Everyday You're Gone (Jo Ishida)

The struggle was real.  Its 9AM and you spend so much time wrestling with the same phrases that you just want to get it over with.

Here is a picture capturing what I think its like to write a song

Then you think you got it

But eventually you take a break or even whilst practicing / rehearsing you wind up with this


Pro Tip
1.  Your ears and mind become so fatigued that you don't even know who you are anymore.  If you currently like the way it sounds, just get a good capture and consider it finished.

It feels very difficult trying to figure out where notes should when you have 12 to choose from.  You're actually only going to be working with 7 if you're using 1 key.  7 is still intimidating though and plus there are already so many tunes out there, so how can you hope to uncover an original catchy one while avoiding both cliches and unconsciously sampling a melody that you already like?  How do you stay motivated?


This is a protein, which is made up of many long chains of amino acids, which are made of even smaller elements.  Proteins do a lot of things, but their shape are what determine their behaviors.  You want to figure out how to engineer proteins because hormones, enzymes, and antibodies are all proteins - if you make a really useful one you could change the world.  The problem is they're folded and twisted up in an infinite number of crazy ways, so today organic chemists use computers to automate the folding and twisting of proteins to try and find a really good one.  BUT even with the help of computers, because there are so many possibilities, it still could literally could take forever.

Pro Tip
1.  Don't complain because with practice you have the chance to create something awesome in your own lifetime.  Scientists today hope they'll be the ones to discover something awesome, but theres a good chance it'll be figured out by other scientists down the road after they're already dead!




Back in Black (ACDC)

Because working on timing is always a good investment?

I've never actually listened to ACDC before and had never listened to this song outside of a montage in a movie like School of Rock and probably Wayne's World.  I didn't know there was a melody or chorus after the initial guitar part.  I got the idea though from seeing a friend's video on Facebook of him playing guitar with his young cousin on drums.  I also didn't really believe it when I read online that this rock music makes good learning material for beginners, but in fact it is much easier to bang on the drum (or pads) because the rebound created from the extra downward force really helps with the...the up part after you hit it. 

This is also a pretty good example that you can learn anything today from Youtube.
 - Someone made an MP3 of the song with the drums edited out (this I don't know how they did without affecting the other instruments)
 - watch someone's videos w/ tips about how to practice (there are tons of tutorials, the hard part is finding the ones that don't ramble)
 - find a video of someone playing an actual drum set to see which drums and which cymbals they're hitting




Over and Over (Jo Ishida)

This was recorded just using my Tascam device and Android smart phone.  The audio and video were synced and edited a little bit also on the smart phone so no computer was used (except for writing this post right now). 

This ones an original and draws upon a few different sources while trying to be very minimal.  Anyway I hope you like it.



The Last Thing on my Mind (Tom Paxton)

The goals for this one were:
 - Guitar picking
 - Vocal intonation
 - Learn the dobro


I spent 5 days finally learning how to hold a guitar pick because I just never learned!  I always just play with my fingernails.  I always found that a pick eventually slips out of position and has to be put back in place during a break - I did figure out a way to hold it, but in the end I still miss strings and hit unintended bass notes.

Thanks to Beethoven, my intonation is so much better due to proper use of the oropharynx!  I don't know if accessing those overtones helps your ear or if its just better connection with your breathing but good intonation is a byproduct of improved voice technique.

The Dobro is a weird instrument - there are frets on the guitar neck but pitch is completely dependent on where you place the tone bar on the string.  If you're too short you'll be sharp and if you're too far you'll be flat, so its amazing how players stay in tune when playing blazing fast solos.  I did use a tuning plug in to help some of my notes.  I got the dobro used in Japan for about 200 bucks and of course its in near brand new condition, and I tried fooling around with some instrumental pieces on Youtube, but in the end I just wanted to learn an accompanying part BUT I needed a Dobro Capo.  A capo is what closes the strings against the fret of your choosing so all the strings become a few steps sharper - this way you can play the same chord fingerings but be in a higher key.  Anyway, Dobro capos are different from guitar capos and are insanely expensive - professional ones cost $100.  I found on in Japan for $150, so in the end i ordered on on eBay from a guy who makes them himself in Pennsylvania, and it was $40 with shipping to Japan.  The tone bar also costs $30 too and there are various models. 

I'm also thinking about busking next year w/ the dobro because it has a built in amplifier via the metal cone built into the body which creates that loud twangy sound.  Buskers who play acoustic guitar and have to shout / sing to be heard just always seemed like too much work competing w/ the sounds of the city.  But the Dobro can really penetrate the air and sounds crazy, so it could be a good candidate to just fool around with outside. 

