What blows me away about Geoff is his ability to arrange something like this as well as perform it. And then sort out costuming, makeup, and set location, film a video, and edit it. All this while doing the same thing on a larger scale for VoicePlay. That said, he's turning into his own rabbithole, with his mulit-tracked vocals and excellent video production. Just so you know, he doesn't do a cappella for his solo work. There is usually a minimal music track behind his vocals, but nothing too forward in the arrangement. You get a good idea the breadth of his range in both Blackbird and High and Dry, but his cover of 16 Tons is what really went viral and gained him a lot of attention. Which is kind of funny, since it's one song where he never uses subharmonics (which seems to be what he's best known for); all his lows are full chest voice. That said, it is one *hell* of a good arrangement, performance, and the video aesthetics are absolutely perfect.
I don't understand why he doesn't have a record deal yet, he's amazing, I love the way he moves his arms like he's conducting an orchestra, the orchestra is own voice. His vocal range is phenomenal, I love it.
I love Geoff’s ability to bounce around. He switches up tempos, he switches up keys , he switches up whether he’s a tenor, baritone or a bass and it always sounds great. I always enjoy watching his hand movements. You can sometimes tell where he’s going to go based on what he does with his hands. In pirates he surprised us - his hands went down and his voice went up. He states that he cannot sing without moving his hands in one of his tutorials. In one of his shorter tutorials he said that he works out the instrumentation on the keyboard and then uses computer software to get all the different instrument sounds. 16 tons and Misty Mountains are my two very favorites of his solo work. I’ve always liked the fact that he clones himself and performs different parts for each copy of himself. The clones kind of react to one another , to look over at each other and react. I think that’s really interesting that he goes to all the trouble to make it appear as if it’s actual actually multiple people. One reactor said that it’s because Geoff has “too much voice” for one person so he has to split himself into multiples! Can’t Help Falling in Love and Bridge over Troubled Water both are nice and slow and really highlight the smoothness that he has in his voice. Those are both performed with the group. Another nice thing is you get to hear Layne, the beatboxer sing. He has a lovely baritone.
I love watching you react to Geoff and to Voiceplay. Some suggestions - for enunciation, go with the Headless Horseman, for tone, check out Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold, he hits the same low note three times, each one with a different tonality/technique (also does not use his hands), for only one Geoff, go with Mele Kalikimaka with the American Sirens. Everything he does is gold.
Yay! So glad you reacted to this one! His name is pronounced “Casta-loochie”. You cannot go wrong with Geoff whether it’s his solo stuff or with VoicePlay. Normally with his solo stuff there is an instrumental track that he arranges. He does have a 5-octave range and some of his solo productions showcase it. You should also check out the song he did last year for Christmas, Mele Kalikimaka. It was a lot fun. Can’t wait for you to check out his other ones. My faves are House of the Rising Sun and 16 tons.
Voiceplay lives in Orlando Florida and all have performed shows at Universal Studios and Disney World. So annunciation, dressing up, wearing makeup, acting, etc are ingrained I to them. So they are known as both The Theater Kids and Kings of Halloween.
I was so excited when you mentioned the Picardy Third! The vocal music major in me squealed, “I understood that reference!!” Ah, the days of music theory, lol. I love this arrangement. Gives me major Transiberian Orchestra vibes.
He doesn't beat box himself....he uses regular instruments in his background music, to highlight his four selves. Love your channel and reactions. I look for you every day on You Tube. Keep up the great work.
Such fun to see your excitement! I just love his arrangements and gorgeous tones. His range is over 5 octaves, btw. Looking forward to seeing you respond to his 16 tons and Blackbird.
Great reaction! I like it when people who know music react to these so they can actually analyze what’s going on. Been awhile since I took music theory (and it confused the heck out of me back in the day), so this is great! You can’t go wrong with Voiceplay or Geoff. Props to Eli (ELee) for the lighting, also.
Noticed the hands, huh? So does Tim. Neat. And range, too. Sorry, I'm a Home Fry first, and VoicePlay is second in my heart. But you're right, this is beautiful.
You've GOT to listen to his other videos, especially House of the Rising Sun, Monster Mash, Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold, Sixteen Tons, The Headless Horseman and TAke me Home Country Roads.
