There are a few Disney movies that I just love to watch over and over again because for some reason, they never get old. The weird part is, they're not necessarily the most popular of the Disney movies. Instead, they're the ones that are just so unique that you can't help but love them. Example? Hercules!
I realized that I haven't seen Hercules in a while, and when I realized it was on Netflix it seemed like the perfect background noise for some note-taking, and away I went. But did you know that Hercules actually had a mini-parade at Hollywood Studios, then MGM-Studios, back in 1997? That's right! Meg, Phil, The Muses, and all your favorite Hercules characters took part in one not-so-giant parade back in the day, and if I do say so myself, I think it was pretty darn adorable!
I mean, you just can't beat the muses singing on the opening float. And while we're talking about the floats, just look at the intense detail that went into some of these!
The "Zero to Hero Victory Parade" only stayed from 1997 until 1998, failing to return for a second season, but from the video I recently found in our home movies, it's definitely one of the more entertaining things that's happened at the Studios!
Now if only they'd bring back Hercules, Meg, and Hades for regular meet and greets. They're absolutely on my list of "wish to meet," and who knows! Maybe once Herc finally finishes defeating all those monsters they'll make a stop back at Disney World!
Once and a while I get lost in whether or not I've actually had a real blog post on something before, as I try to keep them all as different as possible, and this is certainly one of those times. But as I studied for my French test, among other things, over the past few days, one song has been present more than ever...or should I say a melody of songs?
If you remember back to when I talked about Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (found HERE) and it's presence in the Festival of Fantasy Parade, you'll know that part of the melody that makes up the spectacular soundtrack is indeed Mozart. For our music theory class, we are required to do a music analysis of a piece of music from that same era, so of course I picked the Rondo of Nachtmusik because, really, listen to something that reminds me of Festival of Fantasy all day? Yes please. It also gives me license to listen to Festival of Fantasy over and over again, right?
To tell you the truth, I'm absolutely IN LOVE with this parade. I've mentioned it here and there, but I honestly don't think I've expressed my pure adoration of Festival of Fantasy. I've never really been a parade kind of person, but I know that it's on my schedule for June already at least once, and we'll see if I can sneak in a second showing. That's how much I love Festival of Fantasy. Also, I'm not joking when I say I have Festival of Fantasy on repeat...I really do.
So I figured I'd go through and share some of my favorite Festival of Fantasy photos from my family! They're taken over several trips and you can click on them to enlarge them to their normal size!
My personal favorite section of the parade? Peter Pan of course! There's just something about the "Yo-ho!" that's thrown in there that I just love. In fact, every time that portion comes on in the recording, I end up stopping my work so I can sing along and do this little dance. Let's be hones though, it's probably because of the Lost Boys. Their Newsies style is one of the best parts, in my opinion, at least...next to the real fire breathing dragon. You can't beat that!
If you've seen Festival of Fantasy, what's your favorite part of the parade? Is it the Peter Pan section like me? Do you prefer the fire of the dragon? Or is there another part that jumps out at you with beauty and majesty, shining magically? Let me know in the comments below or on social media!
The above question is the exact response that occurs every single time I explain to someone that I am a music major (and an English major too, but the focus here is music). I mean, after all, we just sit around and play instruments all day, don't we? LIES! As music majors we actually take entire classes on the history of music and the rules of writing music (SEVENTHS RESOLVE DOWN!), and THEN we spent the rest of our lives playing our instruments or singing.
But in order to really understand the music that we're performing, we end up listening to a lot of music too. I talk about music all the time around here, and how my genres range all over the place, from Pearl Jam to Disney music to Classical composers, but every once and a while they overlap in really weird and impressive ways. A couple of weeks ago I blogged about Illuminations 98B and Jupiter, specifically how I've actually played that music, and in the past, my wind ensemble has performed many of the songs that are played throughout the parks.
Today I wasn't performing though. I was just listening. In our theory class, around once a week (although I do believe this week we have two!) we have what we call a "Musicians Moot," where we examine a particular composer or work, just listening, following along with the score or sometimes picking out specific characteristics of a piece. Our latest piece: Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. I promise you know this work, even if you don't know the whole thing, although for our purposes I want to take a look at the final movement: Rondo.
Now, the Disney park. If you skip ahead in the following video track to 3:06, just take a listen for a few seconds.
Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? Turns out, the arranger of the Festival of Fantasy track used Mozart's Nachtmusik as inspiration for the parade we all love so much! We talk a lot about how Classical music is often made up of short, catchy tunes that get stuck in your head, and Festival of Fantasy proves that fact right out! I'm pretty sure we all walk away from the parade with the music stuck in our head...at least until we head on Haunted Mansion or Pirates and get a completely different song stuck in our heads.
It's sort of funny though because during theory class this morning I just could no for the life of me figure out why this song sounded so familiar. I knew it had something to do with Disney, because you just KNOW when it is, but I couldn't find directly where it came from. Then, a few minutes later, right before French class I was sitting, humming the tune and suddenly the lyrics from Festival of Fantasy popped into my head and the mystery was no more! Ironically enough, it took me longer to find the spot in Festival of Fantasy where the theme comes in than it took me to realize where I knew it from. The theme does come back multiple times throughout the rest of the parade though!
And there it is, your lesson on why Music Majors are important. Whoever put together the music for Festival of Fantasy was probably a music major somewhere once too, and you know what, now we all have Mozart stuck in our heads.