One technique about the dobro is although you can press down on the strings with the bar, but this can make you over / undershoot the fret you're targeting causing you to go flat / sharp - also it'd make me be too early / frantic sounding.  Lightly holding the bar and letting its own weight close the strings works way better, and just kinda purposefully tossing it around for some reason yields way better accuracy than a more aggressive or assertive method. 


Ishida



Beethoven: Zärtliche Liebe

Sometimes people ask me to do certain songs, but the point of the blog isn't just to do covers people like.  I try to do things that are either new or difficult, so I studied an art song by Beethoven that he wrote when he was 25.  The title means 'tender love', so I thought it fit in nicely amongst all the folk hits of the 60's and 70's that I throw up on here. 

Singing in the classical style is to me insanely difficult.  Back in the old days when there were no microphones, singers had to:
 - be loud: optimize resonance within their own bodies in order to send their voices into massive concert halls
 - be musical: for example suggest moments of softness / quiet (but you're still pretty loud though) AND also even greater loudness / intensity
 - be coherent: manage all the different words by choreographing your tongue and lips into shapes that wont disrupt the column of air you're blasting thru your vocal chords. 

And thats the complete list of how to be a singer - just kidding.  I mean singers today still need to be musical and coherent, but the loudness factor really I think sets the operatic / classical genre apart from all the others. 

I took voice lessons in college, but singing is so personal I don't really think voice lessons are really the same as guitar lessons.  A guitar teacher can literally see what you're doing wrong, show you how to do it, or physically manipulate your hands into the right position.  Because neither of you can see whats happening under your skin, a voice teacher can show you and give a variety of tips to try at home hoping that one of them will generate a sensation of 'naturalness' that you will then adopt and continue to use.  I always went to voice lessons thinking that amazing breakthrus would happen in the lesson itself, but this is not the right mindset - breakthrus happen when you're experimenting alone and then you show your voice teacher later.  A voice teacher is kinda like a psychologist - they give you advice and then you try it outside.

Anyway, my favorite singer possibly of all time is Fritz Wunderlich who just every single recording of him is absolutely flawless - theres not much more to say on it.


Ishida

The piano accompaniment was created for rehearsal by thekingjacob1 on Youtube

Take the Wheel (Jo Ishida)

I was fooling around some chords and trying to commit to a melody, and over time it felt like I was coming up with a Christian rock song, which at first I resisted of course struggling with how to change the boat's direction or just to give it up entirely.  After a few days I kept strumming around and just gave in to coming up with some text with big open vowels during the climaxes (to access more overtones), and here we are. 

Pro tip
 - If you just indulge what is naturally happening, you'll wind up finishing something much sooner than had you fought with yourself on whether or not its even worth doing. 

This time I used a guitar pick-up I bought for a gig that never happened and a larger diaphragm microphone than the Tascam recorder I use, and I can hear the difference already!  Its all about those overtones, if you're filtering out upper frequencies by not consciously trying to send your sound to where it can resonate best in your head / face, then the Mic can't really do its job properly.  Another amazing this is how much better in tune you are if you mind the overtones

Its getting dark earlier, so I whipped out this desk lamp I got for $5 and put it on the floor - because the overhead cast light on a bunch of unnecessary stuff in the background, I just left it off.  Also, having the dramatic light really helps in getting in the zone and this recording took much much less time to capture a good take. 

Pro Tip
 - Do as much as you can to pretend you're in some kind of setting that can transport you away.


Ishida



Don't Think Twice, Its All Right (Bob Dylan)

I've been working on voice recently, and I think I figured something out that really makes it more enjoyable.  I have a nasal speaking voice, so reasonably I also have a nasal singing voice.  I started looking on YouTube to find out more about it, and this excellent linguist really opened my eyes to a lot of stuff - and I think I'm understanding it. 

You got:
 - larynx (voice box) contains the vocal folds
 - pharynx (chamber behind your mouth and nasal cavity; leads down to the esophagus (food) and trachea (air)
 - nasal cavity - giant space behind your nose
 - mouth

When a pitch is activated within an acoustic chamber, there are sympathetic frequencies that also resonate resulting in a full series of notes (although they are difficult to hear individually) which thereby create a very rich and unique combined sound - if you want to try it, you can sing or just yell into a guitar's acoustic hole and you'll get all the strings shaking just by the power of the fundamental note coming out of your voice.  Inversely, a synthesizer creating a SIN wave is literally a single pitch without this series of overtones - cleverly named "the overtone series".  Going in the other direction, a singer singing in a concert hall is actually a rich 'combined note' then activating the overtones in the hall which makes the sound completely new and rich all over again!  Get it?  A single note is actually not just one frequency ringing - its a fundamental pitch (the loudest / one you hear) accompanied by a bunch of other higher notes ringing together (though weaker but adding lots of flavor).  Its the shape, material, and method of transmission to the acoustic chamber that creates different sounding instruments, or noises, or any sound really.  By the way I'm just making all this up.

