How fast can you do it? Challenge three of of your friends to post a video of their best attempt! Now… for some loose rules –
- Words, pitch, meter all matter!
- Bonus points: Self accompaniment, parasols, bloopers, and your best General hat
[Lyrics are at the bottom of the page]
So many of us singers – amateur, professional, or shower crooner – work for years perfecting breath control and timbre. But while we’re all locked down, we have a challenge for you – PATTER! We searched the internet for the fastest recording we could find and we think the BBC recording below sets the right bar.
Singer, Simon Butteriss, performs The Modern Major General at a blistering pace – 2 minutes and 14 seconds! We don’t expect everyone to perform the the entire thing (but our hats off to you if you can do it sans accompaniment), so we’ve taken Simon’s fastest verse/chorus:
- Chorus: 16 seconds
- Verse: 8 seconds
Share your results below and invite us to watch! We’ll post some of our favorite results on OperaPulse.com.
Good luck!
Lyrics: Modern Major General’s Song
The Pirates of Penzance By Gilbert and Sullivan
(Butteriss in the recording above does the bolded verse/chorus in 24 seconds!)
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news—
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
I answer hard acrostics, I’ve a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parablous.
I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes,
Then I can hum a fugue of which I’ve heard the music’s din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.
And tell you every detail of Caractacus’s uniform;
In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.
When I can tell at sight a chassep”t rifle from a javelin,
When such affairs as sorties and surprises I’m more wary at,
And when I know precisely what is meant by “commissariat”,
When I know more of tactics than a novice in a nunnery:
In short, when I’ve a smattering of elemental strategy,
You’ll say a better Major-General has never sat a gee—
Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;
But still in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General.