Hank is on BlogTV at this very moment. That may be a factor.
Given that the vlogbrothers channel on YouTube has almost six times the subscribers as the sweetafton23 channel, I assume he's applying some restraint.
Jeezzzz... So now it isn't enough to write a song, record it, mix it, re-record it, re-mix it, decide it's crap, throw it away, start another one, beg for help, re-do it, re-mix it and then whore it to your friends... AND go to work...
You gotta make videos for it too!?!?!?!?
Blinkin' Flip. (Then I've got NO chance of coming third overall! ;' ) )
MaW should like this. Since we were talking about keys and feelings earlier, here's a list of all the songs and their keys:
Neil Innes - "Imitation Song" - C Paul & Storm - "Hippie with a Djembe" - F Garfunkel & Oates - "The Happy Song" - C Jeff MacDougall - "The Bop Bop Song" - Bb Edric Haleen - "(Happiness)" - C "BucketHat" Bobby Matheson - "You Gotta Smile" - C Insane Ian - "Happy" - C Joe "Covenant" Lamb - "What Makes You Feel Happy" - A Mick Bordet - "Happy People" - G Rusty's Rocking Jamboree - "Happy Walking Song" - C The Masked Stranger - "My Personal Eccentric Happiness" - A (well, first chord at least) Heather Henderson - "Happy Song" - C Bryce Jensen - "As Happy As Me" - C Jeff Fardink - "Let The Happiness In" - G Timonth Rush - "The Happy Song" - C Crabbydad - "Happy (H.A.P.P.Y.)" - C Hank Green - "The Deep Sea Anglerfish" - Eb Mike Lombardo - "Caroline" - D Hallelujah Ape - "Do What You Want" - G Jalapeno Habaneros - "The Pompadour Song" - C Hazen Nester - "Wide-Eyed Happy" - D Audiomohel - "Parole Day" - C Molly Lewis - "I Pity The (Song) Fu" - Db Jarrett Heather - "One Little Happy Thought" - F#mi/F#ma Jutze Schult - "A Mallful Of Brains" - D
This gives the following ranking, in terms of songs per key: C 12
Sharp keys: G 3 D 3 A 2
Flat keys: F 1 Bb 1 Eb 1
Faraway sharp and flat: F# 1 Db 1
I'm not sure about the last two outliers - in Molly's case it may very well be a detuned C, and Jarret's F# has the feel of a transposed G (SpaceParanoids, maybe you could confirm either way ;-) But the rest show a clear picture: C is popular for musical or technical reasons, and sharp keys are way more popular than flat ones. Interestingly, the three in flat keys all happen to demonstrate instrumental technical mastery of some kind of another, so I suspect that either the artists in question could pick and choose the key to suit vocal ranges, or subconsciously they went for keys that others may find less obvious choices.
Oh, and for the record, I will state that Jeff MacDougall's bass line is the single grooviest thing in this competition.
I though JeffM's lead out "C'mon get happy" was funny considering the advice I gave Cov for an opening line. Both lines come from one of the happiest songs I know, the Partridge Family theme, though different versions.
I thought those were ratings for a minute, until I saw the Bb and fleetingly thought it was a punny music-geek way of saying B-. Then I read the first sentence.
Although Ive been a fan of JoCo for a while now, I didnt stumble into the forum area until my stint back in Song Fu #2 was just about over. And I debated for a long time over whether to join the forum during Song Fu #3. I really wanted my songs considered on their own merits -- not on the basis of, Hey! Hes in the JoCo forum! Hes one of us -- vote for him! But BorbaSpinotti has made a couple of very insightful comments now, and has made me want to join the discussion.
So -- here I am!
@ BorbaSpinotti -- A very astute comment about my song being brave -- and thank you for that. Even back in Song Fu #2, I knew that my song ( http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/songfu/02song1/edric_haleen-blue_moon.mp3 ) wouldnt be popular. I hoped that people would recognize it as _quality_ -- but I knew it wouldnt be able to compete against catchy or funny tunes. I had hoped that it might garner enough votes to get me to Round #2 -- but alas! Oh well.
