I’ve been thinking about doing this type of recurring post for quite a while. But Saturday or Sunday always passes and by then it’s too late. So, today’s the day when I’m actually going to start the recurring blog post, “Sunday Sounds.”
I have a lot of random hymn arrangements floating in my head, but this is the first one I’ve recorded in many months. This is a rough cut of an arrangement I’m writing for Jolie. We’re planning to do another demo recording, and this was a favorite hymn of hers. Unfortunately, she’s pretty busy, so she’s not recorded the vocals yet. So, for this initial Sunday Sounds post, you’ll only get to hear the arrangement as the initial piano accompaniment scratch track to Be Still My Soul. And honestly, probably a lot of the tracks you’ll hear in my Sunday Sounds blog posts are going to be quick piano things because those are the easiest to record quickly.
The arrangement actually has four passes of the verse/chorus. The fourth verse will consist of a piano solo, with the final chorus containing the following lines:
“Be still my soul, Thy best thy heavenly Friend, thru thorny ways, leads to a joyful end.”
“Be Still my soul, when change and tears are past, All safe and blessed, we then shall meet at last (I added the word “then” to make it easier to sing).”
In general, the arrangement is supposed to be sad, sweet, contemplative, peaceful. That is the way the hymn speaks to me.
Other writing notes you might be interested in. These will be more “music theory” based, for those of you who eat that type of stuff up:
Some of you will notice that around 0:42, the arpeggio sounds like something out of Prelude in C. Yes, I did that on purpose. It’s a tribute to Bach.
I hit the low C during the third verse to give that feeling of spiritual resolve as the hour is “hast’ning on”.
I don’t hit that distinct Major III chord (chord sung at “remain”,” at last”, “restored”) that totally makes Be Still My Soul until the last chorus. My purpose for resolving with that chord until the very end is to help people take notice of the music and lyric (”leads to a joyful end”) at that point of the song. I’m trying to be subtle in the way I draw people’s attention. I’m curious if this catches your attention in the way I intended.
I do use the major 3rd at 2:26, but since it’s not expected to be heard in that part of the song, it adds a certain mysteriousness to the lyric. It also leads nicely into the obligato melody I use for the end of the 2nd chorus.
Speaking of that slightly changed melody, those of you who have listened to some of my other arrangements might have noticed that I do this quite a bit. I guess it’s one of my signatures (play the end of the chorus melody a third above the original).
I use deceptive cadences throughout the piece, because, well, I like deceptive cadences.
I’ve yet to write out the sheet music, but if this is something you’d like to play for yourself, please shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment so I can gauge the demand for this type of thing (writing out sheet music in Sibelius takes a while!)
The title of this entry actually refers to the fact that I’m posting this a few hours after Valentine’s Day has past. Ideally, if I had done a little bit of planning, I would have created this entry a few days before Valentine’s day. Oh well.
Anyway, I’m currently stuck on the song Fallin’ For You by Colbie Caillat. I think the the first time I heard it, I was like “Hey, she just ripped off the chorus lick from Man In the Mirror.” And a second listen through found that true. It still is a catchy little pop song though. Ok, actually, I can’t get enough of it.
I decided to learn the song via the Internet. There were a lot of incorrect tabs, which kind of drove me crazy. Who are these people writing tabs? They’re not even close most of the time. I mean, I hardly play the guitar and even I can tell that the tab is totally wrong. I finally found a tab that was about how I thought the song should be played. But even that was wrong. They had a G#m chord as part of most of the pre-chorus, when it should have been a E/G#. It’s a subtle one note difference when spelling out on the piano, but one chord (G#m) sounds major, and the other one (E/G#) sounds major.
Here’s what I mean:
The tabbed version from the site:
A... G#
I am tryin' not to tell you
F#
But I want to
G#
I'm scared of what you'll say
A... G# C#m
So I'm hiding what I'm feeling
F# G# A... Bb5
But I'm tired of holding this inside my head
Here’s how I think it should be:
A... E/G#
I am tryin' not to tell you
F#m
But I want to
E/G#
I'm scared of what you'll say
A... G#m C#m
So I'm hiding what I'm feeling
F#m G#m A... B5(barred)
But I'm tired of holding this inside my head
After learning the song on the guitar, I realized it’d make a neat piano solo. I tried to keep the arrangement fairly close to the original but it morphed it into more of a ballad. It was hard to capture the rhythm and groove of the guitars without getting too repetitive, so I decided to make the piano a little more sweet. So for all of you celebrating another belated Valentine’s day, enjoy!
