Epiphany

This time I was inspired by a song by the band 'The Ocean Collective'. They are largely a metal band but experiment a lot with their songs. This song 'Epiphany' appears in the album 'Heliocentric' largely dominated by the piano and vocals. This song is an example for how much metal artists experiment with their 'sound'. Its amazing that a fan can go through the same journey as the band itself and all it takes is your willingness to give in to the opportunity to take you for a ride! The Ocean recently had a concert in Boston so I was listening to their albums non stop for a few weeks 'preparing' for the concert because unlike most other genres, you have to 'get it' in metal to be able to enjoy the music. Then I stumbled upon this beautiful piece. Here is the original:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BCobPYw5xU#t=68

(P.S: The Youtube video skips, here is the grooveshark link if you want an unblemished track: http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Epiphany/31TzUm?src=5 )

Here is my take:

Intro (0:00 to 0:14), Part 1 (0:15 to 0:51), Part 2 (0:52 to 1:28), Part 3 (1:29 to 1:44), Part 4 (1:45 to 2:19), Part 5 (2:20 to 3:12) and Outro (3:13 to End).

Intro ==> No beats
Part 1, Part 3, Part 5 ==> Beat 1 (Slow)
Part 2, Part 4 ==> Beat 2 (Fast)
Outro ==> No Beats

Apart from the song itself, I also wanted to share what some of the songs take me through when I do research. I did not really know what 'Epiphany' meant so I did a Google search (Wikipedia is your friend). Also *sometimes* the comments on Youtube videos are interesting. For the song link to Youtube that I posted, there was a comment in Spanish that I did not understand so I used Google Translate and figured that the comment was talking about 'Atheism Vs Agnosticism'. I was again confused what the difference between these two philosophies were (Wikipedia is your friend). I was also greatly surprised when I was reading up on Agnosticism and the view 'Rig Veda' (a set of sacred Hindu texts) has about the origin of the universe and I got reminded of the discussion that I had with some of my friends about Hinduism the religion Vs Hinduism the philosophy. One song led to this knowledge journey! I am too lazy to get into an argument about whether we are all going to agree with what the song lyrics say. I just like the way it sounds. But if you are interested, here is the band front-man talking about the philosophy behind the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LoUJ41GSUQ

After that I went and made Pasta for dinner.

Cajon kuthu

Getting to the local stuff this time! A friend of mine suggested I should try dappankuthu style beats on my cajon (Thanks Suneesh!). A few of my friends also asked me to shoot a video instead of just the audio recording. So here we go.

For those who don't know, Dappankuthu is the music dance combo that is popular in south of India mostly in Tamil Nadu. For more information read this hilarious wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dappan_koothu

A naturally energetic form of music dominated by percussion, is often accompanied by the drunken dance. But there is no denying that if there is Tamil blood flowing throw your veins, there is no way you sit quietly when these beats start playing. You either start whistling or dancing. Here is a clip of what Suneesh shared with me:

http://splicd.com/Mr-zER6idsM/5/30

That guy is a natural. Inspired by this, I shot this video me doing something similar on cajon. What fun maamu!

Funnily enough, this piece took me the most practice runs before I recorded it. The beats are usually so impromptu that I really could not focus on a 'constructing' a piece. Every time I would just wing away and start playing without being able to repeat myself the same way. So I had to actually sit and concentrate (even write down some notes) so that I could add a little bit of structure.

I was skeptical about the audio quality if I shot a video. However it turned out not that bad. But the audiophile in me, I split the audio and video tracks, processed the audio a little bit and relayered it on the edited video. Windows Movie Maker is not Camtasia, but its ok for these kinds of simple editing I guess..

P.S: I also included a rare ARR dappankuthu piece. Can you figure out which song that is?

