Speaking of voices, Louis Armstrong has a unique one. Its a classic raspy tone that gives the song, What a Wonderful World a older, more classic feel. Here's a live clip of him singing our favorite feel good tune.
In this piece, you have a clarinet and a trombone providing the melodic parts. The piano in the back keeps the chords while comping the singer. The set plays a straight beat as not to throw off the elderly singer ;). But in all seriousness, watching Louis sing this song shows you how he gets his iconic voice. He opens his mouth wide and contorts his face to get the notes he's looking for just right.
The song starts with a nice, pretty, short intro and then the singer jumps right in. He sings in 16 bar sections, an AABB format. He does that twice, with the BB sections being the same. He then goes to the bridge. The bridge is followed by another 16 bar phrase. There is a tag at the end repeating the BB section. Overall for the whole song the form is AABA with a short intro and a tag on the end.
The clarinet, trombone combo makes a very light and pretty background for the Louis, going well with the imagery he is singing about. It makes you feel good about yourself and your day. Quite a good pick me up.
Its something you hear everyday, you don't even think about it. Everyone one has a fairly unique voice. Not only do some talk at a higher pitch than others, some talk lower, some sound raspy, and others sound light. There are almost an infinite amount of slight variances in pitch and timbre that many don't notice. So lets look at the extremes.
I would by no means say I have a high voice. But I can make mine high by two means, naturally and chemically. Naturally, I can go into what is known as falsetto. Falsetto vibrates a different part of your vocal cords than your normal (modal) voice would. It usually brings up the pitch an octave or sometimes even two if your good. This helps men hit hire notes if it isn't in their modal range. Problems with falsetto though, is that it is very limiting, both dynamically and tonally. It usually sounds more "breathy" and the tone lacks a certain "ringing" that modal voices have. The other way to alter your voice is chemically through a method we all know and love, inhaling Helium. The air we breathe regularly has oxygen in it, yes, but only 20% of it. 71% of air is heavy nitrogen. The other nine percent are less important. The weight of air though, molecularly, is over 6 times heavier than He2, helium molecules. When breathed in, it fills the upper part of your lungs and is ready to go through your vocal cords. If you speak normally, your vocal cords are trained to do the work for and vibrate heavier air. So when the helium passes through them, the same work is applied to lighter air, vibrating it faster, raising the pitch quite a bit.
On the other end of the spectrum, what if you wanna go lower. It is a lot tougher to falsely lower ones voice than it is to raise it. To get a lower note, you have to somehow vibrate the air slower. Some can compensate for this naturally, but others, like myself end up vibrating my whole throat to try and make that slow vibration. It ends up coming out very groggy and fake. Luckily, we can do it chemically as well. If we got a higher pitch with a molecule that was 6 times lighter than air, perchance we can get a lower pitch by using a compound that is 6 times heavier than air. And we're in luck, such a chemical does exist, and it is safe to inhale a little bit. Sulfar Hexaflouride is a compound that is about 6 times heavier than air. This means your vocal cords are working to vibrate heavier air, so it vibrates slower. The slower the vibrations, the lower the frequency, hence a lowered voice. Take it away Adam.
Like I said earlier, my dad listened to a lot of jazz when I was a kid. I didn't like all of it, and sometimes I'd wish he would play more modern pop music. Every once in a while, however, I would here some jazz that I'd find myself humming later that day. Freedom at Midnight by David Benoit is one of those songs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TADcnHVyWkk.
Its just a link this time because blogspot would only find the live versions of the song, which were usually less clear than this version.
It starts out with a piano intro with the drums comping. The intro is a foreshadowing of the refrain. The whole band comes in for the last note. Then the bass comes in, thwapping away at the strings. The piano moves into the first portion of his piece. Then they finally get to the refrain which is a longer version of the intro. Next to play is the saxophone. He essentially plays what the piano played during the first portion. Then it plays the refrain again. Next it goes into a section I'm calling the bridge, it has a very different feel to it. You can call this the B section if you wish. After the bridge, there is a lengthy saxophone solo. After the sax solo, they do the refrain once again and then back to the bridge. After the bridge, it plays the refrain once with percussion/ bass hits and then the refrain one last time normally. David finishes the song out with his solo as it fades out.
The song is for the most part AAB, but to me it seems more like AABSBS with S being solos and there is a refrain in between each part. The refrain is simple and catchy and it sticks with you. Its very melodic and gives a sense of peace. My friend is telling me he feels like he's in the weather channel, I'm playing this song so much right now. At least jazz is still alive on the weather channel...
Artists are always looking for that next thing, the next sound, the next lick, the next beat. They are trying to stay ahead of the game while subsequently moving the game forward with them. If you are ever looking for a specific sound and you can't replicate it, you may need to seek "alternative means" to find it. So put down the instruments they showed us in 4th grade and take a look at this crazy man and his original sounds.
