It’s a new pedal week! I’m a little delayed in posting because I was just having so much fun with it. The Simplifier X I picked up for the Sparrow finally came in (handmade from Chile!) and it’s opened up a whole new world of sound for me to explore. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed until I realized that it has 54 different amp + cab + speaker configurations available, which rockets up to over 700 combinations if we consider running both channels in stereo. Plus 10 contour/eq/volume knobs and reverb for each of them that drastically changes the tone and acoustic qualities. So yeah, no surprise when there’s so many choices.
As someone who hasn’t really used a guitar amp, it’s definitely a bit overwhelming. But it’s also pretty amazing to have such a wide variety of choices to explore. I’m looking forward to learning how to dial in my favorite sounds over the next few months and figure out what kind of amps I may be interested in owning one day. I’m glad I was convinced to go with the analog modeling route of this pedal instead of one of the many digital options. It really feels great to play, and though I don’t really have the contrasting experience with digital, I certainly appreciate the immediateness of the response and the complete lack of menu diving.
Also I’m back up to 3 strings on the electric, and finally enjoying feeling some of the progress I’ve made during the unitar study. Anyway, here’s some day one noodling with the pedal after finding some sounds I liked:
Driven noodles
Clean noodles
Acoustic Electric through the grit
And for this week, I actually managed to make some progress on the performance set! I got three of the five remaining challenge songs memorized, and actually have the lyrics for the rest down pretty well. It’s just a matter of solidifying the chord changes for the last few, and hammering out instrumentals. And working on the vocals. Same story as ever!
Ku’u Home O Kahalu’u – Olomana
Song Choice
It would be remiss to not include some classic tunes from Hawaii in my setlist. I’m not Hawaiian and I don’t speak the language or really know a lot of traditional hula songs, but I did grow up here in the islands and am familiar with a range of early contemporary music. It’s not typically my preferred musical taste, but I appreciate all kinds of music. And this is only half about me. The other half is about you, the audience. So I hope this is a selection that can be enjoyed.
I like that the song is a sweet ode to growth, change, and acceptance. It seems to me entirely heartfelt. It captures a romantic notion of Hawaii and recollections of our youth. I imagine many people can relate to that wistful longing for the home of our youth. But times change, and the best thing to do is move along with it. Personally, I’ve had to accept a lot of change – losing my pride, and finding myself again in the aftermath. Definitely a song worth singing.
Instrumentation
Like “Just my Imagination” this is primarily a two chord song with a couple G7’s thrown in. There is an instrumental introduction and break in the original, and in typical fashion for this time around I am skipping them entirely. For this song I use a much more traditional strum, though I do employ some pedaling on G to emphasize certain parts with the C5 chord. I also like to let bass notes drone out a bit on this one to kind of emulate the slack key style of the original. This is actually one I’ve made a fingerstyle arrangement for before too, but I need to revisit that (and relearn it a bit) before sharing it again.
Vocals
Memorizing the lyrics was a challenge like usual, and this time I employed the method of trying to fully understand how the story progresses in the song. First we remember days when we were younger, and this makes me fear that I won’t be as I left you. Then we remember days when we were wiser, and this makes me fear that you won’t be as I left you. Finally we remember days when we were smiling, and I will greet you as I find you with the sharing of a brand new song.
So as we remember our younger days, we fear that we have changed. Then we remember our dreams and fear that you have changed. Finally we accept the change and will greet you as we are. I appreciate that kind of resolved acceptance.
The singing itself needs a bunch of the standard stuff I’m working on, and I’m not entirely satisfied with my ability to hit the notes in the bridge on the head every time. But I think it’s still better than it was. Hopefully I’ll be able to polish it up over the coming weeks.
In this life – Iz
Song Choice
You can’t play ukulele and ignore Bruddah Iz. I mean you could, and actually I would, save that I don’t want to be known as that guy who only plays The Smiths and The Cure on uke. Like the last one, this was picked to be a crowd pleaser – and a staple if I ever decide to try playing at being a wedding singer. I’m not really interested in that, but you never know. It might be nice to one day be skilled enough that that’s an option, right? And this is a sweet song. I almost think it’s a religious thing, but he left it open enough that it could be purely about romance.
Speaking of Iz, I kind of would rather not play his version Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It’s not a Hawaiian song, it’s not an original song, and it’s not particularly compelling enough for me to learn to sing proficiently. I recognize its quality and the impact it has had in the public sphere, and I probably should learn it properly anyway, but I feel like it’s a bit passe. At least if you’re trying to play a Jake song you want to be able to match his technical prowess to even attempt it. I’ve put some time into learning Hawaii ‘78 to play instead in case anyone asks me to play Over the Rainbow. Yeah, that’s how I roll. Cry for the gods, cry for the people, cry for the land that was taken away.
Instrumentation
This one is in a weird key, and it took me a long time to understand the chord changes. I mean, it’s not really a weird key – key’s are just keys right. Bb isn’t really any stranger than C. But I guess it’s a less common one on ukulele. And the progression is a little different than most tunes as well. There are times where the chords are held to start the next phrase, or abruptly changed to land on the refrain. Oh and instrumental breaks? Skip. I know, I’m weak. I do like to do a little picking in some parts and strumming for others though, so I didn’t abandon the instrumentation completely.
