身骑白马

realdavidai

Another exploration into Chinese Music

身骑白马 Shen Qi Bai Ma

This is a popular ethic Chinese song that I fell in love with it. It was introduced to me by my friend “Una” who's featured in this video.

_(Later I’m hoping to score a “studio” version using the Chinese instruments in Garageband and BeatHawk AU) _

The verses are in Mandarin but the chorus is actually adapted from a Taiwanese Opera (Hokkien)

The concept of this song:
"Xue Ping Gui" joined the army as a young boy. He gradually moved up the ranks to become a general. However he was captured and imprisoned while fighting against Xi Liang.

Though he was meant to be executed the pricess of Xi Liang fell in love with him and wanted to marry him.

So He married the princess and eventually took control of the kingdom, but despite his wealth and power, he missed his family and wife back in the mainland.

He travelled on a "white horse" in plain clothes, crossed three borders, from Xi Liang to the mainland, to look for his wife who had waited 18 years for his return.

[Deleted User]

Really Awesome!
Good luck to you & your friend ...

wim

You might want to change the title of the thread. Most people are probably assuming it's SPAM, which we had a lot of a while ago - and it looked a lot like this.

realdavidai

@wim said:
You might want to change the title of the thread. Most people are probably assuming it's SPAM, which we had a lot of a while ago - and it looked a lot like this.

Thanks and Yes I’m actually aware of that. It’s making this a bit more fun

wim

助けてください！私はマカオの警察署で立ち往生しており、私にはお金はありません。今日私に10,000ドル送金してください！彼らは今日金を受け取らなければ私を刑務所に入れます。

realdavidai

@wim said:
助けてください！私はマカオの警察署で立ち往生しており、私にはお金はありません。今日私に10,000ドル送金してください！彼らは今日金を受け取らなければ私を刑務所に入れます。

Eh? I don’t think that’s Chinese

MAtrixplan

Beautiful !

theconnactic

Already said on Youtube, will say here: this is very cool, congrats, David!

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

mschenkel.it

@Max23 said:
Hm, I was prepared for weird tuning and scales,
but it’s standard western stuff.
Not what I expected.

Maybe is standard chinese scale microtuned to resemble western stuff. Who knows?

rickwaugh

I'm not sure the "standard" Chinese scale is microtonal. That's more middle eastern.

rickwaugh

Very nice. Young lady has a lovely voice.

studs1966

This is so Fucking Beautiful........ I could create a Soulful House of this........ It has Sooooooo many great vibes to the vocals....... Totally Brilliant.

realdavidai

@Max23 said:
Hm, I was prepared for weird tuning and scales,
but it’s standard western stuff.
Not what I expected.

Interesting you’ve given me something else to explore...谢谢

realdavidai

@mschenkel.it said:

@Max23 said:
Hm, I was prepared for weird tuning and scales,
but it’s standard western stuff.
Not what I expected.

Maybe is standard chinese scale microtuned to resemble western stuff. Who knows?

Well right now it’s the language and culture that has my interest, but I’ve found much more ‘western’ tunings and chord progressions than initially expected. My focus isn’t reall the ancient stuff right now. I am curious about the Peking Opera though.

realdavidai

@theconnactic said:
Already said on Youtube, will say here: this is very cool, congrats, David!

Thanks a lot! It’s been a major personal leap to dare to have a YouTube channel...your encouragement has been very helpful.

rickwaugh

Did a quick look, as I suspected, most traditional Chinese music is based on pentatonic scales. However, they didn't go to an even tempered scale until western music came along, with instruments such as the piano. So that's why traditional Chinese music, on traditional instruments, can sound "odd" to our ears. But it's not normally microtonal, though some traditional music in Western China could have some middle eastern influence.

theconnactic

Don’t forget some eastern scales resemble the major pentatonic. Not all chinese music will sound exotic: many of them, if not most of them, will be very friendly to european and american ears like folk music of all places generaly are.

Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr

@realdavidai said:

@wim said:
助けてください！私はマカオの警察署で立ち往生しており、私にはお金はありません。今日私に10,000ドル送金してください！彼らは今日金を受け取らなければ私を刑務所に入れます。

Eh? I don’t think that’s Chinese

It's Greek to me.

