The Work Diary

This was supposed to be a classical one, but I hurt my wrist after practicing too long every day with too much tension.  For the first time I recorded a guitar accompaniment part in order to figure out and learn the lyrics of a new song.  It turns out that singing without the guitar is way easier, and actually listening to the recording of your own voice immediately after is enormously helpful.  Almost naturally your ear will suggest different things to try to affect the tone.  In summary, I discovered that using the recorder right at the beginning is both super helpful in learning a song (because you can save your hands / wrists from strumming the same chords over and over again), but also in developing your voice across the long run.  I mean I know you're supposed to record yourself and listen because you can't trust the sound thats resonating in your own head, but so far I've only been recording at the very end after rehearsing over and over again.  

I need to learn how the hell these guys "smooth out" a recording that doesn't fatigue the ear.  I know that more instruments and having more contrast helps, but I guess yeah I see how you can make a lot of money finalizing a CD to the pro level because I have no idea.

Take aways (I never would have thought of had I not put the guitar down)

 - Intonation:  Especially on long or final notes if you gotta hold em out or if its the last note of a descending line you're more likely to be a little flat.  No wonder my choir director in college would always say "aim for the top of the note!"

 - Darkening vowels:  Words like 'me' or 'going' end on a bright EE sound which sounds nasally, so you have to open up your mouth, so the sound becomes more... wide?  I say 'darken' because the opposite is definitely 'bright' and words like 'easy' can really hit your ear like a laser.

 - Brightening vowels:  When I'd have a long open vowel word like 'stone' or 'I' I'd notice that I was going flat more often, and just slightly brightening pulls the pitch up - but don't do it too much because then you'll go nasal and you'll have to darken it down again.

 - Signal Strength:  Yeah you get a way better recording when you have the mic right up to your mouth instead of away from you trying to record the voice and guitar at the same time.  You also don't have to sing as hard and things can happen more naturally - like I was surprised how much vibratto was coming out when I've been trying to figure out the secret for years!

Ishida

Shit now I need to learn this one playing guitar at the same time...

I try not to struggle getting the perfect recording - or at least I wont be so bothered going forward.  Nailing a first or second or third take I suspect just comes with seasoning where you get used to the routine of playing, rehearsing, recording.  Meanwhile, spending hours trying to nail all the random hiccups that can happen is just not efficient!  Recording just takes practice because it can be nerve racking.

Challenges
 - I don't know why but I just wanted to sing every line on a single breath, so there are just a few places where you can breath
 - your spit builds up and because you're using every break to breath, you just gotta deal with it
 - pretty high
 - Light accompaniment so screw ups are exposed

Ishida

I've been playing these ones for so long that I didn't really closely follow the John Williams versions, but I attached them for future comparison.  

Sor 1

Its hard to take your time with this one because its so relentless with its activity.  This one I aimed for absolutely no missed notes and consciously trying to spread out the changes in volume as evenly as possibly across a rise or fall in the music.  Like Sor 5, I tried to eliminate unintended notes caused by lifting your fingers from the fretted strings.  Its the worst especially at quiet parts, but the trick I use is sliding slightly up or down the string to kinda make the lifting motion more horizontal instead of lifting directly from the string.  But if you do it too hard on a bass string you can make a "zippery" kind of sound because of the wound / coiled nature of the bass strings - its easier on the treble strings because they're solid plastic.

Sor 5

This one is pretty melodically uncomplicated and the chords are pretty easy, but because its so slow and there are so many barre chords throughout you're often exposed if your nail grazes a string causing a buzz or click or if you lift up a fret too suddenly and activate the string accidentally just by lifting off it.  Recording is tough because as your LH gets fatigued from practicing the barre chords you become even more exposed!  Then as you get more and more frustrated your hands get cold which for some reasons make the strings more sticky so lifting away has a higher chance of creating a wrong note!

Ishida

You know the tune - attached is a an 'acoustic' version by Elton thats pretty different from the popular version.  I didn't really try to imitate his changes, but its neat hearing an errant note and hearing how he takes a brief conversational turn makes me think he must have listened to a few American country singers back in the 1960s.  Anyway, my theories on voice are becoming ...less abstract maybe.  The past few recordings were always put in a higher key, as high as possible, because its my belief that what should come first is finding the sweet spot in the throat where you can hit both high and long notes comfortably without straining or flexing which means keeping everything light light light - the downside is that you sound like a young kid. 