Instead of trying to learn the song as a whole, I approached it by connecting the chord changes to the different lyrical progressions. So like, “In this life, I was loved by you” has certain chords associated with it. The timing of chord changes in the verses do make sense, but trying to remember it separate from the lyrics was proving too much of a challenge. Now I just sing the lyrics and play the chords that sound right for that moment. Is that a little esoteric? It feels very Hawaiian style to me, don’t think too hard just play. Appropriate for a Hawaiian style song.
Also I added in a couple things not written in the tab. First, some Bb7’s to the transitions that I don’t think were in the original, just because I think it sounds better. Second I did a little thing to move up to a higher F chord in the E chord shape in the bridge. Maybe that can make up forr not having an instrumental solo.
Vocals
Obviously I’m no Iz, and the singing was a typical challenge for a slower song like this. Just gotta do the best I can to make it sound as good as possible. Apply all those voice lesson learnings. Start and stop notes the right way, sing with a good tone, enunciate, etc. Memorizing the lyrics wasn’t too bad since there’s really only two short verses and a break. Just bringing it all together and selling it is the challenge.
This one is a bit tricky because I don’t really have anyone I actually feel this way about in my life, so I kind of just have to sing it with the hope that someday I may. I kind of understand it because I’ve definitely felt like I’ve “found the one” before except that every time it was just kidding. Oh well. Part of the joy of art is that we can celebrate ideass beyond our current situation.
House at Pooh Corner – Loggins and Messina (Ka’au Crater Boys)
Song Choice
I’m definitely one of those kids who grew up liking the Ka’au Crater Boys without realizing that a lot of their music were actually covers. They were just so good and sounded so right on the ukulele that I assumed they were all originals. This song is no exception. But it’s a great song, and I think it nicely bridges a gap between the people like me who grew up with the uke version, and the broader audience who know the original from Loggins and Messina. I also fondly remember Winnie the Pooh, and I’m not trying to break into China anytime soon so it seemed like a nice choice.
I intentionally chose a lot of older songs for this set because I’m aiming for an audience of people around my age and older. I’d like these songs to remind people of their childhood, or their parents. And so this is a perfect fit as a song reminiscing about a more innocent time. It’s the kind of song that if I heard someone playing it well on the beach, I might actually hang out nearby to hear more. Which is kind of the current goal to be honest. I don’t know if or when I’ll be able to land a poolside gig, but the beach is always an option!
Instrumentation
This song… has a lot of chords. And they change quickly. The timing is a bit unique too. I’m pretty sure it’s 4/4 but it’s quite syncopated so I don’t really bother counting. I just kind of play it as I hear it. Luckily the chord chart is pretty accurate. Still it took me quite a long time to memorize the various progressions for the different parts of the song. My approach is always to just play the song every day, and eventually the time will feel right to look away from the chart. In this case it took about a month to be able to look away, but then I never had to sit down and force myself to try and memorize all the chords. It’s still not 100%, but I’m getting close.
Vocals
Compared to the chords, memorizing the lyrics for this one was relatively easy. I think the concise narrative structure made it easier for me to memorize. Or maybe it’s because I listened to the song a lot while growing up, so learning the words just kind of clicked. It’s nice that there aren’t many subtle turns of phrase until the very end, unlike several other songs on my list (including Ku’u Home).
There are some very high notes while chasing the bees and clearing the skies. I can only hope I can hit them when the time comes. Also at the end of each chorus there’s a tricky note to land on for that final “Pooh.” It’s part of why the ending works as well as it does, but it’s also a challenge to execute consistently. Just gotta keep practicing!
Recording
So I think I got the gain staging better so that there’s not so much hiss over everything whenever sound comes through. And got the reverb back. It took some rerouting of my whole signal, but I was doing that anyway to integrate the new amp sim pedal. As predicted, it basically took an entire day, and I still had to stop before getting to an ideal configuration because I just ran out of upright time. Bit by bit I’ll get there.
Once I get really dialed in I’ll do a whole rundown of my rig, which is kind of a unique dawless contraption built to be pushed over my bed so I can work it while laying down. I’m also finding I need to change some settings depending on the venue that the audio is going through: zoom is different from discord is different from recording video for the phone. Oh the fun never ends.
Performance
I’m much happier with the performance this week. It’s been on my mind all month to memorize these ones, and its finally clicked. I don’t like trying to brute force memorization over short time frames, so instead I just play the song every day until I don’t need to look at the lyrics and chords anymore.
It’s still not perfect, and I’m still copping out of doing proper instrumentals, but these nice slow songs let me practice my new approaches to singing which is kind of the theme of the week. I’ll definitely have to do a second pass over all of these to get proper instrumentals in, and continue improving the vocal quality, but I’m feeling like the setlist is coming together.
I’m thinking about trying to go to the beach and try play through it all in public someday soon. Or maybe host an online performance somehow. Either way I’ll have to do a follow up of the full set to compare to how I was at the start of the year, so I’d better start thinking about how to make that happen.