As for this challenge -- I knew right away that I wanted to do something sincere and completely devoid of irony. Now -- when I was a student at Michigan State University, I used to run a Happiness Board on my dorm room door. At the top of the list, it said, If you're happy and you know it, share your happy thought. If not, use this list to help you through . . . It was an idea with roots as much in Have a penny, give one, need a penny, take one, as in If you're happy and you know it, . . . you know. Almost as skeptical as some of my friends as to how this would be received, I was pleasantly surprised when people started putting up thoughts which made them happy. When the board filled up, I simply copied the list down on my computer, printed up the list, put the printed list up on my door, and erased the board to begin anew.
That first year, more than 600 happy thoughts made it up on my door. The following year, the board came back due to popular demand, and we ended the year with 1,096 happy thoughts! The next year -- my last at Mason Abbot Hall -- the third edition of the Happiness Board was posted, and it received 1,127 happy thoughts by the end of the year!
So when I had to write a happy song, it didnt take too long for me to latch on to the idea of using my old lists for inspiration. Most of the happy thoughts sung in this song came directly from the Happiness Board. I only needed to add just a couple of new happy thoughts (and even then, I couldnt be sure that they didnt already exist on one of the lists, and that I had simply failed to find it in my research).
Now -- BorbaSpinotti wondered after my influences. If there was one Sondheim show that I considered during this challenge more than any other, it would (ironically enough) probably be Assassins -- specifically, the song Everybodys Got The Right. I started out by jotting down some thoughts like, Happiness isnt a right, You make your own happiness, Little things can make you happy, -- with the idea that the song would lead into, Heres some examples of happy things.
I quickly abandoned this as too didactic. But I liked the idea of examples of happy things. But I knew I still needed a structure for the song -- something to give it purpose and direction.
Shortly thereafter, I wrote, When were young . . . As we grow . . . We mature . . . In the end. And the song started taking form.
I opened up my old lists of happy thoughts, deleted the ones I knew I didnt want to use, and then sorted the lists into things, actions, foods, feelings, etc. Then I went through those lists and sorted them into things for children, young adults, older adults, and more or less universal. Some jimmying around for prosodys sake, and I had it.
As for the key. Angelastic and voidptr both admitted having trouble identifying the tone of the song, although BorbaSpinotti correctly pegged it as being in the key of C. Its actually written _pointedly_ in the key of C -- the song is 88 measures long, and there is not a single accidental in the songs entirety -- vocal part or accompaniment. The black keys are not utilized at all. The reason that it still has such cool tone clusters is because I utilized the two half-steps in the diatonic scale -- the half-step between E and F and the half-step between B and C. (The closest tone cluster in the whole song occurs at the end of Knowing youre loved in return in the fourth section -- because the soloist line holds onto the end of endure instead of having two more syllables to sing like in the first three sections. Endure holds on a C, while Return is sung on the B a half-step below and a D a full-step above. It still makes my heart leap every time it comes to that part.)
More generally, I know that musicians have many reasons for choosing various keys. Some depend on the artists vocal range. Some depend upon the instrument. For example -- the key of E is very easy on the guitar. On the piano, its kind of a pain. I find a lot of flats FAR easier to play on the piano than even a few sharps. On the other hand -- when I wrote Blue Moon, I purposely chose the key of E on the piano, precisely _because_ it had four sharps. I wasnt as accustomed to playing four sharps, so my hands didnt just naturally gravitate to certain chords. As I was writing the ethereal beginning, I wanted the freedom to find my own chords and arpeggios and progressions, rather than fight my preconditioned muscle-memory.
For Six Degrees of Matt ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2arBC7f-6FY ), I chose the key of Eb because on the piano, keys with flats have a tendency to sound more lush and romantic, whereas keys with sharps tend to sound brighter. (This is due to the tuning of pianos, which is a hugely mathematical science. Pythagorean commas, and all that. Cool stuff.) In fact, classical composers used to choose certain keys over others for this very reason. Thats why Bach was such a big deal in his day. Writing a fugue which jumps from key to key doesnt work so well if you arent playing an evenly-tempered keyboard...
