto exercises are working for your dad? I've forgotten, is he a baritone like yourself? Many baritones have a good falsetto register (in fact many career countertenors are actually baritones). Are you doing this to help him achieve balanced registers, or just part of working towards vocal freedom? In my own singing life, i'm waving the white flag of surrender ![]()
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" ...But the Exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen, Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue." "Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient, Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion, List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest ... " ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline |
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#434 | ||
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Thomas Aquinas College, Santa Paula, CA
Posts: 10,820
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle Last edited by Gwaimir Windgem : 02-01-2010 at 05:56 PM. |
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#435 | |
Lady of Andúnië
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Andúnië
Posts: 572
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" ...But the Exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen, Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue." "Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient, Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion, List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest ... " ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline |
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#436 | ||
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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I'm doing it for the freedom, and hopefully the register blending will be a nice 'side perk' to doing them ![]() I'm also doing it because it's (as far as I'm aware) physically impossible to do them loudly. I think you could get a little volume if you're -really- good, but in general you have to do it with just baaaaaarely any pressure, and at pianissimo to piano volume level. He sings with too much pressure, and he tries to sing 'big', so I'm doing this to make him back off of the pressure. Quote:
I had an AWESOME voice lesson today. Despite allergies, dumb drama-induced-stress, and a fairly rigorous concert tour schedule (three performances Monday, four on Tuesday, two on Wednesday, and two this morning) my voice is still in decent condition. I warmed up to an easy G4, and for the hour long lesson we worked on a piece that sits high in tessitura for me, and I had no major problems. It's because I had a breakthrough during choir tour... because I always try to emote when we sing on choir tour (I sort of 'act' inside my head, and just let my outside expression show what I'm singing rather than doing actual physical gestures), there was one piece where I was trying to sort of 'sigh' as I sang, and I realized after the first two concerts that it was actually making the piece physically easier to sing. I started doing it all of the time, and I realized that I had still been 'holding in' my breath every time I sang. My teacher was just thrilled to death with the improvement, and she told me four or five times that she couldn't believe how easily I was singing. Seriously... between the new placement I found on New Years Eve, and this new way of breathing/supporting, I am singing almost totally effortlessly when everything works together properly. I'm so excited to get a little vocal rest and then start using this stuff on all of my pieces. I have a long way to go as far as making everything balance properly, and making the stuff be 100% consistent, but progress is DEFINITELY being made. She also 100% approved of my plan to switch majors, and she actually started telling me what courses I need to be sure that I either audit or take before I switch majors so that I don't have to do remedial stuff in grad school. So she's going to help me with all of that, AND she told me that when I finally switch majors I'm still totally welcome to take privately with her... it will be more expensive for me so she suggested I keep letting the school 'pay' for the bulk of it as long as I can, but I love that she'll still be willing to teach me whether I'm majoring or not ![]() |
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#437 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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Once the opera competition on March 20th, and then the NATS competition like a week or two right after that, are over I think I may try to see if my teacher will let me try out some belter songs. I was told in the past by a handful of people that I have a good broadway voice because it's sort of a light but 'full' sound, and it has enough of a tenor 'edge' to it.
So far I'm thinking of, "Way Ahead of My Time," because it's HILARIOUS (it's about a gay caveman ![]() http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EXOUViG_WU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECpTC4FtIDQ Both are technically tenor pieces, but I really don't like very many of the broadway pieces for baritone/bass... and I can belt a G4 so there's a handful of tenor pieces that I can sing. The G4 isn't great at this point... but it's consistent, and although it doesn't have vibrato yet, it's getting relatively easy to sing, so I'm hopeful that in another month or two it'll open up and be well produced enough to vibrate freely. I don't think either of those pieces go over an F though, so either way I'm in good shape because I can definitely handle an F with no real problems. ![]() |
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#438 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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Just did a great voice lesson with my dad... I was actually very, VERY surprised how well he did. Like... floored, frankly.
