I am very unhappy with my voice. One thing is that I just don't like it, the sound of it, another thing is that I'm "tone-mute" - I simply cannot hit the right note most of the time. I'm not tone-deaf, the trouble with hitting the right note is not because I can't hear what's right and not; it is just not possible for me to find it without scaling the voice up and down and deciding through listening if I'm correct or not. This, of course, sounds quite silly in a song (some of the same effect is found on some early Motorpsycho-songs, although Bent's scaling might just be a melodic trick, or maybe not...). It is mostly my unlucky bandmates that have had the dubious pleasure of hearing my singing voice when I have presented demoes for them. Consequently, when it came to HelgeA songs on this blog, I thought I'd stick to instrumental/experimental stuff.
However, in looking through my archieve for usable solo-stuff I came across this little song, which feature the voice of yours truly. Below is in fact an unused demo for the third Fastened Bulbous record (it was probably deemed "too commercial"...). Its origin is older though than this digitally recorded demo. The main guitar-themes and "solo" were more or less recreated tone-by-tone, if I'm not mistaken, from a 4-track recording made in 95/96. The ending is basically the same idea also, while the feedback-track is actually carried over from the early version.
Since the song does not feature much "singing", or melody as such, and because the vocal-track is fairly distorted and thankfully short, it is possible for me to evade the "no-ahk-voice" policy of this blog. I like the ideas in the song, and I'm very much fond of the chords that I use here, and which I also use in a number of other songs of mine from the same period, among them Hard to Shine. (What chords are those, Per S? I have no idea.)
Actually, come to think of it, my voice can briefly be heard on one of the other songs already published here...
the main chords in this song are cmaj7 to gmaj7. c and g are the bass notes, since there's no single "m" after the chord (for example, "cm maj7"), it means it's a major chord, which means you've got a major third interval in the chord, in this case the second note in the chord from low to high. "maj7" is a way of describing the distance (interval) from the lowest (bass) note in the chord to the highest. it means "major 7th interval". WHY it is called the 3rd and 7th will have to be covered in a separate lesson!
SvarSlettThanks, Per, for clearing (?) that up... Looking forward to the next lesson - God knows I need them!
SvarSlett(3rd and 7th refer to number of "steps" within the 12 tone scale from the "base" note, I suppose?)
good thinking, but we are referring to the steps within the major scale. if you play the white keys on the piano from "c", you get the c major scale. and the second white key is the 2nd interval. now, to make matters a little more complex, there are some black keys on the keyboard too, hence you get variations like "major third" and "minor third". but it all comes out of the white keys... of which there are fortunately NONE on the guitar. the whole field of music theory might have looked very different if there had no piano keybaord.
SvarSletttechnically, a "major 3rd" equals FOUR chromatic steps up from the "base" (or "root", as it is called) note. "major 7th" is equal to ELEVEN chromatic steps within the 12 tone scale.
enough already!
Good to know! Thanks. Will you assign me any homework before the next lesson?
SvarSlettWatch out! Don't give more lessons! If Asle can write songs like this without knowing, let's not mess with him...
SvarSlettHave to say this is one of the favourite tracks I have "discovered" so far this year.
There are a lot of interesting and/or good tracks documented in this blog, but this is an instant classic - which could be hard to admit regarding a friends work, but not in this case.
... thanks for the kind words, O
SvarSlett