As I have been exploring what can be done on the ukulele, I have become more and more enamored with the sound of jazz chords on the ukulele. Listening to Lyle Ritz’ remarkable recordings with just ukulele and bass have inspired me. This is an arrangement of my own devising of a song that I have loved for a very long time.
Please excuse the synthesized drum and bass, they are the best I can do. For now…
Here is an audio only mp3 for you to listen to or download:
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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:
I head an old NPR interview with Lyle Ritz about his album “No Frills” where he recorded several jazz standards in Garage Band over synthesized bass lines he entered himself. It was so clean, approachable, and free of pretension that it inspired me to fire up Garage Band and record this song I have been playing with for a while now.
“Love Is a Song” from: Walt Disney’s Bambi:
Words by: Larry Morey Music by: Frank Churchill Ukulele: Kala Curly Mango Soprano (Christmas present) Drum loop: Garage Band Bass: Recorded in Garage Band using a midi keyboard
Audio only mp3:
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On New Years Day my brother, Nate, and I spent the day relaxing with my girlfriend, Chelsea, and her room mate Joel. It was a lovely day and in the evening we decided to record a song. We decided to record (and film) The Beach Boys’ song “In My Room” by Brian Wilson and Gary Usher. We were quite lucky to find a transcription of the voice parts here.
The results:
Also available as a free mp3:
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While I was home for Christmas, I was watching lots of ukulele videos on Youtube. Somewhere in my wanderings I came across the Risa Uke Solid and my mind was blown. It’s a small electric ukulele made out of a single solid piece of wood and some hardware. The simplicity of the design made me think: “Hey, I could do that” and so I began thinking about how I could make a simple electric ukulele myself. Two days later, with lots of help from my dad and his tools, I have a working electric ukulele made from stuff I found around my parent’s house and a set of $4 ukulele strings. It’s currently fret-less and the pickup leaves a lot to be desired but my goal was really to create a mock-up so that I would know what I was doing when I built the actual thing.
Inspired on my previous experimentation with parallel fifth harmonies, and my new ukulele (more on that soon), my dad and I recorded this version of Mary Had a Little Lamb where I sang and played the same song a fifth above. He was playing his guitar and singing in the key of C, and I was playing my ukulele and and singing in the key of G.
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 friend Joachim Luis came over tonight and started reading though the beginning piano book that was resting on my keyboard. Being the jock party animals that we are, we decided to try to sing a few of them as two part vocal pieces.
First we sight-read “Rondino” by Jean Philippe Rameau on movable “doo” with Joachim on bass and me on treble (this one is for my dad):
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Then out came the solfeggio. “A Farewell” by Henry Purcell with Joachim on treble and me on bass:
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My (now ex) choir just toured to Anaheim, Souther California, to sing for a choral conductors’ convention, ACDA. It is a huge honor for our choir to be invited to sing here. Here is a clip from a pre-convention concert we gave in St. Boniface.
From Paul Kim’s description of the video:
San Francisco State University Chamber Singers under the direction of Dr. Joshua Habermann sings Rosas Pandan, a traditional Filipino folksong arranged by George Hernandez, performed at St Boniface Church in Anaheim on Feb 26, 2008. Sung in Visayan about the beautiful maiden Rosas Pandan.
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