Jump to content
Light-O-Rama Forums

OUR'S/YOUR FAVOURITE TOP 10-20


Peter B

Recommended Posts

Hi All,

I think this would be a good start for newbies/veterans on LOR. What are your top 10-20 sequences you would put in your show. Starting with #1 The opening show and finishing with the closing. The reason I say 10-20 sequences is, do you run your show for 30mins, 1hr or even longer before it repeats etc. Do you do different shows every day/week.

Really looking forward to the replies :shock:



Pete :cool:.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like to have songs that are somewhat fast and can use lots of chasing effects. These types of songs can be annoying to neighbors that can see the lights each night whilie trying to watch TV so I don't fill the entire show with them. My favorite songs are below:

  • Wizards In Winter - TSO
  • Carol Of The Bells - TSO
  • All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey
  • Jingle Bells Techno
  • A Mad Russian's Christmas - TSO (I hope to sequence this song soon)

To keep the show entertaining to the kids that will be viewing you will want to include some of the standard Christmas songs that they will recognize and probably sing along with (Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, etc)

I have my show loop through each song and then repeat until the show's end time. I use the same show each night and the only thing I change is the end time, the show runs longer on the weekends than the weekdays. The start time remains the same all week.

tom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tom,

Brilliant reply thank you! This is what I really like about this forum ideas, sharing etc.

Thanks for your input.

Pete.

Ps: By the way how long is your single show without looping?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Last year I had my show just repeat itself. I try to mix thing up a little. everyone in my family picks a song to do and we all try to do as much of it as possible together. I also get input from my neighbors to give them a little input in the display. Also co-workers often suggest songs. Here is a list of the songs we did last year.

Must be santa - picked by my daughter

rockin around the christmas tree - picked by my son

all I want for christmas is you - picked by my wife

wizards - neighbors picked this one

first snow - I picked that one

christmas everyday - I also picked this one

greg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Greg wrote:

Last year I had my show just repeat itself. I try to mix thing up a little. everyone in my family picks a song to do and we all try to do as much of it as possible together. I also get input from my neighbors to give them a little input in the display. Also co-workers often suggest songs. Here is a list of the songs we did last year.

Must be santa - picked by my daughter

rockin around the christmas tree - picked by my son

all I want for christmas is you - picked by my wife

wizards - neighbors picked this one

first snow - I picked that one

christmas everyday - I also picked this one

greg

Hi Greg,

How long did each show last before repeating/looping?

Pete.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I divide my sequences into two categories: Secular and Non-Secular

In my non-secular list, I would include Stille Nacht (by Mannheim Steamroller) - it seems to be a very popular version and a crowd favorite.

Emmanuel - by Michael W. Smith - I use an editted version of the song and got the idea about this sequence from Daniel. It has a very good tempo and the message is second to none.

Christmas Canon - By TSO- very pretty and melodic. Looking at you tube views, it is a very popular song.

For my non-secular music, I have included:

I f**rted on Santa's Lap, Now Christmas is Gonna Stink for Me. by the Little Stinkers. If you like Yellow Snow, you will like this song. It was a favorite two years ago here and many people asked me if I was going to include it in this years line up.

I like bluesy music, and my favorite song was "Lonesome Reindeer Blues" by the Christmas Jug Band.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Peter B wrote:

Hi All,

I think this would be a good start for newbies/veterans on LOR. What are your top 10-20 sequences you would put in your show. Starting with #1 The opening show and finishing with the closing. The reason I say 10-20 sequences is, do you run your show for 30mins, 1hr or even longer before it repeats etc. Do you do different shows every day/week.

Really looking forward to the replies :shock:



Pete :cool:.


Pete,

You'll find many different styles. I had about 30 songs last year -- about 4 hours of running time with voiceovers. I divided these up into 3 categories - Awesome, OK, and crappy. I then built 8 shows. Each "awesome" song ended up in 3-4 of the shows, OK songs in 2, and junky in 1. With that scheme, I had about 6-10 songs per show. I then ran one show (looping) each night, and picked a different show each night. The main idea was this:


  • Those who wanted to stop and see one, maybe two songs would still get to see some of the best songs because they would come on every other or every third song.
  • Those who wanted to stay longer could see a full show rotation (30-60 minutes) if they desired.
  • When families would come on different days, they would be able to see different (new) songs, although some of the best songs would keep popping up too.
  • Those who came really often would still see new material since they'd have to come at least 8 times in one season. This is because of the few songs I didn't like (about 8), one song was placed into each show. (And that's assuming they happen to hit all 8 shows and not catch a repeat.)
  • 8 shows gave me an offset to a 7 day week. That way, the same show wouldn't run on the same day (if a family came 2 saturdays in a row for example.)
  • If someone really wanted to sit outside for hours, I didn't want them to be able to see all the songs in one night.

So, that was the theory. While it worked fine, I'm not sure going to all that effort really had a big return.

This year, I'm trying something new. My goal is to build one show 30-60 minutes. I'm really cutting the material down so it's less work. Plus, I want to rest some of the pieces so they don't become too tired and over used. I'm at the point now I could build a 3 year rotation with the songs. I think I've hit the point of diminishing returns -- adding a few songs and having 40 or 50 isn't really any different than having the 30.