Nobody

Prog rock/metal has been my favorite genre for the past few years. I love the complexity and the technicality that the bands in this genre showcase. Sometimes they are so talented and show so much that I think it is really unfair that pop is the popular music and these guys don't receive so much air time. Anyway, views apart, I got hooked onto this English band called 'Haken' recently. Their recent album is called 'The Mountain' and its absolutely bonkers. Whether you like prog or not, listen to the following song called 'Cockroach King' and experience the breadth of genres in just one song. The REALLY prog part starts at 2:41.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_e4YX73Ww4

The album has many brilliant songs. One of them is called 'Somebody'. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv-cCGfndqc

It has some really cool vocals starting at 4:53. And yeah, most prog/metal songs are 'long' when compared to general pop/rock genres. These days I consider 8 minutes as a song average run time!

This song has a dual called 'Nobody' which was released as a bonus track in the album. This was sort of an acoustic/mellower version of 'Somebody' and did not have any percussion track in it. I jumped on it for my next project. Here is the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKBMfiOHZvg


Here is my take:

Intro (0:00 to 0:13), Part 1 (0:14 to 0:43), Part 2 (0:44 to 1:44), Part 3 (1:45 to 2:11), Bridge (2:12 to 2:25), Part 4 (2:26 to 2:59), Part 5 (3:00 to 3:56), Part 6 (3:57 to 4:24) and Outro (4:25 to end).

Intro ==> No beats
Part 1, Part 4 ==> Beat 1
Part 2, Part 5 ==> Beat set 2
Part 3, Part 6 ==> Beat 3
Bridge ==> No Beats
Outro ==> No Beats

I improvised 'Beat 1' and it does not appear in 'Somebody'. 'Beat set 2' is similar to the one in 'Somebody' except I incorporated some amount of build up. 'Beat 3' is what I actually learned from 'Somebody'. I would have never guessed or been able to play that beat naturally, quite unique.

So now I think you can never guess what I am listening to at a given point. I have posted a couple of ARR songs, an industrial metal, an EDM song and now a little bit of prog. I am going try to make these diverse posts so if somebody is reading this, they have a chance to experiment and branch off their usual music. There is so.much.out.there.

I am thinking for the next post I'll record a video of me playing the thing. I wonder how the sound quality will be though..

I Choose Noise

This time I wanted to experiment with a little techno/trance music. I heard the song 'Keep It In The Family' by the band 'Hybrid' in their extremely well named album 'I Choose Noise' in one of my Pandora stations. I am always on the look out for my next project and this song struck a chord very easily due to its lack of dominant beats. 'Hybrid' is one of my most favorite techno/trance bands; The Crystal Method, The Prodigy, Pendulum. Fatboy Slim are some of the others. In fact, if I am making a movie, 'Hybrid' will feature very heavily for my OST and background score. I will somehow make them work with ARR ;). For e.g. listen to the following track called 'Last Man Standing' by the band in the same album, it is an amazing piece. Ominous symphony, breakneck beats and boss-like bass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SqUYOKZgpU

'Keep It In The Family' is not so tribal. It is much more sedate in beats/slower in tempo. Here is the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFtzTb8uhdI


Here is my take:

Now as is my M.O, I split the song into several parts and worked on it.

Intro (0:00 to 0:44), Mellow 1 (0:44 to 1:05), Mellow 2 (1:05 to 1:49), Bridge (1:50 to 2:31), Mellow 3 (2:32 to 2:54), Mellow 4 (2:55 to 3:37), Main (3:38 to 5:05) and Outro (5:06 to end).

Intro ==> No beats

Mellow 1, Mellow 3 ==> Beat 1
Mellow 2, Mellow 4 ==> Beat 2
Bridge ==> No Beats
Main ==> Beat 3(various levels of breakdown)
Outro ==> Beat 3

One of the things I played around with this time was I adjusted my recorded track's volume based on different parts in the track. So for the mellow parts and the outro I reduced the volume on my track whereas for the Main part I cranked it up as it sounded nicer after the build up. I also tried to record with my mic switched off but apparently that does not work..

