The Work Diary

More long notes - this time with lots of other notes happening on the keys below.  It reminds me of how hard I used to think it was just to sing and play guitar at the same time.  Of all the instruments I've tried, voice is far and away the hardest with all the things you have to manage while trying to make it sound natural and effortless at the same time.

This new electro voice mic is so much more clear and really helps with placing notes and trying to uncover new places to resonate in your throat and mouth and face, but I think I'm starting to get that feeling of finding the microphone that really gels with your individual voice...

I randomly started reading a book called Caruso's Method of Voice Production, and it was blowing my mind by saying all these controversial things like:

 - Although breath is important, it is not at all the most important component

 - An understanding of Diaphragmatic breathing is unnecessary

 - The speaking voice leads and serves as a guide to the singing voice

The book was really interesting for the historical context as well because apparently in the 1920's it was common for opera singers to ruin their voices attempting to perform the contemporary repertoire of the time - composers like Wagner and Verdi (who were alive during the 1800's but their music still ruled the opera world).  These wrecked singers would have no choice but to become teachers and would spread bad singing techniques to the next generation of singers - which is why the author says focusing on the breath and diaphragm is the main concept among voice studios.  The author interviewed Enrico Caruso and other singers, but unfortunately the common response to why their were so goddamn good was "I don't really know why - it just happens naturally."  This sounds like a terrible answer, but the author interpreted it to mean that natural singing should feel like nothing is happening - therefore unnatural physical motions like pushing out your chest, or holding out your stomach, and all kinds of exercises are unnecessary.  He also took it to mean that singing should feel as normal as speaking. 

Basically he says, the reason why high notes feel so weird is because you spend 90% of your day hanging around the lower tones of your speaking voice, but then give the remaining 10% to your singing voice when you practice - with maybe 1% spent on high notes you would never ever use in normal conversation.  So of course your body and psychology are going to be resistant to it. 

So I started reading books out loud instead of warming up at the piano.  I put on a Mickey Mouse voice to see just how high I could speak and yeah it felt really weird and uncomfortable at first, but I even started imagining I was a cartoon character and my throat started to compensate and it started to feel normal again. 

This song Snails is sang by Nate Ruess who is in the band Fun, but used to be in The Format 10 years ago.  He sings extraordinarily high and actually has an extraordinarily high speaking voice if you listen to him in interviews.  I've sang this song for years but always 2 steps down - and it was still really difficult and quiet / small.  Nate sings it in the outrageous key of E Major which might be OK if you sang it an octave down, but in E all 3 of the tonic notes (Do Mi and Sol) are right in the passagio (Italian for passage - meaning the difficult / narrow part of the vocal range).  So after reading a lot I'd try this song in the original key and after only a few days it pretty much worked!  Do I want to sing other songs that spend the majority of the time up here?  NO.  But once you can access certain high notes and have a strategy to get up there without fear, your normal notes can feel much more secure - at least I hope so.  This has been an exercise in following instructions from a 100 year old text, and I'm convinced!  I used to have trouble singing E, but now I can get up to high A (5 steps higher).  Just to put into context, most classical choral music rarely has high A's in the tenor part - opera will very rarely have a high B-flat (1 step higher) at the most dramatic climax of an aria. There are still intonation issues, but I gotta believe those will work themselves out over time as I continue to research and understand as much as I can about singing. 

Pro Tips

 - If you can't sing high, try speaking up there for a few minutes until you become acclimated to it.  If you feel weird and are convincing yourself to stop, then it will never normalize - you gotta really believe in it.  Perhaps it will also work if you can't sing loudly - try speaking loudly.  Speak loudly as a character like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

 - You can warm up some to blow off phlegm that might be on your vocal chords, but if you run into notes that feel / sound like a violin bow pulling way too hard on the strings, you are aggravating the tissues and more phlegm will soon come.  The only option is to rest and drink slightly warm water.

 - Singing and speaking should have the same sensation in the throat - if there is tension, you're doing something unnatural.

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

This one gets a solid C-  Like barely passing...
But its time to move on, and your first try at something newish it'll likely be pretty rough. 

You can really hear the difference between a band that is well rehearsed and really knows all the changes vs. someone who needs to practice.  Oh well down the road we can look back and see if I've improved.

Yes that is a yoga mat under the pedals to keep them from sliding away. 

Per the internet, a cell phone is more powerful than the computers used in the 60's to put people into space - yet my laptop still crashes when trying to make a video for the internet.  Does the necessity to upgrade ever end?

Logistics for the drum computer were the most difficult, because at first I got some cheap drum sticks (OK the cheapest ones in the store) but after watching some videos I learned that it really pays off to use well balanced sticks that can produce proper rebound off the drum skin.  This way when you strike down the drum actually puts the stick back in the air and to get a second tone you just gently "dribble" it back down.  I tried mounting the unit on a microphone stand, which had it sloping downward  - this caused the drum stick heads to hit the pads at an angle which began eroding away the vinyl surfaces, so I ordered a new stand to have it sit flat.  I hope it works. 

I learned that my guitar effect pedal has built in wah-pedals inside, but you need a compatible lever to make the bwow chicka bwow wow sound
- my organ pedal does not work.

Ishida

I made a song where I could play the bongos.

Things I can't be bothered with:

 - Setting up the camera to make a video

 - Dealing with iMovie

 - Making a click track because recording is frustrating and I just get annoyed that the metronome

Ishida

I wrote a song about a guy whose goldfish has cancer.