As promised in my earlier post, here’s the video that we took during our vocal recording session. This take is actually the last take of the night. And now that I think about it, I like this take quite a bit, so I might actually just use the audio from this clip when distributing the mp3 online. Some other things you might pick up out of the video.
Mr. Ironing Board, the perfect way to lay sheet music flat without any ruffling noises.
The double keyboard setup (Yamaha Motif ES6 and Casio PX-310).
My headphones of choice being Sony MDR-V6s. In my opinion, these are the best sub $80 headphones you can buy on the market. They just sound great.
My friend StevO’s microphone that he so kindly let me borrow.
Lastly, I have a confession to make. My room usually isn’t this clean.
Comments (0) Posted by Jared on Sunday, October 4th, 2009
I know this little blog hasn’t been updated in quite a while. I have been writing music in the interim. Unfortunately, my stubborn Chinese self keeps insisting that I have projects completed before I do a new post, and so that’s to the blog’s detriment.
So today, I finished one of the projects in my queue, a remix of Give Said the Little Stream. I really do love the original version that my friend Stephanie Bennett recorded for me. It captures the innocent and cheerful nature of the song, and her voice is just wonderful. However, I wanted to attempt to make the recording a bit more full and radio friendly, and that necessitated re-recording the vocals to fix a couple of the EQ problems I ran into during the original recording.
Since Stephanie is now in Utah, I asked a favor from another friend, Jolie to do the vocals. She definitely has a different texture to her voice, and I had to work with that a bit. Oh the joys of recording in a home studio. I’ll have to post a video we did, there’s a standing joke related to ironing boards and such. One thing I noticed when comparing the two versions is that Jolie smoothed out the rhythms and sang them a little bit looser with more legato. Anyway, in the midst of remixing the vocals I started playing around with some new string patches. One thing led to another, and I ended doing a string/flute arrangement. Emotionally, the piece sounds and feels quite different with this type of orchestration. More mature perhaps.
This also was good practice for me to try and get the strings to sound as realistic as possible. I originally started with some string sounds from Omnisphere, a virtual instrument, which was what got my muse going initially. Although it sounded great, I had the problem of trying to bring out specific melody lines, and the patch sounded too homogenous for that. Then, I had the idea of also adding other string sounds from Kontakt (a sampler), but that still didn’t sound quite right. So, I decided to stop being lazy and ended up splitting all the chords into separate parts: Violins, Violas, and Cello/Bass. Then each part was tweaked by drawing volumes and velocities to simulate string motion. The last step was to pan and add reverb (Altiverb) to each part to simulate the string section. The sound isn’t perfect, but its miles better than what I was able to do in college. Of course I have much better tools now, so that helps.
The flute was added some time in the middle of my work on the string stuff and was the easiest to emulate. I just stuck some nice reverb on it, panned, and did some quick editing. Originally in some earlier mixes the flute was quite prominent, but I’ve ended up pulling it back into the mix to kind of meld it with the string sounds. I like it when its more subtle.
Anyway, I haven’t heard any LDS pieces written in this style (a hybrid of Classical, New Age, perhaps?) so I’ll be interested to hear everyone’s comments. I plan on submitting this to a couple places too, so we’ll see if people connect with this style of arrangment. Here’s hoping !
My siblings and I used to play this cute little game on the NES. My parents highly disapproved of the violent Double Dragon that we received for Christmas, and so my brother and I ended up trading that game with our neighborhood friend for the more innocuous Bubble Bobble. What parent could get mad at watching squat dinosaurs (er..wikipedia says dragons) blow and pop bubbles to dispatch evil robot enemies?
The game was memorable for a few reasons. The famous Bubble Bobble music that plays as you jump around popping bobbles. The number of levels (99 was an insane number to playthrough as a kid). Oh, and that big scary boss that, even when you beat it, gave you a SAD ENDING? First time we beat the game, and saw that we needed to try for a happy ending, we were so mad. Eventually, my sister and I figured out that we needed to save one life and then hit start -> select -> start to add the second player into game as soon as the big boss was surrounded. That netted us the Happy Ending! There was even a “true ending” that was referenced in the credits, but we never played through the game a second time to get it.
