Ukulele - Not Just for Hawaii Any More!

The Mark:

Israel Kamakawiwo'ole ('Iz' from here-on out) is by no means the only person who has ever played the ukulele at a professional level. HOWEVER, I'd be willing to be that you've heard his rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" at at least two weddings and/or funerals in your lifetime. Furthermore, I'd also bet he was the first person to pop into your head when you read the word 'ukulele' in the title.

Go ahead, sing along with him for a bit then continue on down below.

My Connection:

I *love* the ukulele. I didn't really grow up with it, but I feel like the ukulele has been undergoing a renaissance of sorts the past decade as more artists are branching out and bringing 'alternative' instruments into the mainstream pop consciousness - I assign part of the blame to Jason Mraz for 2008's "I'm Yours."

The portrait of a man who is in *love* with his hat.

About 2-3 years ago (while I was still teaching music full-time), I started having numerous parents ask if I knew how to play ukulele/if I could teach it. After saying, 'no' to enough new lessons and wondering what this uke business was all about, I decided that 'yes, yes I do play ukulele and teach it.'

Then I had to learn how to play ukulele.


Style Notes/Structure:

As I taught myself how to play the ukulele, I learned that it is the *ideal* starter instrument for anyone looking to pick up a stringed instrument:

1) It's *smaller* - you don't have to stretch your hands as much to play chords
2) It's *simpler* - most chords only take 1 or 2 fingers to play. The one's that take more have finger patterns that are easy to replicate
3) It's... more twee?

What I really learned to appreciate about the uke is that any number of songs sound different/cooler when played on a ukulele. Whether you're playing a pretty straightforward cover of an existing song...

playing an ironic/odd cover of an existing song...

or trying to write your own music in a simple way....

the ukulele makes accessing music easier than most other instruments I've played besides the kazoo and the congas.


My Take:

Rather than try to do my take on Iz (which wouldn't for a number of reasons, namely 'talent relative to Iz'), I thought I'd do today's song on the uke and do it in the style of "Death Cab for Cutie." I think it'll make sense once you hear the song. In case you were wondering, I was thinking about how Ben Gibbard intones his singing when paired with a solo instrument, such as it does in the song "I Will Follow You Into the Dark."

I actually wrote part of this song last night laying in bed. In the past few weeks, I've told Abby about some of the dreams I've had recently about growing up - the old house, doomed-from-the-start relationships etc...long story short, I sat there thinking about my dreams and thought I ought to write a song about thinking about my dreams in bed.

Re-read that last sentence, then click on the button in this link for full effect.

With that in mind, I came up with today's song - "I Don't Mind"

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Bonus reading!
'Any More' vs 'Anymore'
http://www.grammarly.com/handbook/grammar/adjectives-and-adverbs/13/anymore-vs-any-more/

The 80's Training Montage

The Mark:

DRAAAAAGOOOOOOO!

My last post (here) was about music from the 1980's, but for some reason I just can't seem to extricate myself from that era. Oh well, I'm running with it.



My Connection:

Pretty much *every* time that I've gone to the gym the past three months, I do at least some small portion of my workout while listening to any number of classic 80's montage workout songs. Admittedly, 9 out of 10 times this song ends up being "Hearts on Fire," but I do throw in a little "Push it to the Limit" or "You're the Best" in there when I'm looking for a little variety.

More *importantly*, what makes me want to write about this for the blog is that I've never felt more inspired to go and take care of myself at the gym than I have these past few months. While I've certainly had phases of great success at getting into shape/staying in-shape/eating 'well' in the past, I've found that getting into a routine of self-improvement and mindfulness has been *much* easier for me this time around thanks to my relationship with Abby.

As you can tell, there's a whoooole lot of time to stop and think about
life when trying to hold a plank position for 5 minutes.*

In short, Abby inspires me to be a better person in a whole lot of ways - I want to look good, be well, and feel like I'm doing my best take care of myself so that I can take care of her in return. While I'm not exactly in peak physical shape, I've managed to drop 20-25 lbs since April, and I've managed to successfully track what I've been eating and drinking via MyFitnessPal going on 86 days now. Ideally, by the time school starts again, I'll have dropped another 10 lbs or so and I'll be able to hold a plank for up to 5 minutes.:-)









Style Notes/Structure:

Lyrics

Just about 80's training montage deals with the same basic idea - you're starting off somewhere near the bottom, you need to improve yourself to reach your peak, *but* we don't have time to show months of training so we're going to talk about how awesome your heart and passion is while showing how you are improving over time. In fact, this theme is so prevalent that there are list after list after list of 'Top X 80's montage lists" for those of you craving more of this kind of thing... the movie Team America: World Police even went so far as to feature a song called "Montage" as a loving reference/major plot point  of the movie.