Anyway -- Im sure that not everyone will be interested in the nitty-gritty that Ive taken so much space to spell out. Congratulations to all the competitors. Its so much fun hearing so many different takes on a given theme. Even though were all getting killed by Molly, I hope that no one drops out of future rounds just because they get the sense that they probably wont win. Keep the music coming!
Plus -- Im tremendously impressed by how many Challengers branched out beyond the standard band arrangement this time. In Song Fu #2, I was the only piano. Now weve got some REALLY cool piano parts out there. Kudos, guys!
It looks like Bry has some competition in the long post department. I'd just like to say I read the whole thing and I understood most of it (I'm just learning the very basics of music theory, such as what keys are and what mysteries they unlock, thanks to these forums.)
Also, great idea for a door adornment (adoornment!) and song.
See.. there's the difference between a trained musician and me. I just played around with a tune I could sing and thought, what can I do that sounds like it could be both innocent and rude at the same time... but still happy !
;' )
Of course, when it came to actually playing any music for it... I was stuck... I never knew my song was in *A* until today!
(And then along came Borba... and his 3am emails!)... (Well... MY 3am emails!) ;' )
Sometimes... (but, admittedly, only sometimes)... I wish I knew what you guys were talking about ! ;' )
Oh, I feel much better knowing that Covenant is in the same boat as me, and he can make music. When/if I finish my unexpected 'shadow' entry, I'll look forwad to Borba telling me it's in C. Oh, wow. I think I already know it's in C. All six of the notes used are white! Not sure about the triangle though. I plan to have a rockin' triangle solo to show off my amazing [lack of] musical abilities.
@Edric: Wow, thanks for all that info. I wouldn't have spotted the 88-measure thing in a million years, but it's nice to know! Your song has been really growing on me, and I'm trying to imagine it orchestrated. By Jonathan Tunick of course ;-)
When mentioning the keys, I was thinking of writing something more than just "C" next to your song, but I desisted, because the funny thing is, well, for all the clusters it's a nice clean C major to my ears. I'm a bit of a voicing nut, and your F accompaniment had my toes curling: Two arpeggiated 5th in the left hand, two consecutive 4ths in the right, and the initial sonority has no right to sound so consonant (Two major sevenths within the chord, and no third) but yet it just works. (ETA: Oh, and the other interesting thing about this chord is that it contains every single note in the scale, a pangram of C major or F lydian if you will)
Specific Sondheim songs that sprang to mind:
"No-one is alone" (sentiment, pulling a lot of juice from two main chords, plus the 2-3 alternation in the top note of the accompaniment)
"A bowler hat" (lyrical progression/progression through life defined by little snippets of thoughts)
Oh, and the bit after the kazoo solo in Covenant's song is what I like to think of as a home run (obligatory xkcd link) in the cycle of fifths.
ETA: I'm going to be away from the computer for a day and a half, so apologies if there are fascinating things here which I only respond to tomorrow night.
Jarret's F# has the feel of a transposed G (SpaceParanoids, maybe you could confirm either way ;-)
Transposed E, as a matter of fact. When I was rehearsing, the modulated part at the end felt better to sing, so I bumped the whole composition up 2 steps.
Also.. Is Jarret around? Id like to borrow his source tracks.
I've just finished moving, so everything is in disarray. I'll be more than happy to make the source tracks available in MIDI and the rendered wav files... I just need to dig up my other computer.
This place looks like that warehouse at the end of Raiders.
I found it interesting that so many of the songs are in C. On each of the (as of current count) four attempts at doing my own happy song, I've started off in C simply because it's easier to write down. The tune is something I think of in my head, and because I don't have perfect pitch it comes out at something weird, so I then have to knock it down against a reference pitch, which is typically either the tonic or the dominant and easy to figure out what it is from how the tune proceeds (or in one case, it was the tonic of the relative minor... needless to say, that tune did not sound particularly happy).
Then I end up having to transpose it into something else in order to get it to fit inside my vocal range, so I've ended up with ones in G and D and F, and they're all absolutely terrible.
Still, if you don't try, you don't get better.