After finishing my City Corner Lullaby arrangement, I went looking for another video game piece to arrange. I didn’t think I wanted to tackle any of the music in Bubble Bobble until I hearkened back to that very first “sad ending” experience (geez, I must have been pretty traumatized). The music that played over the credit was catchy, but I distinctly remember thinking that the prettiness of the melody was masked by the limitations of the NES’ sound capabilities and that annoying drone like bass. After previewing the original source material on Youtube, I decided to see if I couldn’t come up with a remix to do the music justice. I truly believe that video games should have a good payoff with memorable end game music.
This piece has ambient, new age, and dance influences. One of the major changes I’ve introduced is an extended “chorus section.” The original piece of music had a chorus section that seemed to end a bit abruptly. To remedy that, I use a deceptive cadence (i.e. V -> VI) in order to extend the passage for a few more measures. I think this makes the melody flow better. I also organized the music in a pop-friendly format: intro, verse, verse, chorus, interlude, verse, chorus, outro.
I really enjoyed playing with different patches within my soft synths (Omnisphere and Stylus) to recreate that Bubble Bobble experience. There’s crystal like sounds as well a waterdrop arpeggio during the interlude. The end product is a little bit of cheer-you-up new age/dance, my very own take on what a happy ending should be. I hope you enjoy.
Here’s a little something for Sunday. This is a quick two minute demo piece that I put together to practice my mockup abilities. The arrangement is based on some ideas that I had while playing prelude music about a month ago. I’m looking at getting some killer string and orchestra sounds, but for now these will have to do.
Every so often during one of my piano jams, I’ll start playing songs from my childhood. Ducktales, Who are the People in Your Neighborhood, Gummi Bears. It’s one those things that really gives endless pleasure. There’s nothing better than revisiting favorite music from the past with about 10 year’s of musician’s perspective. There’s this interplay between recreating a favorite melody, and seeing what else you can do with it now that you’re not just stuck with trying to plunk out the notes.
One of the things I’ve been returning to more and more recently is the Super Mario Bros 3 level 1-4 theme. I remember being frustrated and captivated with that level. It was the first one where the screen scrolled automatically and you were forced to jump ahead to avoid getting squished or pushed off the ledge. The first time the screen warped little mario into the platform and the first dissonant pitches started playing through the TV, I was like “Oh my gosh, what the heck!” (I had yet to add swear words to my vocabulary). It was heartracing. After we beat that level, my brother and I somehow got a hold of a Nintendo Power Guide and started trying to get the White Toadhouse to appear. It required you to run through the level with near perfection, capturing almost all of the coins in the level. The first time that little whitehouse appeared somewhere near the Hammer Brothers I think we did a little dance. It was a pretty wild celebration, I don’t quite remember what happened.
With that spirit, I thought I’d record a little jam session. Aside from a few takes, what you’re hearing is a completely unedited version of me trying to jam on my MotifES6. You’ll hear mistakes all over the place, that’s what I get for trying to play a fairly fast piano piece on a keyboard with no hammer action. The Motif’s keys are like playing the organ, so I don’t have the resistance of a real piano keyboard to prevent me from accidentally nicking the note right next to the I’m actually meaning to play. But that’s what makes it fun and a more realistic jam session.
I’ll probably eventually rerecord this with a digital piano (with real graded hammer action) or touch up the MIDI. So laugh at my fat fingers now before I upload a new version, haha!
I originally tried creating an arrangement of this piece about two years ago at my aunt’s house in the bay area. The source material is one of Jay Chou’s most famous songs, Simple Love (Jiandan Ai). Most of what I came up back then was the syncopation between the left and right hands. It ended up sounding a bit too repetitive.
Anyway, this Saturday evening, I decided to take a new approach. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to capture the syncopation and drums of the original but decided in the end to write the piano in the spirit of the song. The chords sound a bit more classical. I also bring out the ballad aspect of the song, and less of the rhythmic hip-hop influence from the drums. I found if I tried to capture the verse melody too much, it just felt robotic. You’ll hear that I did recreate the syncopation in the second verse, but less in the melody and more in the chords. I also smoothed out the verse melody in order to allow the song to flow a bit better. And yes, some of the tinkly pretty stuff is me emulating the chinese pop ballad style Jay Chou is famous for.