Music

aka - "Time to dig out the keyboard"**

Like Loverboy's Working for the Weekend, I've noticed that many 80's montage songs come at you hard and fast with a driving 8th or 16th note rhythm. The drums (electronic or otherwise) provide the solid backbone, while the bass/low notes contribute mirror this and do some of their own moving around as well ('walking' notes into the next chord). For a quick demo of walking notes, watch my mini video below!

My Take:

To do this song right, it needs to be a) loud, b) professionally-recorded and c) not recorded up next to a an apartment wall shared by a neighbor... who *may* have been knocking on the wall as I played the repeated keyboard part on a loop for over an hour. To be fair, I was writing the lyrics and noodling around on my guitar (hence the whisper singing vs. "I'm belting about pumping iron" volume of the lyrics).

SPEAKING OF WHICH, I figured out how to use the multi-track recording function on my keyboard. You can't see it in the video, but you'll totally be able to tell it's there... trust me.

Here we are:  One More

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*You know, besides the obvious and inevitable "GAAAAAH kill me now" thoughts that arise when doing a plank.

**Today is one of the few days where I'm thankful to have a keyboard that I'm pretty sure is older than I am.

Working for the Weekend

The Mark:
*NOTE - If you want to hear *any* of the videos below that aren't "Working for the Weekend," you're going to have to scroll down a few paragrpahs, find the video and pause it.  Or just sit back and let the good times roll - you're call.  :D

Earlier today, I asked for help with picking today's themed based off the idea of 'construction'. Here's why:

That's how things were at home until about 11:00 a.m. or so today. Prior to this bit of drilling*, it was a jack-hammering for a solid 20-30 minutes.

So, due to my inability to focus with all the noise, I decided to utilize this distraction for today's post and crowd-source based on the theme 'construction' After receiving a number of construction-related suggestions in a variety of styles, I ended up holding an impromptu 'drawing out of a hat' to determine which song to utilize for today's post. Our winner...

Oh yes, this is happening.

My Connection:

This song rocks. Hard enough, in fact, that I felt compelled to learn how to make it auto-play vs. waiting for you to click on it. My apologies if your speakers were at full volume... or not on at all, because you're missing out.

With a fast tempo and what I lovingly refer to as 'giddy up' rhythms, I've always enjoyed playing this song as part of various cover bands over the years. And while yes, one's mind is pretty much instantly drawn to the classic Farley/Swayze sketch on SNL, I feel like there's a whole lot more depth to this song than the lyrics might have you believe.


Style Notes/Structure:

Lyrics

Lyrically, the song isn't too complex... and that's okay. Great, in fact! If the lyrics were too complex, it might distract from the drive of the backing rhythms.

When I listen to this song, I really appreciate how the melody of the singing matches so well with the driving, repetitive nature of the guitar rhythm.

For instance, take the first verse:
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Everyone's watching, to see what you will do (pretty straight tone, doesn't go too high or low range)

Everyone's looking at you (Starts high, same note, ends down low) oh (bonus)

Everyone's wondering, will you come out tonight?? (pretty straight tone, doesn't go too high or low range, SAME MELODY AS LINE 1)

Everyone's trying to get it right, get it right (Starts high, same note, ends down low, SAME AS LINE 2)
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Then, the chorus blasts in with the song title! No avant-garde, "Standing Outside a Broken Telephone Booth with Money in my Hand"-ing here. We are working for the weekend, have no doubt.

"Doo Doo, DooDoo Doo" isn't a very memorable song title, I suppose?

Music

The bread and butter of "Working for the Weekend." I could go into the composition piece of how they chose what chords to use and in what order, buuuuut I've been talking about the driving sound of this song so I really feel like that's what needs to be emphasized here.

POWER CHORDS

I've been aching for an opportunity to talk about power chords. When teaching guitar, I lovingly refer to power chords as the 'cheat code' of the guitar. Rather than your standard major and minor chords which require you to learn a variety of shapes that need to be applied at various points on the neck of the guitar, the power chord shape stays the same wherever you put it.**

Power chords also *sound* lower/rougher, so they tend to rock a little more than your standard open chords.See the video below for an example of said 'rocking sound'.

Rhythm

Putting the awesomeness of the rhythm into written words is hard to do. Hence... this video as well.

My Take:

*INSERT RECORD SCRATCH*

But wait: "Working for the Weekend" isn't a love song! How can I justify using this as part of a blog dedicated to writing love songs based on love songs?

Well... I'd say it's obvious that Loverboy loves the weekend. I love my wife. We're cruising on down the road to a wedding this weekend (hi Rachael and Travis!). I did my best to take these ideas, jam them together into one cohesive whole, annnnnd....