@Edric: I had to listen to your entry several times to 'get' it. I must admit the first time through I thought it was awful, but now I'm starting to appreciate it. It's kind of soppy and sweet, but it's got a purity to it, which no doubt comes from the constantness of its key. It doesn't even give you a hint that it's going to move anywhere at all. Lovely!
The more I listen to all of the songs the more guilty I feel for voting so hastily...combined with the fact that I could never produce a piece of music that even sounded halfway decent makes me question whether or not I really have a right to be voting on which songs are the best. I guess if I had to try to make a song I would appreciate all of the different entries much, much more than I did a few days ago when I found a few songs that I thought *sounded good* and voted for them T-T.
@obj8edi: Apologies for the blatant lie, and thanks for correcting me. So D-flat is suddenly a strong contender again! One or two of the others are slightly off-pitch, so there may be room for argument, but I can't claim that about "Wide-eyed happy".
ETA: Okay, this is no real excuse for me not listening carefully enough, but I find it interesting that I subconsciously picked up on SpaceParanoids' song being (presumably) MIDI-transposed from the original performance, and your capo'd song threw me. In other words, the hand position on both a piano and a guitar gives off subtle "nature of key" cues, quite apart from the pitch you end up hearing. Another one for Jarrett to confirm then: if the performance was indeed MIDI-transposed from E to F#, the intro ends with an apparent white-note glissando in the key of D, i.e. containing two black notes. Grabbing at straws a bit here, but I am interested in pinpointing what made me feel that the song was transposed.
EATA: Thinking about this a bit further, adding capo and MIDI transposition (for keyboards) into the equation, things get more and more hazy for those wanting to believe that a certain key has a certain feel. As a reasonable analogy, does a piece in Bb, played on the Bb trumpet, have the same character as a piece in C played on the C trumpet? Or back to the specifics of obj8edi's song, does the addition of the capo make Db the new C?
An Eb trumpet wouldn't sound exactly the same as a C trumpet anyway, so yes, a piece in Eb on an Eb trumpet would sound different to a piece in C on a C trumpet - even if it didn't have any slight shifts in the size of the intervals.
Equal temprement electronic keyboards with transposing though, because their equal temprement is ruthlessly equal, that would sound the same if you transpose - just lower or higher.
Equal temprement electronic keyboards with transposing though, because their equal temprement is ruthlessly equal, that would sound the same if you transpose - just lower or higher
That may be true in theory, but remember that there is no "pure" notion of the relationship between note samples on a digital instrument. Creative and technical choices are always made in the instrument design, and on older or cheaper instruments one can often discern the "cracks" where one sample stops and the next one begins. If the piece is transposed, the crack stays where it is, i.e. it moves relative to the new pitch.
But that is getting a bit abstruse. I am trying to suggest that the addition of the capo makes the guitar sound different enough that it is discernable by many people, and that a piece played on the "guitar in F" (capo on first fret) will virtually always sound different to a piece in F played on a guitar without capo. It's pretty much stating the obvious, since a large proportion of voicings in pop music take advantage of open strings. One may argue that people's pitch perception isn't generally that good, but as a counter-argument I'd suggest that if somebody went and sped up your mother's voice (to pick an example of a well-known voice, and additionally to suggest a new kind of insult) by a factor of 1.05946094 (a semitone) there is a fair chance that you will discern it as different. Yeah, citation needed. My tentative belief is that things like the sound of a piano, a guitar or a well-known person's voice get ingrained in many listeners to a degree they are not consciously aware of, but which is retained as a fingerprint against which a tampered sample can be judged.
Wow, I didn't know so many people in here were in Song Fu this time. I just got done blogging about round 1. Great work on your submissions peeps, I can't wait for the songs from round 2.
I'm not sure it's so much that people here are in Song Fu. It's more accurate to say that people in Song Fu are here. With a few exceptions (Covenant and Molly spring immediately to mind), I think the trend is for Song Fu participants to learn that there's a lively discussion of Song Fu here and then migrate where the discussion is. There's a board at quickstopentertainment, but there's not nearly so much Song Fu traffic there: only two posts for this round, the first of which was an announcement from Ken, whereas this board has nearly two hundred.