This one is in EJ's key and the highest / loudest note is an E flat which is there in the tenor's passagio (the tough cluster), but the goal should be not have a significant change in tone as you navigate notes in and out of the passagio - it should sound smooth.  I tried to add a little more 'muscle' to my voice and although I don't think it sounds much louder, I can hear the upped intensity.  I think a pitfall might be trying to imitate the quality / timber of your fav's voice right from the start, but once your voice and throat are all beefed up from working on an intense, loud, or diva-like sound its way harder to relax in order to sing higher or longer, so you might have to drop your keys and steal breaths where you can.  I think an example of the perfect blend of power, lightness, height, and speed is young Michael Jackson - an example of too stressed, too flexed, and too intense would be old Michael Jackson.  But the most insane singing style that dominates all others is opera.  By the way this is all based off a few voice lessons I had in college and after college.

Recording
I sympathize with people who have to record in a band or a group because just recording by myself makes me want to murder the player and the device operator both of whom are me.  This one was recorded in much fewer takes because I rehearsed the spots like crazy that had even a whiff of uncertainty - even the unironed small parts honk out mercilessly on a recording.  Then if some freak accident happens but everything else is good - it can become a keeper.  Just thinking about how to rehearse has become a priority as well and not just the middle man between recording and practicing because it totally sucks when you do a 99% good recording and then final chord or something is screwed up. 

If your curious I use a Tascam DR-40.

Mixing
I think you can make a lot of money fiddling with the virtual knobs and selecting presets in a recording program, but I hate it.  One thing I think I've definitely learned is that after about 5 minutes (or maybe even less) you can't even trust your own freakin' ears.  Its like your ears adapt to what you think sounds normal but when you come back later to what you screwed around with for so long it sounds like total crap!  I see that if I had money I would pay someone to do this for me. 

Hopefully my ears will develop here as well as I compare past recordings and sensitivity increases.

This one is deceptively difficult to record.  I used to play this one maybe 5 years ago, and you could just play the movements back and forth as they feed into eachother with no real direction - conveniently useful as background music.  But when recording it becomes extremely stressful working hard not to distract yourself in terms of where you are in the music because it repeats so many times!  I must have recorded it maybe 10 times where all the sections were good until the final repeat and I'd just realize to myself "wow this one could be the one..."  Klunk - aaaaaaand its gone.  This recording isn't perfect either, and its immensely frustrating how a missed string on a super easy part will make me have to go all the way back to the beginning.  I am getting better at recording though.  I actually was having more success when not even thinking about what I'm doing - the minute I start to wonder what chord comes next or thinking maybe I should play a little quicker or slow down here or there I would absolutely make a mistake.  When I just let my mind wander even the most difficult parts go much more smoothly!   This one is also 6 minutes long, so congratulate yourself if you make it thru the whole thing.

Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer who wrote orchestral, chamber, and works for solo instruments - he was great because he synthesized Brazilian folk music with European classical forms.  This one is a Gavot which was a French folk dance that became popular during the Baroque period, which also means gavots were also composed by none other than JS Bach!  So even though Bach would apply his genius to a simple dance form - the roots are still in folk music.  I think its becoming more and more clear that folk music is going to become my expertise maybe on both classical and acoustic guitar.  Although I do want to try making dance music...  Anyway, Norbert Kraft is a monster, and his CD effortlessly navigates all of Villa Lobos' most famous guitar pieces.  

Ishida

I first heard this song sometime this year after searching Phil Leadbetter who was wailing dobro on another song I was researching covers.  Phil and Steve Gulley formed the band Grasstowne in 2007, and this was one of their songs on their CD, but other than that I can't find anything else about it!  It turns out that this could be the most well crafted relatively new song that I've heard, so I wouldn't be surprised if its a remake of an old old folk song maybe from the British Isles since it talks about a son going off to join the navy in Aberdeen [Scotland].

This one was tough because I've only known it for a little while and didn't even know all the lyrics - memorizing lyrics is super annoying!  The chords are more interesting than most, and the strumming pattern is consistent throughout.  The range of the vocals is challenging and gets a little high - and Steve throws in a high A for fun which I also try to do too...  Thanks to all the time I spent on the last song Landslide, recording the chords and vocals took a relatively short amount of time - maybe because I was confident I could eventually internalize the words, notes, and strumming patterns.  However the accompanying guitar solo and fills took a really long time, because I'd never done it before - it was tough remembering what licks go where in order to mirror Phil as closely as possible but ultimately my timing and memory greatly improved when compared to when I first started rehearsing it.  I've heard that the way to become better at soloing on guitar is to learn "licks" and build a sort of vocabulary and then it becomes a game of linking them together seamlessly and creating phrases in real time without overusing certain things while being guided by a sense of direction.  Anyway, I really like Phil's dobro playing and after figuring out maybe 70% of his accompanying part its really freaking awesome (and humbling) that he can just whip out his style in the live performance from which I copied him.  Bonus fun fact - in April 2011, Phil was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and underwent 15 months of very intense chemotherapy.  In late August 2012, Phil entered a stem cell program and as of Dec. 20 2012 was deemed cancer free. He returned to performing in February 2013  

Whats Hard

 - Learning a guitar solo

 - Learning lyrics

 - Over dubbing an existing recording

 - Wide ranging melody

 - Resisting the urge to just cut and paste flubs that don't fit precisely - I wanted both tracks to be live straight thru

Whats new

 - Learned to "eliminate noise" thru Audacity and then export modified tracks to shitty GarageBand

 - Accompanying an existing track really needs spot on timing, but I guess I already knew that..