ONE ROUGH TAKE. This song is *hard* to play since it's so fast, and my Bowie shirt apparently doesn't breathe at all. If I were recording these for an album/trying to make a profit, I'd be doing multiple takes and all that... but this whole blog is just a fun excuse to talk about basic music theory and the lovely wife. :-)

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*Get it?? Bit?? Drill?

**Kind of. Once you get up to playing the first finger/root note on the 4th string or higher, things get a bit wonky.

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Bonus Fun Fact - While writing this post, I had the auto-play of Working for the Weekend start up on its own no less than 7 times. Karmic justice, I suppose. ~

"The 50s Progression"

How about from the 50's. Oldies like "Sh-boom" and "Be-bop-a-lu-lah"?
- User Grandpa R


The Mark:

Ah yes, the 50s. A simpler time, when one can just give themselves a complete personality/looks makeover to win-over their high school sweetheart... right, Sandy?? That Danny Zuko is totally worth it, huh??

Sigh... 

My Connection:

I suppose my first real connection to the music of the 50's is Grease. Don't get me wrong, I sigh *very* heavily nowadays looking back on some the... liberties... Grease takes with the laws of space and time, but the songs do a tremendous job at capturing the variety of sound found in 50's music.

Sigh...

When I first read the suggestion for writing a song for the 50s, I had some struggles. The songs from Grease cover all sorts of genres that were quite active in the 50's, from straight up rock and roll and Doo Wop to "Love Ballads."

Sigh.... Yes, you are.

Do I try to write a Doo Wop song? A Chuck Berry shuffle rock? Elvis the Pelvis??? Then, I had an idea - why not talk about something that connects a lot of these different *kinds* of 50's music, STRAIGHT from a Grease track, then do my best to use a 50's progression of my own and see what happens?

Style Notes/Structure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50s_progression - for reference

For those of you not clicking through that link to read, here's a brief synopsis:

There's a set of chords used together, in a certain order, that were so commonly used together that they've been dubbed 'the 50's progression.' As "Those Magic Changes" so clearly lays it out with their backup singers, this progression commonly manifested itself as something like:

C CC CCCA AA Am(inor) F FF FFF G GG G7

But wait... not *all* "50's progression" songs use those exact same chords, but I can tell that the chords start high, go a little lower, come a little higher, then drop a little lower than all the rest... What's going on???


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_containing_the_50s_progression - for reference


Rather than try to type it out here, I made a little video to help explain it below. -

So, you take a few chords from the "Do Re Mi" major scale, put them in an order, repeat that order over an over again... that's a progression! This '50's' progression is I, VI, IV, V written the proper way. Me, I just go with '1, 6, 4, 5' since it's marginally less complicated.

The Simpsons - Lemon of Troy
"Rocky V plus Rocky II equals... ROCKY VII - ADRIAN'S REVENGE"

My Take:

For today's track, I went for a retelling of my first 'date' with Abby. I don't think either of us went into it thinking of it as a date, but it kinda just... clicked for both of us. Not that I'm complaining. ~

Anyways, because meeting up for bar trivia at a pub and sharing a pizza doesn't really fit into the 50's vibe I was going for, I took some major liberties with describing the evening's events. Enjoy!

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Bonus Fun Fact: 

In my research for this post, I discovered that Stockard Channing (Rizzo) was 

the oldest cast member to portray a high schooler in the Grease movie. She was 34.

Eagle Eye Cherry

The Mark:

If you still own the same car you did in the 90's,
there's a good chance either this or Jagged Little Pill
is hiding under your passenger seat.

When you first think, 'Eagle Eye Cherry,' my guess is that you instantly started singing Save Tonight in your head... heck, I loved the whole album that song was on, and even my mind went there first.

My Connection:

The year was 1997: "Save Tonight" was everywhere. All the time. As someone who had just started learning guitar a few years prior, I also loved that I could play the whole song knowing only four chords!

One of the things that I really love about Eagle Eye Cherry's acoustic style, though, is how much diversity of sound he's able to get from just a few chords thanks to his strumming chops. I remember being super pissed that I couldn't play this whole song before my right forearm got too tired trying to keep up with his rapid-fire 16th note strumming.



Style Notes/Structure:

Eagle Eye Cherry doesn't just go percussive for this one song, though. Front-to-back, his catalog of songs are pretty simple *chord-wise*, but lord help you if you can't strum fast or off the downbeat.

As for the lyrics, the three songs I think of when I think of Eagle Eye Cherry are, "Save Tonight," "When Mermaids Cry," (see below) and "Conversation." Even though the lyrical content varies pretty greatly between the three, you can hear the same kind of style in each one - clean acoustic guitar with fast rhythms.


A CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED SONG THAT DESERVES ITS OWN LARGER CAPTION. Also, I've never watched this video before and I'm eerily enthralled with how little it has to do with the actual lyrics.