Such a unique and beautiful arrangement! Ahhh so GOOOOOD!! I really enjoyed your reaction!!! Looking forward to seeing more Geoff reactions from you. I love his cover of Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold but I’m a huge Hobbit and LOTR nerd lol House of the Rising Sun, 16 Tons, Monster Mash, Bare Necessities lol there’s a LOT!
Great performance and reaction. Chris I miss being able to attend your premier. I am a moderator for another channel and that reactor has been having a premier at 2 PM EST each day just like you. Please stay well and enjoy each artist you react to.
Thanks Andy! I miss seeing you, but I understand. Maybe once I keep growing, I’ll see a better time in my analytics to post on my channel and hopefully that will help :)
A tip: A lot of reactors will back up about 10 seconds after a pause, especially if they're pointing out something specific. It also helps with continuity of the song.
Love the singing Geoffs. He has such a great range. The rhythm is fun but I really love the close harmony section where the percussion drops out. Thanks for your reaction
Love love love his arrangements. He did a lot of teasing by making us think he was going to drop those bass bombs but then left the singing to his counter parts. FYI, looks like a strand of lights went out on your tree.
If you want to know a few good ones to watch from Geoff Castellucci, you Need to watch his halloween Monster Mash, and as well as one of my personal favorites "High and Dry" from Radiohead. He's absolutely magnificent in that and it was just him and his wife recording in the room! (It don't get nearly enough love from the reaction community as it should.)
Nice reaction! I like his work with VoicePlay, but I love his solo work. If you haven't done any by Dan Vasc, please🙏 consider doing some, and start with Angels We Have Heard On High. He just released it today, and I've listened to it almost all day long. Yes, it's just that good!
Hey Chris. About the Pickerty third: If you go back to Hoist the colours, isn’t there one there where Geoff sings about the bell? Just around the word sepulchral, which always struck me as horribly, hauntingly beautiful.
It is hauntingly beautiful! But after going back to listen to it, I don’t hear a Picardy third. There is chord borrowing which adds that color…that may be what you’re hearing.
Geoff Castellucci's Far Over The Misty Mountains Cold (from the Hobbit), House of the Rising Sun, Monster Mash and 16 Tons are all great pieces (and examples) of Geoff's work.
Another bass singer that you should check out is Tomi P. He has a similar range (both higher and lower) as Geoff and you really should check out his cover of "My Mother Told Me". Please put it on the list! You'll love it (also listen for some ridiculous 5th-6th octave notes from him as well as 1st and 0 octave notes).
Geoff also does 16 Tons!!! P.S. Have you ever been told that you resemble Curly from The 3 Stooges!!! He died way too young.....but, out of all the extras that tried to fill the spot after his death, He was my Favorite!!!
I’ve never gotten that one, but I have got somebody a bunch of times!! Can’t remember who tho…I wanna say an announcer or comedian, maybe a wrestler haha… that narrows it down
If you want to really focus on Geoff’s voice, I would recommend High and Dry. He shows his full range and you can really hear his upper register. No harmonies just him and a keyboard.
Please react to his stories! His story telling is amazing! I know they are a bit longer, but they are just as creative. My favorites are Little Mermaid, Tell Tale Heart, Raven, and Landlady.
KAST-ah-LEU-chee Kast rhymes with Fast He started doing solo music vids in the COVID shutdown. Has about a dozen up, so far. All of them are actually multitrack 4 or 5 part harmonies of himself... EXCEPT his last year's Christmas vid "Mele Kalikimaka" where he brought in some guest artists, The American Sirens. Voiceplay vids are pure acapella, unless you actually see an instrument (e.g. Layne's violin). But Geoff uses instrumental backing in some of his solo vids.
It has been said that he can't sing without using his hands but I've seen one video where he keeps them in his pockets,. Just the one. It's a Sam Smith cover....Stay With Me. Looks quite odd :) Yes I love his enunciation too. It drives me nuts when a singer just can't be understood. And of course the smoothness of his tone. Great video, great reaction.