The humming needed a bit of tweaking again, but just barely any... nothing like last week where we had to almost readjust the whole thing. The falsetto slides were pretty much AMAZING. I kid you not... it took me years to learn how to do those things because my throat was so tight, and in one week he's learned how to do the 'oo' slide flawlessly, and the 'ah' slide with just the occasional glitch. I mean the 'oo' slide was perfect. Nothing to critique there, just the 'ah' slide needs work. In a few weeks he might be ready to do some 'ee' slides. Then I introduced him to what I just figured out how to do this last week, what I'm calling the 'sigh concept'. It the thing where, to release the breath and open up the throat, you imagine that you're sighing as you sing... the higher you have to sing, the more 'open' the sigh. It's not like a loud sigh that you want someone to notice... it's the kind of sigh that you do when you don't want anyone to hear it... the throat is open, so it produces very little sound. Bring the cords together on that, though, and you have a beautiful, open sound that carries like you wouldn't believe. It worked so well on the humming that I thought I'd try him on a five-tone 'ah' scale, and OMG. Awesomeness ensued ![]() So this week he's supposed to do humming, falsetto slides (primarily on 'ah' since he's mastered 'oo'), and the five tone 'ah' scale up to as high as is comfortable. I told him for a few months it may be very inconsistent... like some days he may not even be able to reach Middle C, but in time it will become consistent probably up to the F... keeping in mind that he's almost 50, so the G may not ever become super consistent. But as a baritone, particularly choral, he'll never need that. Hopefully in a few weeks he'll be ready to start working on some actual music. I think we'll probably take whatever the choir is working on, and I'll have him start it on just humming, then a single vowel, then changing vowels, and -then- try putting it all together. Really take a couple of weeks to bring it all together. Fingers crossed this is all headed in a good direction ![]() I also may have a temporary student. The whole situation is a little weird, so I'm not expecting it to happen, but there's a kid from the choir I observed at my parish last year who is getting ready for a competition (UIL I think?). His voice just changed to baritone. He takes lessons from someone I know.... but to be perfectly honest I wonder if she's really a very good teacher because she has some major vocal issues of her own. Anyways... the woman who co-directs the choir suggested to the boy that he should ask me for help with singing the piece (I think because she knows how much I struggled when I was his age with singing, so I can really empathize). I gave him a couple of 'starting tips' (i.e. learn the rhythm, then the melody, then the words, THEN your teacher can really help you sing it) but I told him that I couldn't help him unless he okayed it first with his regular voice teacher. I don't want to step on any toes. Last edited by Tessar : 02-06-2010 at 04:50 PM. |
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#439 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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SoooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOoooooo freaking excited!!!!
Today in my voice lesson I fiiiiiiiiiiiiinally had the breakthrough I needed to get my soft palate up and keep it there when I sing without my voice dropping back into my throat. WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO!!! It's totally awesome. We discovered that when I really jam my palate up all the way and keep my voice super, super forward I can do tiiiiny little pianissimo sounds, even in my middling-upper register (I think the highest we did was a middle C) that totally just spin, float, and shimmer without losing any connection to my full voice, AND now that my palate's up I have way, way more control of my dynamics. I'm so excited... this is going to make a huge difference for my singing in general, BUT especially for 'Warm As The Autumn Light,' because there are a couple of places in there (especially the opening and very ending phrases) which are AWESOME if you can do them very softly. That's one of my competition pieces for March, and after I did those first phrases with the super soft, high palate sound my teacher said that she wants me to really, really work that piece and consider using it as my 'choice' for little NATS (which happens right after the competition... the next weekend or something) if I make simi-finals. My goal is to make the simi-finals for the competition, and to make the final 5 for the finals at NATS. We'll see if I can do that ![]() |
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#440 |
Lady of Andúnië
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Andúnië
Posts: 572
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Wow!
![]() ![]() ![]() I'm getting a small charity benefit together at my church. I have a pianist and a mezzo who want to work with me so far, but am hoping to get a few more classical singers and instrumentalists involved as well. I'm looking at late spring. Practice has been very good for me on so many levels. Now i just need to decide on exactly what i will be singing. So many arias, so little time... ![]()
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" ...But the Exiles on the shores of the sea, if they turned towards the West in the desire of their hearts, spoke of Mar-nu-Falmar that was whelmed in the waves, Akallabêth the Downfallen, Atalantë in the Eldarin tongue." "Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient, Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion, List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest ... " ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline |
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Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Fellowship of the ringwraiths discussion thread | Butterbeer | RPG Forum | 551 | 07-21-2006 10:44 PM |