THE 12TH OF July Orange Order marches took place across Northern Ireland on Wednesday – and was being promoted as a “tourist attraction” in the run up.
On the day itself, a quirky aspect of the parade started doing the rounds online – as it looked like one of the songs played by a marching band in Belfast was actually the theme song from the sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm.
This started thanks to a video by Irish Twitter user @PrayForPatrick – who was “live-tweeting” his first ever trip to the marches
DO THEY KNOW WHAT SONG THAT IS? pic.twitter.com/9LgzH96JlZ
— Patrick (@PrayForPatrick) July 12, 2017
If you can’t see the video, click here.
One of said tourists, perhaps.
It definitely sounded like Curb, and the video was retweeted nearly 300 times while thousands of people were puzzled by the appearance of such a song in an Orange Order parade.
There were excellent theories about how it came about
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It’s true. The Curb theme is “Frolic” by Italian composer Luciano Michelini.
The Curb video was gathering momentum online throughout the day – the sheer ridiculousness was catching so many people’s attention. Based on that, The UK Independent newspaper’s website Indy 100 reported what had happened on July 13th
Patrick’s live-tweeting had taken on a life of its own, as the report says:
The Twelfth of July parade celebrates the Protestant religion and heritage. Marchers this year were also commemerating the Boyne battle’s 327th aniversary.
Patrick, who was live tweeting his first ever march in Belfast, shared a video that shows the marching band playing what sounds to be the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme tune.
Grand.
The only problem? It never happened – it was all a gag by @PrayForPatrick
But it sounded so real! How did he pull this off?
Well, he took an old video of a parade from 2015 and set about creating a legitimate-sounding audio background for it.
He tells DailyEdge.ie that this wasn’t an easy task:
First thing I did was remake the tune on my DAW (digital audio workstation). I found a MIDI file of the curb theme and set about converting all the tracks to flutes, trying to get it sound flute band-esque.
He explains that the MIDI file is basically a digital recreation of the song – allowing someone to play whatever instrument you want instead of the original note. In this case, the flute.
He continues:
Drums were a bit more difficult so I spent a bit trying to program marching band drums. I put the whole track through a thing called a ‘convolution reverb’ to make it sound like it was outdoors. I took a bit of crowd noise from the video and looped it and that was the audio done.
What dedication.
He then searched through the video to see which bit synced up the best. And then, the pièce de résistance:
The last thing to do was crop the video aspect ratio so it looked like it was recorded on a phone
This attention to detail was followed up by his six introductory “live tweets” to make it seem like he was indeed in Belfast at the event for the very first time.
Patrick has pedigree in this area – like that time in 2015 that this Guardian poll he made was quoted as real in numerous national outlets and by political journalists
But why the Curb theme tune?
It was between the Curb theme and Toto by Africa – I think I made the right decision.
It had an air of credibility too, as Patrick explains:
I had read a thing recently enough with the composer and knew that it was an old tune so it was something to fall back on if necessary.
So, once and for all, we can categorically say that the Orange Order did not play the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme during one of their parades this year.
And they probably never will.
What a saga.