A lot of them use their hands like that... Tim Foust, Avi Kaplan, Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, to name a few. In fact, when PTX did Say Something, Scott had his hands clenched on the chair back to stop himself from doing it. Avi uses his guitar to keep from doing it. Go watch Tim in Brothers In Arms.... his hands will tell you where his voice is going.
So glad you like Geoff. Late for season but try his. Monster Mash super video there, Geoff has his own channel where he goes sort of single. All excellently done. Country Roads is beautiful, 16Tons, so many.
Welcome to the Multi-Geoff-Verse! It's a lot of fun, with some unexpected twists to old standards. Hand motions: he and the other members of VoicePlay started it as a visual cue to the audience as a playbill of sorts to show who was singing at the time. Plus he's Italian so... He distinguishes (think non-compete) his solo work from his work in VP by adding instrumentation to his songs (though he can beatbox-see "Death of a Batchelor"), he does sing all the harmonic parts, with the exception of "Mele Kalikimaka", on which he features The American Sirens, who are also awesome, they are the present day Andrews Sisters! Pick any song he's done over the last year plus, they are all good, and all his arrangements. For range I second everyone else who suggested "Blackbird" and High and Dry" (personal note: I avoided the latter song because I seriously disliked the original RadioHead release of the song and only gave it a listen because I ran out of his other works), Geoff's version gave it heart, and per himself, it has personal meaning to him. I went back and relistened to RadioHead's version, and to me it was weak and the singer sounded strung out, probably why I so disliked it from the first. No shade to RadioHead fans, just didn't work for me); for great chest lows, the go to is "Sixteen Tons", for a near note for note dark colored remake of Thurl Ravenscroft, go with "Headless Horseman" another YT-ber put a side by side video up a while ago where one version's audio was in the left ear only and the other's audio was only in the right ear. It's eerie!! He and his wife Kathy are a basically self contained production force in planning, arranging, instrumentation, recording rough mixing, set design, filming, video editing, etc. When he needs to use outside resources: he sometimes films at PattyCake Studios, owned by fellow VP member Layne Stein (beatboxer/baritone) and former VP baritone The Tony Wakim, when he needs to use his sick dad dance moves, he gets help from a professional choreographer Matthew "Bucky" Buckner (see Monster Mash), SFX makeup needs are Rick Underwood (unfortunately not on the final Monster Mash video, but on many others, especially for VP), and after Geoff does his rough mix he sends it off to Ed Boyer, who does the final mix for him as well as for VP. On this video he also had fellow VP tenor Eli (Elly) Jacobson (EDIT: setting and running the lighting). It's like they're all brothers or something! Beyond that, I echo what pretty much everyone else has said in your comments, so you may as well just react to all his offerings, lol!! I am enjoying your reactions, peppered with the music theory tid-bits! Looking forward to your next selections!!
As a person who has seen every single Geoff video. This one stands out as being the first one where he seemed to put the main focus on the high notes he can pull off. And I LOVE how it turned out. HOWEVER! If you plan to watch more of Geoff, prepare to have those high notes be the spices to the main course of Geoff singing so low the devil locks the doors to keep him out.
It's not enough that his voice has that range, but he does these amazing arrangements. There are people who just do that and don't have his talent for it.
You should react to his version of monster mash and far over misty mountain. Geoff is amazing!! You can also buy all of his songs he has videos to on iTunes. ❤️
From someone who has NO musical background I can't begin how much I love watching reactions from people who actually knows music and knows how to sing. I find it so wonderful how you point things out during the video that I miss. It makes me replay it back until I understand.
Castellucci. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Y6Pf-vmugbU.html You need a basket of things to throw when you listen to Geoff and VoicePlay. lol
Another reactor, Brad Steele, in Geoff Castellucci's cover of Blackbird made the comment at one point "Dude was in the basement now he's on the roof." You need to checkout Geoff Castellucci's covers of Blackbird, Monster Mash, The Headless Horseman, and 16 Tons.
Great reaction, really enjoyed it. I would like to make a request if you don't mind? Any chance you would check out Tim Storms singing "Lonesome Road"? The man is an amazing bass singer and I promise you, you will not be disappointed.
Geoff also does an amazing job on 16 Tons, Monster Mash, and Over the Misty Mountains Cold. Check them out! Both his solo work and Voiceplay are phenomenal!