So, this year I'm changing it up and doing a limited number of songs (say 6) really well as opposed to 30 OK songs that didn't get nit picky attention. My new 2008 piece for this year is rather big and I have props and other things that need building, so I'm trying to minimize sequencing time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm kinda in the 'Mike Ziemkowski' school of sequencing. I generally edit my music down to no longer than 2 minutes per song, then assemble them all into one MP3. That MP3 consists of an opening fanfare, one or two faster songs, a slow song, a medium song, a fast final song, and then a closing fanfare or tag (or whatever the term is). The entire show lasts only about 10 minutes or so.

The advantage, to me, in doing this is that the 'show' is truly a show, and any gap between songs is put there intentionally. I also can merge from one song straight into another one, since the music is all edited into one piece (using Audacity).

This might not be your cup of tea, but check out Mike Z's stuff on his website. I really like this style of sequencing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So far for 2008, I have 8 songs and a general announcement.

I have shortened all the songs down to 1:15 to 2:00 each and the finale (wizards) I left at regular length.

I put the announce every 2 or 3 songs ... so that people are more likely to hear it and hopefuly follow the courtesy reminders.

The total length is like 17.x minutes and I just figured it would loop continuously during the show hours.

I'm also including in those 8 songs a european (non-english) christmas song, which suprisingly my daughters just love. If/when my daughters soccor coach and wife come by (she is from sweden), she will surely recognize it. Everything is either rock or techno/dance versions of christmas songs. I also came across the old song: Popcorn, which we danced to as kids in elementary ... its a really simple synth tune, but might be pretty cool for LOR sync'ing ... and the vu meter in LOR II might just make it really easy.

Comments appreciated.

My daughter have helped me screen the songs we are using and they just don't like anything slow. I was pushing to have at least bing crosbys white christmas in there ... but they don't much like it. I found a remastered version on amazon thats only like 1m 19s or so ...

Scott

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Peter B wrote:

Greg wrote:
Last year I had my show just repeat itself. I try to mix thing up a little. everyone in my family picks a song to do and we all try to do as much of it as possible together. I also get input from my neighbors to give them a little input in the display. Also co-workers often suggest songs. Here is a list of the songs we did last year.

Must be santa - picked by my daughter

rockin around the christmas tree - picked by my son

all I want for christmas is you - picked by my wife

wizards - neighbors picked this one

first snow - I picked that one

christmas everyday - I also picked this one

greg

Hi Greg,

How long did each show last before repeating/looping?

Pete.


Pete around 23 minutes. It was a good time I believe I had no backlog of traffic.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The last two years I have built an 18.5 minute show with 11.5 minutes of break music/voice overs/announcements. I built it in Audacity to the exact second. That way I could announce that the "show" begins every hour and half hour.

The show line up was as follows:

Overture
Meaningfull song
Over-the-top song
Body song
Show teaser song
Main song (dancing Santas)
Finale'

The time frame allowed me to "turn" the house on the busy weekends. The 11.5 minutes was a perfect amount of time for getting cars out and in and the new people out of their cars to listen to the outdoor speakers.

I also had only one show file which included all 30 minutes. I did this after reading all the trouble people had with show schedules skipping and omitting songs. I understand those problems are all history now, but I liked the idea nevertheless.

Charles

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hobbes wrote:

To keep the show entertaining to the kids that will be viewing you will want to include some of the standard Christmas songs that they will recognize and probably sing along with (Frosty the Snowman, Jingle Bells, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, etc)


tom.

I found this to be the key for me last year. I had "The Chipmunk Song" and "Linus and Lucy" and the kids loved it. So this year I am doing the Grinch "Welcome Christmas" and I have to find another good kid song they would recognize. I feel you should have something in there for the kids so they will want to stay longer so the parents can stay to watch most of the show.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Favorites top to bottom

1. Duelling banjos (by far everybodys favorite)
2. WIW of course
3.Let it snow (Bing Crosby)
4. Jingle bell Rock
5.Christmas Vacation(mavis Staples)
6 Carol of the Bells (David Foster)
7.12 Days of Christmas( Gary Hoey)
8.Mad Russian Christmas
9.A Star to Follow
10. Deck the Halls

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This will be my first year sequencing and I am going with 2 song sequences with shorten songs

Sequence 1 will be and will only run abou 10 minutes
Christmas Don't be Late Alvin and the Chipmunks
Wizards in Winter TSO
Sleigh Ride The Carpenters
Carol of the Bells Home Alone Songtrack
Snoopy's Christmas
Christmas Eve/Sarejevo TSO

Sequence 2 will be
Christmas Vacation Christmas Vacation soundtrack
A Mad Russian's Christmas TSO
Lucy an Linus
Run Rudolph Run (haven't picked the artist yet)
Wonderful Christmas Time Paul McCartney
Do you Hear What I Hear Whitney Houston
Here We Come a Caroling Perry Como

Not sure of the length yet on Seq 2, still working on getting all the songs together.
They wil run back to back and loop. Still working on sequence seq 1 so seq 2 may get additional songs

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 8 months later...
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...