It wasn't until I was a few years beyond "Save Tonight" that I was able to come back and appreciate it for having such a complex rhythm (the number of hits/notes in a given beat of a song, ***not*** how fast the song is).

Listen to the first video above - in the first 8 seconds, he strums his guitar about 22 times. If I were to count the rhythm out loud, assuming that we're counting 16th notes per the, "1 E AND UH" method (with the four syllables 1 E AND UH representing 4/16 of a given beat in a measure of 4 beats), it would sound something like:

Am                           F

1 AND 2 AND UH 3 E AND 4 AND UH 

C                              G(ish?)

1 AND 2 AND UH 3 E AND 4 AND UH, 

Two measures, 11 syllables each, 11 x 2 = 22. Math!!

Oh yes, there's math involved....

When I first started playing this song, I just tried my best to flail my hand to make it match what Eagle Cherry was playing. I quickly learned that if I was going to play this song anywhere near what it actually sounded like, I was going to have to be able to strum both down AND up on the guitar. Although I don't think I figured it out while playing this particular song, learning "Save Tonight" was certainly the first moment in my music career where I realized how the direction my right hand was moving correlated with specific beats and points in a measure. Hmm...

Can you match what someone's playing without knowing the math?? Sure thing! It just tends to be a little harder when you're playing Save Tonight versus something like...






NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH BEING A SLOWER SONG/HAVING AN EASIER RHYTHM. **

Please commence with rocking on, then proceed below.








My Take:

Rather than focus on the, "Hey, we're not going to see each other anymore" angle from Save Tonight's lyrics, I instead thought more about how Eagle Eye Cherry's strumming affected my thinking about the right hand/rhythm as the driving force behind a song. From syncopated/accented hits on the guitar to a few stretched out/breathier tones while singing, I did my best to take myself back to 1997 while writing my *first* song for this blog.

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**Editor's Note - I actually wrote tempo instead of rhythm here the first time around. Goes to show just how confusing the two can be, and here I am trying to ask you to understand the difference without really explaining it all that well. Whoops. ~

A Very Rough Intro

Overview:

I've been toying around with a pretty simple question this past year - why haven't I been writing music? Sure, there's a lot of things I can think of that take time away from writing, but... I haven't really *tried* to make the time. And, more importantly, I didn't think that I had time to be writing music on top of teaching, going to gym, driving through Seattle traffic etc.

But it's Summer and I'm home alone with the cat, so here we go!

The cat in question

The Project:

Love songs have been around FOR-EV-ER. People like listening to 'em, people like writing 'em. They're been done in so many ways, so many styles, that I can pick just about any artist and/or genre and find a love song that epitomizes/embodies its creator.

In each post on this blog, I will do a mini-exploration of a musician/era/genre/band/style/ what-have-you, talk about what I notice when I listen to the music, talk about how that music connects with who I am/what I like to play. Maybe it'll connect to a story about having 7 different David Bowie posters in my college apartment, maybe I'll remember a story about having approximately zero stage presence/self-awareness as a budding musician and telling the audience a minute-long story about a tornado video I watched that has *nothing* to do with what I was supposed to be playing... who knows!

Once I expound for a bit, noticing things about the song and making those personal connections, I will write my *own* song based on the style/sound of the over-arching topic. For instance, if this was my first post, I'd do my best write a song in the style of Paul McCartney and Wings... but I'm really not feeling up to tackling Paul McCartney in my first go here. Big shoes to fill and all that.

The Purpose:

1) Yay for creative outlets!

For me, writing music is one of those things that's both super challenging but also quite a bit of fun. Even though I'm a bit out of practice, I still observe things I could write songs about daily, even going so far as to track the chords in my head and start humming melodies over the top of them.

Now, I'm going to commit to recording these here just to see what happens. ~


2) I love my wife!

Daww

Not every song I write is going to be a love song dedicated to my wife (I think ya'll would get over that pretty quick), but she's certainly going to be the main inspiration for what I do with a lot of this. Unless I sing something like, "I'm in love with my car!", you can safely assume that I'm referring to her... unless I say otherwise.





3) I like a challenge!

I'll eventually start taking requests/ideas for some genres/artists to tackle. Some of which, I imagine, will require me to go a bit out of my comfort zone of "Acoustic David Bowie and Beatles 24/7."

Great! Good! The day I stop pushing myself to try and learn new things is the day I should stop being a teacher. Let's keep this learning train rolling during the summer. :-)


Conclusion:
I have no idea how long this will go, how many posts I'll make, or how many people are even going to take the time to read these things as a post them.

Maybe it's once a day, maybe it's a few times per week. I don't want to start just dumping random half-baked songs out to fill a quota, but at the same time, I want to feel like I have the freedom to start spewing a lot of content if the mood strikes.