I was going to make a final recording in a kinda high school essay / draft style:
 - First you fool around on guitar and when an idea sounds good record it.
 - Then fool around on bass until it sounds kinda cool and record that.
 - Add a drum track
 - come up with a melody that fits with some rough lyrics
 - re-record the guitar part so its less "individualistic" and will blend better supporting the melodic theme / structure
 - Do the same for bass
 - Find a drum sample of a real drummer playing at the same tempo
 - Re-Record a final version of vocals that fits well within the more balanced version of everything else.

Unfortunately my guitar amp broke, so I couldn't re-do the guitar and bass.  Plus its 2 days late so I just slammed them together.  I wanted to do organ and a guitar solo, but wasted 2 days trying to fix the guitar amp. 

Pro tips
 - Don't oversing when trying to record vocals over a clumsy mix of instruments.  In my case, I get more nasal sounding.
 - Everything takes forever, so just settle on the thing that sounds pretty good and move on or else you'll spend forever on each thing and never finish

Ishida

ありがとうさくらさん！  I heard this song for the first time 3 days ago and just had to learn it.  I also quite cheekily copied the way he plays it as well so thank you sensei!

I also discovered this morning that my large diaphragm condenser microphone has broken.  I hate when things break on their own just sitting in a drawer.

I feel like some might complain that its too heavy on the effects but really you gotta beef up the sound to be heard on tiny crappy computer / iphone speakers.  I used to mix to my nice headphones but now I mix to these horrible speakers since its how most people listen to music anyway

ProTip

- Going heavy on the effects can help simulate a live gig environment to more easily transport yourself.

Ishida

I took a week to develop some piano chops, and Apple software makes me want to shoot myself.

There was a whole paragraph that followed that but I just deleted it because the first sentence pretty much says it all. 

Anyway, this song is early Beatles, so I'm sure my mom likes it, so this one is dedicated to her - Marianna.  At all my gigs I always dedicate songs to my friends who make up the majority of my audiences, so I figured I should do it online here as well.

I was wondering if people understand what I'm doing with this blog because it makes sense to me but maybe it just seems like an amateur just having fun from the outside.  Basically, I try to choose songs that target specific difficulties.  This one was pop keyboard, which I've never done before, but because the original has a harmony and guitar part as well, I threw that in too - so in the end this is a high yielding assignment.  I also wanted to figure out how to merge two videos together and it was a total bastard just trying to find those instructions online - but I do know how to do it now.  Examples of past targets are: Classical guitar, Classical piano, vocal harmony, electric guitar, guitar solo, chord melody, percussion, and drum automation.  So I do have a roadmap, and original work is on the horizon.

I also bought some used effects online because usually I'm just tired of playing the damn song and want to post it online asap so the mixing / editing part I usually just can't be bothered to put much effort into it.  Theres a Line 6 guitar pedal, a Yamaha mixer w/ a built in compressor and EQ and a Roland Digital Effects unit.  This way I can train / develop my ear to the engineering and mixing sides of things whilst I'm rehearsing instead of just getting it over with once the recording is finished and fiddling with the silly sliders and ultimately just choosing a preset that came with the software.  Hardly anyone uses hardware now adays I figure because software sounds so close to the real stuff, but I just want to kill people if I can't find the answers I need quickly online on how to use them.  Plus 1980's Japanese music hardware is super cheap, so its a good way to accustom my ears I reckon.

Originally, I was just trying to figure out how to put this song's drum patterns into my keyboards "pro level" sequencer.  Surprisingly, even though there are 1,000 buttons, it wasn't a total nightmare and I figured it out pretty quickly.  So I learned new guitar chords and tried to actually sing it.  Ambitious or maybe foolish because I hate hate hate it when I work a week on something, and the end result is inadmissible.  In the end I'd call it a success*  Oh well learning occurs most when you tackle something and you don't even know if it will yield anything.

 I was surprised again by the challenges - I'll just list them out:

VOICE
 - Staying connected to your voice is a difficult technique, but thankfully when you sing high or a melody rises it is stylistically appropriate to just get louder which happily strengthens the connection and it sounds normal because the notes get lighter as they go up (lite notes + heavy voice = OK balance).  But a descending melody that goes pretty low just "seems to get louder" by itself so then what do you do?  (heavy notes + heavy voice = rumble)  You have to try to lighten up the tone WHILE keeping the connection in anticipation of the melody going down = difficult.  So inversely if you go back to the first theory then:  Lite notes + lite voice = super difficult

 - Rapid fire text is hard, so you have to be extra aware where you can breath and not let spit accumulate in your mouth. 

 - When your mind is multitasking elsewhere your intonation can totally screw you up.  A note thats normally reachable will just randomly arrive a step flat if you're concentrating on something else = ugh.  Oh well thats why you practice.

 - Don't just get louder, try to really project / "send it" to the microphone.  (This theory isn't really fleshed out yet)

With all these ideas coming and going while trying to record one thing that does happen is you eventually develop a sense of when you got a good capture.  A good one can be a take of the entire song start to finish, or a phrase, or even a single word.  This song I never got a take that was good from start to finish, so I started Frankensteining a version using software.  6 months ago I never would have seen myself doing this, but now I think I understand why its necessary.  I kinda compare it to photos?  You have a lot of versions where theres something good in each one and because this Reaper program is so awesome you can literally just glue them together - I can hear the differences but maybe some day I'll learn how to put an end finish on it so no one can tell.  Although I'll say now I'll never Frankenstein a classical piece because that would be just crazy... but 6 months from now who knows..

Ishida