Fare Thee Well (Dink)

Per Wikipedia: The first historical record of the song was by ethnomusicologist John Lomax in 1909, who recorded it as sung by an African American woman called Dink, as she washed her man's clothes in a tent camp of migratory levee-builders on the bank of the Greater Calhoun Bayou River, a few miles from Houston,Texas and the University of Houston.

Its a work in progress...

I think I've discovered an interest in what I call the "3rd voice".  Singing solo typically you play an instrument like keyboard or guitar and sing along which are the 2 voices you need to perform most pop songs, but I really like the additional texture of the third voice like organ, violin, electric guitar, or in my case dobro.  Which is a goddamn hard instrument.  My favorite band the Milk Carton kids are really great at 4 voices:  melody, bass, countermelody, harmonized melody.  I don't mean that the other singer serves as a another voice, I mean that you have a voice singing alone and then when accompanied by a harmonizing voice the texture changes to create a totally unique sounding 4th voice. 

Trying to sing and play dobro made me realize what a luxury frets or keys are on instruments like guitar or piano.  Once you set your fingers in the right spot, just apply pressure and the design of the instrument should produce an in tune note (assuming you tuned the strings before starting).  But fretless instruments like violin, trumpet, and the human voice really require a superior level of intonation because your ear has to govern whether or not your technique is producing the correct pitch.  In other words having 2 separate keys you can press for C and C# really takes care of a significant amout of stress. 

So then heres me trying to sing and play dobro at the same time: two "unfretted" instruments and its damn hard.  But its doable I think.

Its a work in progress...



She's Always a Woman (Billy Joel)

I'm a pretty big Billy Joel fan but have never tried to learn one of his songs.  You seem like a real nice guy, but Jesus man give me a break here!

3 hard parts about singing are: long notes, high notes, quiet notes because they all take a certain kind of physical preparation and "placement" of the note that has to be just right else you go flat or strain the tone which doesn't sound good.  And this song has all three happening at the same time in the chorus.  Plus the melody is real relentless.  And although the melody has a slowish to moderate tempo, the pulse of the harmony is quite frequent which runs you the risk of rushing.  In other words, its wasn't nearly as easy as I thought it'd be.  Its pretty remarkable how he sounds so relaxed in the recording despite all these challenges he made for himself.  Good job Billy.



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!




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



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