Ben

@realdavidai. Beautifully done friend.

realdavidai

@Ben said:
@realdavidai. Beautifully done friend.

Thanks so much Ben.

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The user and all related content has been deleted.

studs1966

@Wrlds2ndBstGeoshredr said:

@realdavidai said:

@wim said:
助けてください！私はマカオの警察署で立ち往生しており、私にはお金はありません。今日私に10,000ドル送金してください！彼らは今日金を受け取らなければ私を刑務所に入れます。

Eh? I don’t think that’s Chinese

It's Greek to me.

Καλημέρα .......... να χαλαρώσετε και να έχουν μια μπύρα.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

realdavidai

@studs1966 said:
This is so Fucking Beautiful........ I could create a Soulful House of this........ It has Sooooooo many great vibes to the vocals....... Totally Brilliant.

Thanks mayne!!

@Max23 said:
@realdavidai Chinese opera is interesting
I don’t understand a word and I can’t tell what emotions the music carries.
I can’t tell if it’s a lovesong or if they are plotting to kill the mother in law.

I suspect it’s both.

Shaken&Stirred

Wow, very nice, and a great start to my morning. Please share the recording process. Is that a Launchkey your playing? The piano sounds great, where are the piano sounds coming from? And the reverb on the vocals? Did you mix this in iOS?

thanks for sharing this!

realdavidai

@Shaken&;Stirred said:
Wow, very nice, and a great start to my morning. Please share the recording process. Is that a Launchkey your playing? The piano sounds great, where are the piano sounds coming from? And the reverb on the vocals? Did you mix this in iOS?

thanks for sharing this!

Thanks

Yes that’s Launchkey 61 the Audio interface is Apogee Duet. I generally use these with iPad Pro and GarageBand.

However GarageBand doesn’t allow simultaneous recording of MIDI and Audio so I had to go back to Logic for this. You can see me panic for a brief second when I wasn’t sure I had armed the MIDI track

Piano is the stock Steinway in Logic and Space designer reverb on vocals.

On the master bus I used the “Platinum Analog Tape” preset in Logic’s default Compressor. Followed by the limiter.

I’m hoping the next GarageBand for iOS update will let me permanently retire the MacBook.

I do find it very difficult to enjoyably play Piano sounds with Launchkey and most of today’s MIDI controllers. years ago I used to use Roland weighted keyboards that were so much easier to play. But they are too big and heavy for my life right now.

The singer is a graduate musical theater student from China who convinced me to perform this song live with a full band a few weeks ago.

Shaken&Stirred

@realdavidai said:

@Shaken&;Stirred said:
Wow, very nice, and a great start to my morning. Please share the recording process. Is that a Launchkey your playing? The piano sounds great, where are the piano sounds coming from? And the reverb on the vocals? Did you mix this in iOS?

thanks for sharing this!

Thanks

Yes that’s Launchkey 61 the Audio interface is Apogee Duet. I generally use these with iPad Pro and GarageBand.

However GarageBand doesn’t allow simultaneous recording of MIDI and Audio so I had to go back to Logic for this. You can see me panic for a brief second when I wasn’t sure I had armed the MIDI track

Piano is the stock Steinway in Logic and Space designer reverb on vocals.

On the master bus I used the “Platinum Analog Tape” preset in Logic’s default Compressor. Followed by the limiter.

I’m hoping the next GarageBand for iOS update will let me permanently retire the MacBook.

I do find it very difficult to enjoyably play Piano sounds with Launchkey and most of today’s MIDI controllers. years ago I used to use Roland weighted keyboards that were so much easier to play. But they are too big and heavy for my life right now.

The singer is a graduate musical theater student from China who convinced me to perform this song live with a full band a few weeks ago.

Great, thanks for this! I haven't used Logic, so I'm not familiar with the plugins you used there, but useful information nonetheless.

Regarding your piano playing - I'm not a piano player, but as I watched, I thought you did extremely well with the semi-weighted keys on the launchkey. It playing sounds (and you made it look) very natural. Cheers!

MrNezumi

不错。我真不喜欢京剧。听起来像踩了猫尾巴。

realdavidai

@MrNezumi said:
不错。我真不喜欢京剧。听起来像踩了猫尾巴。

哈哈哈哈哈