Today’s selection slightly deviates from the original target, that of a “made up tuning” since, well, to be honest, I don’t tune my instruments very much, if at all.
Instead, I figured I’d use an instrument that would sound as if it is out of tune yet really sounds like that. That instrument is the Erhu.
I was originally going to use my voice again to record an off-tune / made up key / whatever came to mind but, after seven takes of trying to be creative, it was sounding bad, and not even like “I can make this into something”. It just wasn’t working. Worse still, there was a voice in my head, that of a friend who is also partaking in Jamuary, saying, “This is a cop out.”
And so, the next best thing when I think of off key or strange tuning is Chinese music. Not all, of course, but their music, since their language has so many tones built into it, has a noticeable difference to Western styles of music. I think immediately of Peking Opera with its microtones but, since I wasn’t going to go operatic any time soon, especially not in my apartment, I went the next best and decided upon the Erhu.
For those of you who don’t know what an Erhu is, it’s a stringed instrument with a wooden neck connected to a base that forms a tear drop of sorts when viewed from a distance. It also only has two strings. This might seem simple enough but the difficulty is making those strings sing together without that squeakiness that can put you off to an instrument, much like a violin.
Since it’s an instrument that is taught to just about everyone in the country, the instrument often finds its way into the hands of street musicians, since it can be purchased on the cheap, looks unique, and is rather portable should the Bao An show up and tell them to move. And due to its uniqueness and high pitched sound, it draws the attention of passersby that much more as well as their financial good wishes.
So I decided to give it a go.
Garageband comes packaged with several “world instruments” (pipa, erhu, koto and guzheng), which are basically taken from China and Japan and offer, similar to the guitar function, a method of playing string by string or chord by chord. This can be fun and, much like the live loops, can lead to an endless amount of jamming. The devil is in the details.
Some musicians might be better at recording piece by piece or assembling different parts of different takes but I’ve usually relied on a “one take” methodology, by which I mean, if a part of a verse or chorus or whatever needs to be recorded, I usually have to do the whole section, not just punch in whatever is needed. This is partly due to my years as a drummer where a timing issue or missed beat usually had to be fixed by one more take. With the advent of digital tools, however, that isn’t always necessary.
There are a few ways you can export Garageband projects: as a ringtune, a song or as a project. The ringtune is an .mpa file I think, the song is a choice of either a compressed track (such as mp3) or uncompressed (such as WAV or AIFF), and the project sends the whole Garageband project across. For this project I transferred the projected and imported it into Logic.
I had done seven or eight takes and was debating if I should do one more. The more I record the more I find that if I can’t get it done in three or four takes, then I’m doing something wrong. I did eight for this one because I tried out various styles and scales.
I ended up using the “Major Blues” scale and played around with that sound.
I tried out different tempos, too, but the project seemed to fit somewhere between 110 and 130. You’ll hear fluctuations throughout (and a few missed notes) both due to my own timing but also because of the nature of the instrument in that it often “drags” across a note. Of course, any “drag” is no excuse for poor timing!
I did minimal editing and what you hear is Take 7 in its entirety. I fixed a portion between 1.02 and 1.07 or thereabouts (I looked away from the project and now can’t seem to find the exact location) using the MIDI note editor. In the original take it was one long note rather than the staccato that you hear throughout. It sounded a bit odd so I tried to re-create the rhythm I had been playing but, as it happens, I couldn’t figure it out exactly. I knew how to play it, but it was a lot more difficult to figure out the exact MIDI note placement and duration using the keyboard and mouse. I settled for a “good enough” and figured I could always revisit it later.
The ending was added later because I had trouble thinking of a good ending. The thing about the Erhu, especially if you just play up and down the strings while tapping the quarter note button on your iPad, it moves together so well that it’s difficult to get yourself out of that style of playing.
So that’s it for today. Five tracks in and I wonder how I can sustain this for another 26 days. I’d actually rather not think about it and just get it done, like having coffee every day.