Excellent point, Mark. Let the games continue! It's pretty cool to be talking about a song and then to be eventually joined by the songwriter. I'm just hoping we can draw them across into real JoCo threads too. JoCo is not so much a person as a place nowadays ;-)
(not that anyone asked, but...) FWIW, I was lurking on this board big time since shortly before the first Song Fu started. I signed up for an account a couple of months later but still did not post. I guess that the excitement/ fear of being in the Holiday Song Fu (before we knew it was not a contest) was enough to get me out of my lurking state. I kinda feel bad, because Song Fu is really the only thing I've commented on here, even though I've spent ricdiculous amounts of time reading posts about all sorts of things, including very old ones. I probably did come off as one of those, "Here's my comment about Song Fu so you'll vote for me" kind of people. For the record, I wish everyone would vote for what they perceive to be the BEST SONGS (not because of forums, or blogs, or youtube videos asking for votes, or just liking a person's pervious work). I would likely not ask people to vote for me even if I thought I had written the best song ever, and though my entry has grown on me a little since I first submitted it, I feel that it is sitting in its proper spot at the highly coveted 14th place challenger position.
I'm really goingto try to be more active here, 'cause this is probably my favorite forum on the whole interwebs, and, as a whole, the people here are frikkin' awesome. :)
Well, I finally voted and made a surprising choice: I didn't vote for Molly. This is not because I don't think her song is awesome, but because she has enough votes already, and a few other songs are missing some love because of that. I like to imagine that I had six votes, or possibly that Molly donated hers to another person.
Absolutely.... Personally, I voted for the songs *I* thought were best. (Its a LOT of listening... you'll need a good hour or so.) Two of them are above me in the poll. I didn't vote for Molly because it seemed derivative of something to me, and, frankly, I thought others were better. That said, two of those I voted for are VERY low in the poll. (And sadly, as two of them didn;t work for me, (As mentioned earlier) I couldn;t truthfully give them my vote.)
I suppose the ideal situation would be to have the voting form not appear until you have listened to all the tracks, which would at mean that everyone would get a fair chance or, at the very least, an audience they might not have reached before. I would love to think that all 500+ of the people that voted form Molly also heard my song, even if they didn't like it (and let's face it, not many did ;-)), but given human nature, I suspect that's unlikely. 2nd round will be interesting, apart from Molly's unassailable lead, as people in closely clustered groups (from Joe upwards, from Bryce downwards, for example) start from the position of knowing where they stand and what they have to do to climb up the rankings. I think this round should result in some better songs (though round 1 had some crackers) and I'm glad that we're not losing anybody (apart from through 'natural wastage') that was just not quite on their best game in the first round.
Another one for Jarrett to confirm then: if the performance was indeed MIDI-transposed from E to F#, the intro ends with an apparent white-note glissando in the key of D, i.e. containing two black notes.
Actually, I thought I'd transposed the glissando back down to the white keys.
Comments
The gap between me and Hank has always been around 30-40.. now its jumped up to 60 !?!?
Wow.
(Still around 15-20 between me and 5th place.... The Tension...)
Given that the vlogbrothers channel on YouTube has almost six times the subscribers as the sweetafton23 channel, I assume he's applying some restraint.
So now it isn't enough to write a song, record it, mix it, re-record it, re-mix it, decide it's crap, throw it away, start another one, beg for help, re-do it, re-mix it and then whore it to your friends... AND go to work...
You gotta make videos for it too!?!?!?!?
Blinkin' Flip.