I recorded this on my MotifES6. I’m interested in playing this on a full grand to see if, when improvising, I’ll add a little bit more to the range of the arrangement. Only having 61 keys is kind of annoying. I really need to save up for that baby grand and a couple of AKG 414s.
I know it’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. I took a hiatus to recharge my batteries sometime during the summer/fall and I didn’t take the effort to update my blog. I started tackling a couple of other new song ideas in the recent weeks but I don’t quite have anything ready for preview. I’m finding that I am definitely a lot more prolific when I have a songwriting companion. I guess that’s just the way I work. Writing with someone else allows myself to think and compose out loud and get immediate feedback. I guess I need that as additional motivation. In any case, I guess I should start looking for a writing partner (e.g. Elise, if you ever decide to come back to California…).
Anyway, today’s post is my first example of arranging for four part SATB harmony. Although much of the music core at the Y was classical choral theory, I’m wasn’t one one to usually write in that style. Silent Night came about because the institute choir wanted something to sing for a last year’s fireside and I needed to work on my choral chops. This explains why the piece itself is not too taxing. I kept things fairly straightforward to cater to the level of musicians in the choir. Unfortunately, since I was accompanying the choir, I didn’t get a chance to hear whether the harmonies blended correctly. I need to find a good choir to test the arrangement with and tweak any notes. It sounds good in Sibelius (my notation software), but midi oohs and aahs aren’t very useful in helping me find me find any enunciation trouble spots. If one of my readers wants to use the arrangement, let me know. I’m curious for feedback.
A couple of my favorite spots: The sus2 to sus4 chords to start out the piece. The sus chords are scattered all throughout to give an ethereal sound. I’ve always thought of Silent Night as being an international hymn of mystery (hehe), what with it’s Germanic origins. Contrast the tune with the happy bright melodies of Angles We Have Heard On High. The sus2 and sus4 ’s are meant modernize that choral aura a bit.
I enjoyed playing around with the repetition of the last line and making things a little different. Sleep in heavenly peace becomes sleep, sleep, sleep in peace (measures 18-21). There’s that essence of a baby’s lullaby in the original hymn, and I wanted to bring that out more.
The sus2 (accompaniment) and sus4 chord (choir) combination in measure 52. The choir is supposed to just hit that chord and let it ring and reverberate around the room to give us pause at the spiritual wonder of the birth of our Savior. And then measure 56 where the sopranos get to shine, like angels. There the sopranos have to be careful or else it just turns into pure cheese. But, if done right, it’s pretty.
The ending by the piano. It’s peaceful.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the arrangement. Constructive comments are much appreciated. I’ll try and upload a recording of the accompaniment in the next week or so. And, if I can kind some kind choir to let me record them, I’ll upload an mp3 of how everything sounds together.
The other day, I was surfing my favorite tech site, www.arstechnica.com, when I stumbled upon an article of particular interest. It was a feature story on how a group of music hobbyists with a penchant for video game music formed a website to house fan-made arrangements. The website was so successful that Capcom, a video game company, took notice. Impressed with the arrangements, they enlisted the fan community to create new mixes for their new Streetfighter 2 remake coming soon to Xbox Live.
This might not seem like much for those of you unfamiliar with the workings of the video game industry. But to put this into perspective, it would be like Spielberg asking a bunch of amateur filmmakers to assist on a major motion picture (hmm, maybe that’s what happened with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull).
Incidentally, I visited the website cited in the article a few years ago. At the time, I thought OCRemix was just a bunch of cheesy MIDI arrangements, but I really didn’t do a good listen to all the stuff on the site. Based on the mp3s available now, I actually wish I’d joined the community from the very beginning. Oh well, live and learn I guess.
The piece I’m uploading today is something inspired from my OCRemix visit. It’s an arrangement of a theme from Final Fantasy VI (or Final Fantasy III as we know it here in the States). When playing the game way back when, I remember enjoying the “in town” theme that played. I knew it would make a pretty piano piece. So, here is Kids Run Through the City Corner (originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu) arranged as a piano lullaby.
!