ClassicalCode

It’s been over half a year since my last post, and I’m back with something very similar. Chelsea was in San Diego, and while she was gone I finally was able to get something recorded for her. The number of ideas, over the past months, that never made it is staggering, but this one made it, thanks in no small part to it’s brevity and lack of lyrics. Despite it’s diminutive length, it still took me nearly an entire day to write, learn and record. Oy!

It consists of the following tracks:

• Rhythm electric ukulele
• Lead electric ukulele
• Harmony electric ukulele
• Electric ukulele harmonics
• “Slap yourself in the chest” bass drum
• Electric bass

Have a listen! (Or download the first bit of it as an iPhone ring tone)

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Download .mp3
Download .m4r (iPhone ring tone)

While visiting my parents at their cabin just North of Ukiah California, I wrote and recorded a ring-tone for Chelsea. The electric ukulele plugs directly into my battery operated Zoom H4 four track recorder, so the whole thing could be made in the middle of the woods.

Photo credit: Lisa Eldredge

Have a listen:

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Download .mp3
Download .m4r (iPhone ring tone)

To raise money for her graduate school audition tour, my girlfriend Chelsea and the amazing pianist Stephen Damonte, put on a fundraiser recital. I joined her for the Fly Duet from Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers in which Jupiter disguised as a fly (myself) seduces the innocent Eurydice (Chelsea). If you want to help her achieve her goal of going to graduate school, you can donate at her website.

Fly Duet from Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers:

As of this week, Chelsea and I have been going out for three years and after countless barbershop tags, covers and miniature songs I have finally been able to write her an honest-to-goodness song song. I’ll admit it’s cheesy and trite and doesn’t properly rhyme, but it’s a song. A real song. Finally.

For Chelsea, after three years: “Driving”

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I recorded this song as a surprise for my wonderful girlfriend Chelsea.

As far as I can tell, this song is originally by one of my very favorite musical groups: The Flamingos. I heard it on their album I Only Have Eyes For You and thought it would be the perfect one to try to record. After hours and hours of transcription, recording, rerecording and level-twiddling, it’s finally presentable.

For Chelsea: An a cappella version of “That’s Why I Love You” by the Flamingos:

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With Chelsea (my girlfriend) out of town, I decided to treat myself to a movie for the Fourth of July. After the movie, I sat in my car in the parking garage and decided to improvise/record a little song on my portable multitracking device. In my typical fashion it ended up being 5 tracks, only 16 seconds long, and about it’s self. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to write real songs. Hopefully.

For Chelsea: “Parking Garage”

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Yesterday, I was at Donut World drinking a coffee, eating a buttermilk-bar and missing my girlfriend, when this little love song popped into my head. I quickly scrawled it on the back of a piece of paper I found in my pocket, went home and recorded it.

For Chelsea: “Our Love Will Last As Long”

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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)

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 Read More…

I was at home with my parents and my girlfriend Chelsea, and my dad was singing “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” off by one word. He then proceed to sing it again off by TWO words. Eventually the evening was reduced to repeating the song over and over and trying to shift the words one note back each time. We soon realized that this was a sort of phase music. If the number of words is one fewer than the number of notes, the words shift father and farther from their original position in the melody creating various interesting word stresses and pairings.

I decided to take this idea to it’s logical extreme and found a short enough song that, within a reasonable period of time, it can be repeated enough times that the words eventually make the full journey back to their original position. Here is a video of me singing “Row Row Your Boat”:

In order to actually sing this, I had to create sheet music for it.
Here it is: row_row.pdf