(Then I've got NO chance of coming third overall! ;' ) )
Neil Innes - "Imitation Song" - C
Paul & Storm - "Hippie with a Djembe" - F
Garfunkel & Oates - "The Happy Song" - C
Jeff MacDougall - "The Bop Bop Song" - Bb
Edric Haleen - "(Happiness)" - C
"BucketHat" Bobby Matheson - "You Gotta Smile" - C
Insane Ian - "Happy" - C
Joe "Covenant" Lamb - "What Makes You Feel Happy" - A
Mick Bordet - "Happy People" - G
Rusty's Rocking Jamboree - "Happy Walking Song" - C
The Masked Stranger - "My Personal Eccentric Happiness" - A (well, first chord at least)
Heather Henderson - "Happy Song" - C
Bryce Jensen - "As Happy As Me" - C
Jeff Fardink - "Let The Happiness In" - G
Timonth Rush - "The Happy Song" - C
Crabbydad - "Happy (H.A.P.P.Y.)" - C
Hank Green - "The Deep Sea Anglerfish" - Eb
Mike Lombardo - "Caroline" - D
Hallelujah Ape - "Do What You Want" - G
Jalapeno Habaneros - "The Pompadour Song" - C
Hazen Nester - "Wide-Eyed Happy" - D
Audiomohel - "Parole Day" - C
Molly Lewis - "I Pity The (Song) Fu" - Db
Jarrett Heather - "One Little Happy Thought" - F#mi/F#ma
Jutze Schult - "A Mallful Of Brains" - D
This gives the following ranking, in terms of songs per key:
C 12
Sharp keys:
G 3
D 3
A 2
Flat keys:
F 1
Bb 1
Eb 1
Faraway sharp and flat:
F# 1
Db 1
I'm not sure about the last two outliers - in Molly's case it may very well be a detuned C, and Jarret's F# has the feel of a transposed G (SpaceParanoids, maybe you could confirm either way ;-) But the rest show a clear picture: C is popular for musical or technical reasons, and sharp keys are way more popular than flat ones. Interestingly, the three in flat keys all happen to demonstrate instrumental technical mastery of some kind of another, so I suspect that either the artists in question could pick and choose the key to suit vocal ranges, or subconsciously they went for keys that others may find less obvious choices.
Oh, and for the record, I will state that Jeff MacDougall's bass line is the single grooviest thing in this competition.
Although Ive been a fan of JoCo for a while now, I didnt stumble into the forum area until my stint back in Song Fu #2 was just about over. And I debated for a long time over whether to join the forum during Song Fu #3. I really wanted my songs considered on their own merits -- not on the basis of, Hey! Hes in the JoCo forum! Hes one of us -- vote for him! But BorbaSpinotti has made a couple of very insightful comments now, and has made me want to join the discussion.
So -- here I am!
@ BorbaSpinotti -- A very astute comment about my song being brave -- and thank you for that. Even back in Song Fu #2, I knew that my song ( http://www.quickstopentertainment.com/songfu/02song1/edric_haleen-blue_moon.mp3 ) wouldnt be popular. I hoped that people would recognize it as _quality_ -- but I knew it wouldnt be able to compete against catchy or funny tunes. I had hoped that it might garner enough votes to get me to Round #2 -- but alas! Oh well.
As for this challenge -- I knew right away that I wanted to do something sincere and completely devoid of irony. Now -- when I was a student at Michigan State University, I used to run a Happiness Board on my dorm room door. At the top of the list, it said, If you're happy and you know it, share your happy thought. If not, use this list to help you through . . . It was an idea with roots as much in Have a penny, give one, need a penny, take one, as in If you're happy and you know it, . . . you know. Almost as skeptical as some of my friends as to how this would be received, I was pleasantly surprised when people started putting up thoughts which made them happy. When the board filled up, I simply copied the list down on my computer, printed up the list, put the printed list up on my door, and erased the board to begin anew.
That first year, more than 600 happy thoughts made it up on my door. The following year, the board came back due to popular demand, and we ended the year with 1,096 happy thoughts! The next year -- my last at Mason Abbot Hall -- the third edition of the Happiness Board was posted, and it received 1,127 happy thoughts by the end of the year!
So when I had to write a happy song, it didnt take too long for me to latch on to the idea of using my old lists for inspiration. Most of the happy thoughts sung in this song came directly from the Happiness Board. I only needed to add just a couple of new happy thoughts (and even then, I couldnt be sure that they didnt already exist on one of the lists, and that I had simply failed to find it in my research).
Now -- BorbaSpinotti wondered after my influences. If there was one Sondheim show that I considered during this challenge more than any other, it would (ironically enough) probably be Assassins -- specifically, the song Everybodys Got The Right. I started out by jotting down some thoughts like, Happiness isnt a right, You make your own happiness, Little things can make you happy, -- with the idea that the song would lead into, Heres some examples of happy things.