 - Mixing 5 tracks to take advantage of the panoramic space and also to avoid overlapping since both tracks include the same guitar notes

Ishida

So this piece is hard as hell because of all the trills, and Casals even adds more than are included in my guitar sheet music, but oh well lets go for it.  Trills are really damn hard because to do one you usually have to: hold down one string, then "gently" close the note directly above it, and then "swiftly" pull off the string at an angle so it activates the note below - and then do it a second time really fast.  The Baroque trill is always 2 pulls, so it sounds like "Dee da dee da".  Its even harder when the other two LH fingers are holding down two other strings, so you have 3 fingers firmly closing 3 notes whilst your last finger (usually the wimpy pinky dammit) has to do this gentle / swift thing!  It makes your forearm burn!  I do trill warm ups every day now, and I'd honestly rather do bicep curls than trills because your whole arm becomes fatigued, but I'm definitely stronger compared to a few weeks ago.  Its schizophrenic because the quality of a trill is supposed to be light and ornamental but the execution actually requires a lot of strength in the LH - if you squeeze too hard, you might hit the neighboring strings on accident and that really screws up the whole momentum of the piece.

So Pablo Casals was a Spanish cellist who really is the main reason Bach's Cello Suites are famous today.  There are so many versions that I've heard on YouTube, but I went with Casals again because his version is so fast and soo...under stress!  The other versions are usually slower and...pretentious sounding?  ...at least compared to Pablo Casals.  This could be because the Allemande is originally a German dance that reached its popular height during the 17th century and is almost always the 2nd movement of a dance suite.  Historians use words like "serious" and "grave" to describe both the music and the dance, so I guess that could result in a slower tempo in hopes of triggering emotions like solemnity, heaviness, and just again making a listener sit thru the tired sentiment of profound loftiness that classical music should have.  But what the hell it used to be a dance, and I like Casals' version best.  

Before really practicing this one I used to hate repeats because Arrrgh you just made it to the finish line and now you have to go all the way back to the beginning and risk screwing something up?  Plus the 2nd time thru is always what people remember because it pretty much replaces what might have been a perfect A+!  But now I like repeats a lot because rehearsing this one was so difficult and there was always something that just wasn't nailed completely, and the repeat becomes your second chance.  It isn't always better the second time, but that chance at redemption is a funny kind of motivation where you're distracted in real time after you've made a mistake.  For a few seconds your mind is preoccupied with both the the recent past and fast approaching future and you're not at all thinking about the present.

Ishida

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I recorded 2 versions and eventually posted the first one but then decided: No!  Not good enough!  Re-recorded the song today.  Its dropped by a half step, at a slower tempo (although the urgency to speed up is audible), and I hoped a little louder / varied vocally.  I suppose thats progress to produce, consider, reject, re-produce, accept.  If I were to hand this one in as homework to myself as the teacher, I would expect an A because I decided what boxes I wanted, and eventually checked them all!  I gave / received an A+ just FYI.

This one turned out being tougher than I originally thought because:
 - took days just to rehearse and kept switching segments around even though I've been playing this tune for years!  I guess this is called arranging?

 - wanted differing strum patterns and finger pickings at specific times - was hard to remember in real time

 - wanted to modify the guitar solo (but it still got a little screwed up in the end) 

 - version 2 had to be louder - cringed when neighbor said "yes I can hear you."

 - combination of two different versions, so I had to remember what I wanted when and where instead of just hearing the ipod version  in my head.  

 - mic placement is annoying as hell because the closer a microphone is to a subject the more sensitive it becomes.  I use a recorder w/ two mics built in, so I had to angle one closer to my face and the other further from the guitar.  Oh well good experience.

I actually like the Dixie Chicks version more, but this Bush one I found on YouTube pretty much copies the structure from Fleetwood Mac, but the singer Gavin approaches the high notes from "above" rather than jumping up to them.  Its hard to explain, but if you try to imitate him you can feel it in your throat.  You're trying to hit a target that needs just enough pressure to land firmly, but if you use too much you screw up the tone or choke - too little pressure you'll be flat or too quiet, so it kinda goes against logic to overshoot it and come down on it from above, but I like the sensation of overshooting while being relaxed and landing in the right place.  Meanwhile the Dixie Chicks are just nailing each note like a laser, so who knows how the hell thats done - maybe some day....  Ultimately, the Bush version yielded a more useful vocal concept.  

Ishida (final)

Ishida (rejected)