Lets get back to your mouth.  When you sing or speak, the shape of your mouth will amplify some of those sympathetic frequencies (they're called partials or overtones) and will negate others - your tongue is the most active participant in this process.  When you say words like "Aw" or "Oh", the jaws open and your tongue stays low down resulting in lots of space in your mouth for resonance - extend the lips and you get an even 'deeper' / 'richer' tone because you're literally making the chamber slightly bigger.  When you say words like 'she' or 'is' the jaws can stay closed and the tongue rises which results in relatively less space in the mouth for resonance - this results in a disproportionate amount of air being sent to the nasal cavity, which has a completely different design with respect to the amplification / negation of those overtones.  I believe both the mouth and nasal cavity (or oropharynx and nasopharynx) are used in singing, but use of one more than the other results in a noticeable change.

Its a funny compromise, when you speak or sing nasally: the sound is crisp, focused, and the words are understandable - perhaps this is why country / folk music around the world adopts a more nasal sound where people would sing / dance outdoors and didn't have access to performance halls - assuming there wasn't a church or cathedral nearby.  However the sound can be fatiguing to the ear, tend to go flat, and can be taxing on the voice as you are flexing muscles to forcibly direct a majority of sound to the nose.  Meanwhile the sound that utilizes the mouth is generally more pleasing to the ear, can have a greater range of tone for dramatic effect, and is less of a strain across long periods of singing - but it can be difficult to understand the text being sung, and is challenging to learn because we don't need to manage the jaws and tongue nearly as much for basic conversation. 

The reason why the mouth technique is much more pleasing to the ear and stays in tune more easily is because more of those overtones are being amplified when the mouth is used vs. the nasal cavity.  In fact, the acoustic chambers in your face are actually just filters of those sympathetic frequencies - and your nasal cavity eliminates a lot of them.  The trick is to get those nasal sounding vowels and consonants back in the mouth - words like 'me' 'neighbor' and 'this' have to be actively directed to stay in the mouth.  Words like 'law' or 'volume' are easier because the tongue is already down, and the vowel requires your jaws to be open.  Try closing your jaws on law and it becomes 'luh' - or just try saying law all the way to a closed mouth hum, and the only place the sound can come out is the nose.  So inversely, to sing 'me' you gotta try to imagine the word 'meh' coming out, and the result should be more open jaws and the tongue out of the way to create a nice balanced sound between the oropharynx and nasopharynx.  At least I think so...


Ishida

Getaway (The Milk Carton Kids)

The reason its been so long is because I failed to finish another song that just wasn't good enough for sharing.  The abortion was another multi-instrument mess with a hard guitar solo, drum pattern, synth stuff, and a fast tempo.  In the end, each part was so rushed and thrown together, that it really wasn't cohesive.  I also didn't want to post another "lets see if we can even do this" song because since the cassette, I want to work on getting things to a more pro sounding level.

This song is slower, predictable, and only guitar and voice - but it still gave me problems.  I wanted to learn all the guitar fills of expert guitarist Ken Pattengale (the other singer's name is Joe - so they're just like me and my brother), and rehearsed it modularly.  What I mean by that is instead of learning each part all the way thru and then recording each individually - this time I learned each part verse by verse.  So I learned the tenor part of verse 1 with the accompanying guitar, then the alto part of verse 1 w/ its accompanying guitar, then did the same for verse 2 and 3 and in the end learned the intro because its the same as the outro.  Then once I could play the whole song thru both parts, recording one and then the other was much easier.  This method was also much more enjoyable.

The difficulty is blend.  I'd over sing the tenor part because I guess its easier / lower and the guitar part is easier, and then undersing the Alto putting me on the verge of falsetto nearly all the way thru - so you get voices that don't convey 2 sides of the same coin like a duet should be. 

In the end, I re-recorded it by hanging back on the tenor part, and staying strong on the alto while going super light on the high notes - I had to recall a lesson from choir where you gotta lighten up on high notes because they'll stand out naturally because they're high.  Anyway - its way way tougher than I thought.  On headphones I think it sounds all right, but on small computer speakers it sounds too falsetto again...oh well.


Ishida