Nov 20
Barbershop
Tonight my friend and fellow baritone Josh Beld came over and naturally, things eventually devolved to multitracking babershop tags. After attempting three different tags, only the first and simplest ended up being suitable for sharing. This was Josh’s first attempt at multitrack recording and he is already better than me. Hopefully this will be the first of many.
When It’s Sleepy Time Down South:
- Baritone and Lead: Jordan Eldredge
- Bass and Tenor: Josh Beld
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Nov 14
Barbershop
I have recently observed, on Youtube, a very interesting method of turning any barbershop tag into a jazzy eight part tag: simply double each part a perfect fifth higher. Or, said another way, have a second quartet simultaneously sing the same tag a fifth above.
Despite everything I was taught in college, I have been curious to try this myself. However, due to sound bleed-through from my upstairs neighbors, I can’t really record in my apartment these days. So I multitracked this one tonight in my car on my Zoom H4
. Although I am sure I looked quite suspicious, I think it was worth it.
You can hear the original four part arrangement here.
I present to you “In Dixie Land Where I Was Born” from David Wright’s collection: Classic Tags for Men’s Voices in parallel fifths:
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Update: I have typeset the complete octet in the key of “C” as a pdf file and also generated a midi file.
Jun 29
Barbershop, Music
The other day I was sitting on the couch with my girlfriend, and for a moment I felt completely at peace. I wrote and recorded this tag for that simple moment, and the the company in which I spent it.
“Lazy Afternoon” for Chelsea:
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For those who are interested, I have typeset the sheet music to this tag using Lilypond:
Lazy_Afternoon.pdf (Printable sheet music)
Lazy_Afternoon.ly (Lilypond source file)
May 13
Barbershop, Music
Last Mother’s Day I recorded my mom a barbershop tag. This Mother’s Day caught me at a bad time, and I was gift-less when I saw her. So today, with my new recording equipment, I recorded a belated Mother’s Day barbershop tag. I have always thought this tag was particularly beautiful and have attempted it a few times before with little success. This time I feel like I have finally been able to do it some measure of justice.
Happy (belated) Mothers Day Lisa. I could not ask for a better mama.
Listen to the tag “To My Beautiful Life Long Friends” from the Classic Tags Collection:
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Barbershop, Music
Since I began multitracking, my recordings have suffered from “recorded-with-the-built-in-microphone-itis” which has greatly reduced the quality of my multitracks. Recently I got my hands on a Zoom H4 “Handy Recorder”.
This thing is awesome. In one portable package its: a high quality USB microphone, a portable recorder, a four-track machine, an effects pedal, and much more. To take the new contraption for a spin, I recorded an old favorite tag. I did all the multitracking on the Zoom, and then transferred the individual tracks to my MacBook where I added reverb and adjusted some levels (which I could have done on board if I had wanted to).
I have recorded this tag a few times before on my MacBook microphone and the difference of sound quality is pretty noticeable. Have a listen to this new recording of “In Dixie Land Where I Was Born”:
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Apr 17
Barbershop, Music
Several months ago, inspired by this youtube video, my friends Jared Emerson-Johnson, Joachim Luis and I collaborated on a multitracked barbershop tag. Jared and I live about an hour away from each other and Joachim lives all the way in Chicago, so this was a great way for the four of us to do some harmony singing with far away friends.
Joachim recorded the lead part and emailed it to the group, and then Jared added the baritone part. Finally I added the bass and tenor parts. For now we are calling ourselves “Removable Do.”
The tag is The Shadow of Your Smile from the Classic Tags book.
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Apr 2
Barbershop, Music
A few days ago, I wrote a barbershop tag for my girlfriend Chelsea.
My multitrack of the tag (sung a half step lower than written):
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My goal was to write a “bloom” type tag where all voices More
Mar 14
Barbershop, Music
My birthday was a few days ago, and two different people, knowing my love of barbershop, sent me a Youtube video of a quartet singing “Happy Birthday”. This got me thinking about barbershop arrangments of the song.
Today is my friend Amanda Ortmayer’s birthday and I wanted to give her something, so I decided to arrange and multitrack “Happy Birthday” for her in the barbershop style.
Happy birthday Amanda, thanks for being such a constant, caring friend.
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The arrangement as a printable pdf: birthday.pdf
Update:
The Lilypond file used to render the above engraving: birthday.ly
Dec 29
Barbershop, Music
My friend Zane Fiala and I multitracked some barbershop tags today. He has a great home studio, that made recording much easeir than when I record directly into my laptop. After two hours, here is what we came up with:
We Love to Sing Those Close Harmony Songs:
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Somewhere (from West Side Story):
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Dec 9
Barbershop, Music
This tag from the seminal book of tags seemed quite fitting to multitrack. This is “All By Myself Alone” number. I found that the lead part was actually easier for me to sing a whole step higher because the C was right in the middle of my passagio, and it was pushing sharp. So this one is in D.
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Biggest challenges:
- Fan noise from my server and laptop
- Giving the music emotion without going out of tune
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