ClassicalCode

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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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…

After talking about the Shepard Tone, an audio illusion that can create an endlessly rising or falling scale, with my friend Ben Pender, I decided to try to create one using Lilypond. The result is quite interesting:

Chromatically rising Shepard Tone:

The midi file created by Lilypond: shepard_tone.midi

The Lilypond file used to render the above midi file: shepard_tone.ly

A wav file generated from the midi file above: shepard_tone.wav (43M)

An mp3 file generated from the wav file above:

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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

Inspired to further acts of nerdome by the encouraging comments on my last post, I decided to learn to do something I have been thinking of doing ever since I saw Paul Kim do it at a party. Sing the alphabet song backwards. Not just sing the letters backwards, but the notes as well. So last night I sat down, figured out how it would go, and started memorizing it. This morning, to nerd it up just a little bit more, I leaned to sing it while showing the solfege using hand signs. I then took my new camcorder into Golden Gate Park and recorded myself doing it. The park has the advantage of having actual sunlight while still having some privacy and quiet. Also, it’s pretty. Here are the results:

Due to a bug in iMovieHD I was unable to reverse the video so you could here the original melody, but here is the audio reversed:

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My girlfriend is sick, so I arranged and recorded her a song. I hope this helps you feel better Chelsea.

For Chelsea:

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This is my first doo-wop arrangement, and the first full song that I have multitracked. Unfortunately with five tracks at once, the noise on the recording becomes rather annoying. If anyone could help me reduce the noise, I would greatly appreciate it. I plan to write up the arrangement in the next few days (as an exercise) so you can expect to find that soon.

Update:

I typeset the arrangement using Lilypond, a wonderful open source program for engraving music. Here are the results:

The arrangement as a printable pdf: earth_angel.pdf

The Lilypond code: earth_angel.ly

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

My mom recently sent me a link to a Youtube video of a great tongue twister segment from Pinkey and the Brain:

Searching for a transcript of this segment I came across a page of tongue twisters which contained a great story about “Shrewd Simon Short” in which every word started with the letter “s”. In order to best appreciate it I attempted to read it aloud. It sounded amusing enough that I decided to record it. So, donning my best book-on-tape narrator voice, I made the following recording:

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Share your favorite tongue twiseter is in the comments below.

I was listening to NPR today, and there was a program of some song writer who was wining an award. He sang a few of his songs and they were terrible. I decided that even I could do better than that.

So I went home and wrote and recorded a song:

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Not being a song writer, I wrote the song about not being able to write.

Apologies to: Tom Waits (Take it with me when I’m gone), Joanna Newsom (Emily), and Traditional (Deep River). I don’t think there is an original note in the whole song.

Lyrics:

I find myself weeping in my little room,
The turn-table’s turning its playing a tune
The song tells of roses and thorns on the vine
A beautiful story of a man’s wasted life.

The man is a martyr, he suffered for love
He’ll find his redemption when they meet up above.
But why am I crying, this isn’t my fate,
I’m crying for something I cannot relate.

If your drunk, or heartbroken, you can easily find
someone who’s been there to help ease your mind
But I cannot put my own thoughts in a row.
Or put them together for others to know

And that’s why I crying, alone in my room,
I can’t seem to figure the words or the tune,
To make you see that I cannot get out
any of thoughts I am thinking about.

My brother took a music course in his undergrad and as part of his coursework wrote a minuet. Its been sitting on the piano at home for some time, and a few days ago my parents, on the advice of my aunt, suggested that I record it for my grandparents. So, without further ado, here is “Minuet” by Nate Eldredge.

(Please excuse my pedantic playing, and the added upper lower neighbor tone “embellishment” near the end of the first repetition of the “B” section.)

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