As he says, that piece of garden hose wrapped around a tube is called Mr Curly. Its not your traditional instrument but it works in a similar way. He blows into the reed at the top, which then vibrates the air inside. The air travels through to the end of the hose, creating the sound. You get different notes just the same as you would a saxophone or clarinet, by covering holes along the length. Covering or uncovering hole changes the frequency of the air vibrating inside, this is what gets you different notes. The unique sound it self comes from the garden hose's intrinsic properties. Many typical instruments are made of brass or a like material because of the rich, clear, bold sound it gives off. When the material is garden hose, though, the air hits the inside of the garden hose, which isn't smooth, but rather a mesh of criss crossed strings. These strings are very taught but move slightly as the vibrating air hits them. This gives the wobbly sound given off by Mr. Curly.
He then plays a feather duster. This is a similar concept to a clarinet, even more so than Mr. Curly. The feather duster is smooth material, so there are no imperfections like strings messing with the air. The bore of the duster is more narrow than a clarinets though, which is why it has a naturally higher pitch. The actual duster would have a slight dampening effect, kinda like a straight mute. That helps make it not so shrill, like a piccolo. There are plenty of neat homemade instruments on the web, why not try to make some of your own. I saw a guy make a flute out of a carrot once....
As I was growing up, my dad listened to a lot of jazz, mainly smooth jazz, as that was what a local radio station played. He loves Steely Dan, loves Bob James, and he loves Chuck Mangione. Chuck is a fantastic trumpet player who has several albums with many originals. This is one of the shorter ones that I really like. It's 'Give it all you got' by Chuck Mangione.
This song starts out with a slow rise of chords on what is probably a synth. The rest of the band comes in with the chord foundation for the song and then Chuck comes in with the main lick. He is accompanied by a sax. The sax does a solo. The solo is probably scripted cause it has a lot of references to the main lick. Chuck even joins in with him for a couple of notes, proving it was planned. After the sax solo, they go back into the main lick. The whole time the drum and bass guitar are just jamming in the back. Now the sax really opens up with a non-scripted solo, the guitar plays the same comp as it did when it was scripted though. Then it is Chucks turn to come in and wow us with his playing. He can nail some pretty high notes, a feet that busts the chops of many players. Then there is a guitar solo while the bass and drums keep trucking. The sax and trumpet come back in with the scripted solo as the guitar keeps soloing. They go back to the main lick and then they do a repetitive bit. Its like they don't know when to end it so they keep ending it and ending it and ending it. As they keep re-ending it and fade out, the guitar solos some more.
There is some great playing in this piece. I can picture a couple of guys just hanging out and smiling and laughing as they throw the lead between each other and play together. I could be vastly mistaken, but that is what it sounds like. And that is what he wanted to get across. It worked.
The cup mute. It is similar to the bucket mute in that it looks like a container attached to the bell that dampens the sound before spitting it back out, and it is. The key difference is that in the bucket mute, it was empty inside the bucket. The cup mute looks more like a straight mute with a lip fringing around the edges.
Here, I have a comparison of two straight mutes and a cup mute on the right. The cup mute looks exactly like the straight mute, but it catches the sound and spits it back and out the side rather than just out the side like for a straight mute. This process severely dampens both high and low harmonic frequencies. This leaves nicer, rounder, more fuzzy tone. The following clip shows the difference between a bucket, cup and straight mute (1:28 , 2:15, and 2:59 respectively).
The cup mute is my personal favorite mute. Compared to the softened straight or the echoy bucket, the cup mute has a very classic jazzy sound to it. I have two and I just love playing with them in the bell.
I loaded a bunch of jazz onto my ipod at the beginning of semester. On my bike rides to class, I'd just pop in my headphones and get lost in all the different types of jazz. Then one time, I called back to reality when I heard a lick that I had heard before. I couldn't place it but I knew I had heard it before. The song was Rhythm-A-Ning by Theolonious Monk.
Instantly, you know it is Monk. Some of the very first "chords" played on the piano are Monk's signature dissonance chords. They aren't very pleasing to the ear, but they somehow, Monk Magic I guess, fit into the song so well. This specific recording is almost 10 minutes long, mainly due to solos. I used the song given to us with the book to decipher Monk's code.
It starts out with the piano playing the head alone. Then it is played with accompaniment and a sax 2 more times. The head is 4 4/4 bars and then 5 3/4 bars. Its wonky but it works. And ain't that what jazz is all about? Then it goes into the sax solo with a walking bass line in the back and comps by Monk on the piano. I feel like the sax is alluding to another song at 1:10 in our recording, but I don't know what. Then Monk solos. His right hand is playing a very pretty tune and his left hand keeps hitting what some might call wrong notes, but they aren't wrong at all, that's just Monk. He continues his solo in a similar fashion, then the head is played twice again with the sax. The piano then focuses on the 3/4 bars before one last run through the head and then a fermata on the last note as Monk hits some more wonky chords to end it.
I enjoyed playing Monk songs when I was younger, but we never played them like he did. Our pianist was great, but he didn't have Monk's quirks. As I played and replayed this song, I wondered if that's where i recognized it from, but we never played this song, I would remember the weird title. Then it hits me. A 90's childrens show used the 4/4 bars from the head as it's catch phrase jingle.
Blue's Clues!!!! Blue (the dog) and Steve (owner) both jump into picutres on the wall, but first they sing a little diddy. (check it out at 1:40) This little diddy also happens to be the opening line of Rhythm-A-Ning. Coincidence? Maybe, but its cool that Monk is still permeating through time to my childhood.