I quickly abandoned this as too didactic. But I liked the idea of examples of happy things. But I knew I still needed a structure for the song -- something to give it purpose and direction.
Shortly thereafter, I wrote, When were young . . . As we grow . . . We mature . . . In the end. And the song started taking form.
I opened up my old lists of happy thoughts, deleted the ones I knew I didnt want to use, and then sorted the lists into things, actions, foods, feelings, etc. Then I went through those lists and sorted them into things for children, young adults, older adults, and more or less universal. Some jimmying around for prosodys sake, and I had it.
More generally, I know that musicians have many reasons for choosing various keys. Some depend on the artists vocal range. Some depend upon the instrument. For example -- the key of E is very easy on the guitar. On the piano, its kind of a pain. I find a lot of flats FAR easier to play on the piano than even a few sharps. On the other hand -- when I wrote Blue Moon, I purposely chose the key of E on the piano, precisely _because_ it had four sharps. I wasnt as accustomed to playing four sharps, so my hands didnt just naturally gravitate to certain chords. As I was writing the ethereal beginning, I wanted the freedom to find my own chords and arpeggios and progressions, rather than fight my preconditioned muscle-memory.
For Six Degrees of Matt ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2arBC7f-6FY ), I chose the key of Eb because on the piano, keys with flats have a tendency to sound more lush and romantic, whereas keys with sharps tend to sound brighter. (This is due to the tuning of pianos, which is a hugely mathematical science. Pythagorean commas, and all that. Cool stuff.) In fact, classical composers used to choose certain keys over others for this very reason. Thats why Bach was such a big deal in his day. Writing a fugue which jumps from key to key doesnt work so well if you arent playing an evenly-tempered keyboard...
Anyway -- Im sure that not everyone will be interested in the nitty-gritty that Ive taken so much space to spell out. Congratulations to all the competitors. Its so much fun hearing so many different takes on a given theme. Even though were all getting killed by Molly, I hope that no one drops out of future rounds just because they get the sense that they probably wont win. Keep the music coming!
Plus -- Im tremendously impressed by how many Challengers branched out beyond the standard band arrangement this time. In Song Fu #2, I was the only piano. Now weve got some REALLY cool piano parts out there. Kudos, guys!
:-)
Also, great idea for a door adornment (adoornment!) and song.
I just played around with a tune I could sing and thought, what can I do that sounds like it could be both innocent and rude at the same time... but still happy !
;' )
Of course, when it came to actually playing any music for it... I was stuck...
I never knew my song was in *A* until today!
(And then along came Borba... and his 3am emails!)...
(Well... MY 3am emails!) ;' )
Sometimes... (but, admittedly, only sometimes)... I wish I knew what you guys were talking about ! ;' )
(Any chance you'd post your lyrics?)
:-)
The lyrics are up on the song fu page.
(Or should be soon, everything I ever send there gets bot-marked as spam !!!)
ETA:
Just had a look... hmmm.. I sent the lyric in HOURS ago!
I'd post them here, but.. you know...
Also.. Is Jarret around?
Id like to borrow his source tracks.
When mentioning the keys, I was thinking of writing something more than just "C" next to your song, but I desisted, because the funny thing is, well, for all the clusters it's a nice clean C major to my ears. I'm a bit of a voicing nut, and your F accompaniment had my toes curling: Two arpeggiated 5th in the left hand, two consecutive 4ths in the right, and the initial sonority has no right to sound so consonant (Two major sevenths within the chord, and no third) but yet it just works.
(ETA: Oh, and the other interesting thing about this chord is that it contains every single note in the scale, a pangram of C major or F lydian if you will)
Specific Sondheim songs that sprang to mind:
- "No-one is alone" (sentiment, pulling a lot of juice from two main chords, plus the 2-3 alternation in the top note of the accompaniment)
- "A bowler hat" (lyrical progression/progression through life defined by little snippets of thoughts)
Oh, and the bit after the kazoo solo in Covenant's song is what I like to think of as a home run (obligatory xkcd link) in the cycle of fifths.ETA: I'm going to be away from the computer for a day and a half, so apologies if there are fascinating things here which I only respond to tomorrow night.