Vellai Pookal

First things first. I KNOW that there is not an ARR fan in this world who does not have this song in their top 10. So do not come out to kill me if you think I have destroyed the song. This is actually in my top 3 so look at this effort from a fan's point of view ;)

OK, an amazing movie with a great all round album by A.R.R. Somehow this song has stuck among others because of the ease with which A.R.R sings in this song. Almost anybody can sing this song and feel like as if they are a great singer (me included :P) which I think is one of the best assets of 'Vellai Pookal'. So here is the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjMs_imWkFM

Now what I had been pondering over the last month (on and off of course) was 'How can I work with this song that I love so much but still not end up destroying it?' I did not want to just increase the tempo of the song and then may be do some techno dish-chikku-dish-chikku stuff. I wanted to maintain the essence and the feel of the song. I decided not to mess with the song as usual which will help me keep the essence of the song. And then I started experimenting with simple beats. Not overarching complex tones in the last two attempts of mine. Just simple tap along beats but not as simple as a metronome. Here it is:

Even in this simple song, there are so many different sections. See if you can identify them.

Intro (0:00 to 2:02), Solo 1 (2:03 to 2:18), Middle 1(2:19 to 2:50), Middle 2 (2:51 to 3:22), Solo 2 (3:23 to 3:38), Middle 3 (3:39 to 4:09) and Outro (4:10 to end)

In my experiment I stuck to the following beat pattern:
Intro, Solo 1, Middle 2, Outro == > Beat 1
Middle 1, Middle 3 ==> Beat 2
Solo 2 ==> Beat 3

I think what I REALLY experimented with was extending the Intro to Solo 1 with Beat 1 and then quickly changing to Middle 1 with Beat 2. Added a tiny bit of progressiveness to the song (no? :P). Otherwise the beat and tempo changes are quite obvious to any listener.

But, What.A.Song.

Hurt

Hurt is a song written and performed by an Industrial Rock/Metal band called Nine Inch Nails (NiN). It is actually a little misleading to call NiN a band because it is a one man band! Trent Reznor the multi-instrumentalist usually records all parts of a song himself. He does travel with a live band of 4-5 members when in concert because unfortunately he does not have 10 hands to play everything at the same time. He could maybe if he had though. No question about it. I personally regard him VERY high as a musician. To me he is like A.R.Rahman when it comes to versatility and layering. Recently he also started composing OSTs for Hollywood movies (The Social Network, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and even won an Oscar for The Social Network.

I went to a NiN concert recently and was blown over by the perfection with which all songs were performed (also the insane LED lights!). As a part of the encore Reznor sang this song and I immediately wanted to try it on my cajon experiment. There is also a Johnny Cash version of this song. There is some argument over whether this song was first performed by Reznor or Cash. It does not matter to me though. Both are great versions and convey different feelings. Watch out for a loud bang near the end ;). Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htmKZKR7oyc

The following is the LIVE version. This is similar to the concert I went to. Taken by somebody sometime in 2013 so it has to be the same tour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVT3p6SaUbw

This is actually a little bit difficult to play percussion to because it looks like Reznor is playing the song without even a metronome to have a balladish/acoustic feel to the song. However as the song progresses it falls into a nice periodic time signature and the beats make more sense. Here is mine with the beats, again there is a loud bang at the end:

Yenga Pona Rasa

First of all, this is one of my favorite songs of 2013. The song itself to revisit is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV5wxfAKru4

Amazing composition by ARR and we are actually privileged to see the recording session of the song in the following 20 minute video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSswZZmKkdM

Now I added some basic beats to the song in the following upload (my first one yay!). When you add beats you can actually recognize the tempo changes in the song much easier. The tempo change between different parts of the song (one at 1:42 and one at 2:30) makes this song a little difficult to play beats to. Guitar seamlessly transitions and when you layover beats you have got to keep in mind the two time signatures near the transition point.