This place looks like that warehouse at the end of Raiders.
Then I end up having to transpose it into something else in order to get it to fit inside my vocal range, so I've ended up with ones in G and D and F, and they're all absolutely terrible.
Still, if you don't try, you don't get better.
@Edric: I had to listen to your entry several times to 'get' it. I must admit the first time through I thought it was awful, but now I'm starting to appreciate it. It's kind of soppy and sweet, but it's got a purity to it, which no doubt comes from the constantness of its key. It doesn't even give you a hint that it's going to move anywhere at all. Lovely!
;' )))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
(By public demand!)
;' )
Is there a link...?
(He *played* his melodium through it too!)
ETA:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1154124
It's got its own slot !!!!!
Just TOO excited to think ! ;' )
ETA: Okay, this is no real excuse for me not listening carefully enough, but I find it interesting that I subconsciously picked up on SpaceParanoids' song being (presumably) MIDI-transposed from the original performance, and your capo'd song threw me. In other words, the hand position on both a piano and a guitar gives off subtle "nature of key" cues, quite apart from the pitch you end up hearing. Another one for Jarrett to confirm then: if the performance was indeed MIDI-transposed from E to F#, the intro ends with an apparent white-note glissando in the key of D, i.e. containing two black notes. Grabbing at straws a bit here, but I am interested in pinpointing what made me feel that the song was transposed.
EATA: Thinking about this a bit further, adding capo and MIDI transposition (for keyboards) into the equation, things get more and more hazy for those wanting to believe that a certain key has a certain feel. As a reasonable analogy, does a piece in Bb, played on the Bb trumpet, have the same character as a piece in C played on the C trumpet? Or back to the specifics of obj8edi's song, does the addition of the capo make Db the new C?
Equal temprement electronic keyboards with transposing though, because their equal temprement is ruthlessly equal, that would sound the same if you transpose - just lower or higher.
But that is getting a bit abstruse. I am trying to suggest that the addition of the capo makes the guitar sound different enough that it is discernable by many people, and that a piece played on the "guitar in F" (capo on first fret) will virtually always sound different to a piece in F played on a guitar without capo. It's pretty much stating the obvious, since a large proportion of voicings in pop music take advantage of open strings. One may argue that people's pitch perception isn't generally that good, but as a counter-argument I'd suggest that if somebody went and sped up your mother's voice (to pick an example of a well-known voice, and additionally to suggest a new kind of insult) by a factor of 1.05946094 (a semitone) there is a fair chance that you will discern it as different. Yeah, citation needed. My tentative belief is that things like the sound of a piano, a guitar or a well-known person's voice get ingrained in many listeners to a degree they are not consciously aware of, but which is retained as a fingerprint against which a tampered sample can be judged.
I heard about Song Fu right here actually.
I'm really goingto try to be more active here, 'cause this is probably my favorite forum on the whole interwebs, and, as a whole, the people here are frikkin' awesome. :)
On topic: Maybe I should go listen to these songs and vote, huh?
Personally, I voted for the songs *I* thought were best. (Its a LOT of listening... you'll need a good hour or so.)
Two of them are above me in the poll.
I didn't vote for Molly because it seemed derivative of something to me, and, frankly, I thought others were better.
That said, two of those I voted for are VERY low in the poll.
(And sadly, as two of them didn;t work for me, (As mentioned earlier) I couldn;t truthfully give them my vote.)
I would love to think that all 500+ of the people that voted form Molly also heard my song, even if they didn't like it (and let's face it, not many did ;-)), but given human nature, I suspect that's unlikely.
2nd round will be interesting, apart from Molly's unassailable lead, as people in closely clustered groups (from Joe upwards, from Bryce downwards, for example) start from the position of knowing where they stand and what they have to do to climb up the rankings. I think this round should result in some better songs (though round 1 had some crackers) and I'm glad that we're not losing anybody (apart from through 'natural wastage') that was just not quite on their best game in the first round.