3. Twang Quality and The Blues Scale + Jam

This Ep we're going to hassle out "Twang quality". We're going to find the strength and supreme delight in getting you nose working when you sing. It's totally a thing. 

If you're a visual kind of person, get out something and write this on it:

The Blues Scale: 1; flat 3; 4; flat 5; 5; flat 7; 8.

Then we're gonna sing a Blues song about getting stuff wrong. 

Thanks for listening. :) 

Transcript

This is a Twig Bird Productions podcast.

Hey, how you doing? Come on in. Awesome. You like a drink? Check up a tea. Come. Take a breath. Awesome. Gimme one of these.

Awesome. Gimme one of these. Um, nice siren. You've learned a technique. Now you can sob your yarn sound on your siren. Um,

he's a normal one. Mmm get, and then you can try a sub one. Nice round, warming up sound beautiful. Today I would like to do the Blues Scale. This is a very close relative to the mine of Pentatonic, but it's got one extra note that's a semitone away just to mess with your mind. And we're gonna learn a new vocal technique that's gonna work really well with the blue scale.

So here's the blue scale. It's gonna have a flat five in it. Yeah. Guys like this One flat. Three. Four flat five. Natural five. That's a tongue twister. I'm not gonna make you do that Flat. Seven, eight. I'll do it again. One flat. Three. Four flat. Five. Five flat. Seven. Eight. I know right? Coming down. Eight flat.

Seven, five. Flat five. Four flat three, one. I've actually got hand signals that I teach this. You can't have them cuz you are not looking at me. No. So here we go. Gimme some sub Claudia on the bottom and kind of turn into your natural voice about halfway up. Here we go. One flat three, four.

Seven, eight, calm down. Eight flat, 7, 5, 3, 1. It's tricky, isn't it? I'll go down a little bit. One flat three, four.

Eight flat seven, five.

Seven. Eight. Eight. Flat. Seven. Five flat. Five four. Flat, three, one. Beautiful. Okay. Blue scale, it's pretty bluesy.

Okay, so let's look at a Boko technique to stick on it. This Boko technique is called twang top Wang. It's the ugliest thing you're ever gonna hear. There's nothing pretty about it. Pretty can stay outside for a second. Twang is about power and strength and making your nose do all of the work. There's nothing pretty about it.

There's nothing pretty about the blues. Eh, beautiful. So I'm gonna give you a few ways to think about this sound that I hope don't weird you out too much. The first thing I'd like you to do is to be particularly Australian to gimme your best Aussie goodday. Mate. How's a go all the way? Gimme all your nose doing all of the work and ask for a pie.

Can I have a pie mate? Can I have some sauce? It's great. Isn't that great? Give me your best wing. The next sound is to be particularly American. Not all Americans would speak like this. I don't mean to offend a single human on the planet, but can you gimme your best? Um, I. Would you like some fries with that or, uh, and then she was like, oh my God.

And I was like, oh my God. And she was like, oh my God, make your nose, do all the work. No offense is intended to any human on the planet. I, I just. I just, it's not my fault. Twang is strong and powerful and it's embrace your twang. I think most people hate their twang. They're like, I'm twy. I sound nasal, and I'm like, twang is great.

Just you get to learn when to use it and learn when to not use it and love it. It's a good thing. The next one is to be Count Dracula, where in the last exercise count Dracula was particularly, particularly soy. Uh, uh uh, he's also an American character, so you get to give him a bit of a ah, ah, ah, I love the gout.

He gets to be a bit both. Ah, ah, ah, I love to gown. I'm kind of playing with his voice there. I'm not good at impressions. Look, it is what it is. The next one is, could you please be a duck? I want a good, it's all in your nose. Nose, doing all the work. The next one is to be a witch. Give me your best witch cackle.

Most of these sounds are a little bit constrictive. They're a bit, I can do that and kind of close up my throat. I'm really particularly not trying to constrict and close up my throat, and that is quite a big concept. In the universe of singing to not close up your throat and constrict, it's a hard thing to convey cuz I can't get into your throat and point at the bit.

But I hope that you can kind of feel when your throat is open and clear and you can hear when it's big and round and open and you can hear when it's kind of tight and closed, you can kind of hear. That sound maybe as much as you feel it. Uh, one more is to be a bird. Just gimme your best kind of, ah, bird sound.

Ah, you can probably hear the birds cuz I'm not in a totally secure sound booth right now. You can hear my birds and my gecko. Yeah. Um, so we're going to put the twang quality onto the top of the blue scale. I haven't got rules here. I put sub quality on the bottom of the minor pentatonic, and I'm putting twang on the top of the blue scale, but there are no rules.

Sub quality at the top is a beautiful thing. Twang quality at the bottom is gritty and real. But I've gotta give you something. That's how I work. Okay? So it is gonna get nice and ugly and pointy. I'm gonna go all the way ugly and entirely regret that I've recorded doing this in the universe, but not in a weird way, just in a normal, that's ugly kind of way.

Ready? So we're gonna go like this. One flat three, four flat five five. There it is. Flat. Seven, eight. Yeah, that's horrible. Coming down. Eight flat seven. Five flat. Five four. Flat three. One. Yep. Pretty has left the building. Let's take it down. A flat blue scale. Here we go. Twang at the top. One flat 3, 4, 8, flat seven, five.

Flat. Five, four, flat three, one. Let's get rid of these numbers and sing. Yeah. G Minor. Here we go.

Beautiful. It is what it is. That's twang.

So I've written a particularly little cliche blue song for us to practice our blue scale over and to play with our twang quality. I would like to just stop and point out the hard thing about teaching vocal qualities like this is that I can't hear you. And so I need you to always check in. If anything ever hurts, you should stop twang quality.

Might have a tendency to want to constrict, but I want you to try and push it up into your nose. Ah, not ah, down in your throat. It's such a weird concept to kind of hand to you. Constriction can be used as an effect. I wanna moan and groan in a blue song, but I don't wanna do that as a constant thing cuz my vocal folds will tire of that very quickly.

And I want them to be nice and healthy. So please just take care of yourself. Drink lots of water, listen to your sound, try and hear if you can hear the strain or the relaxed sound of that idea.

Okay, so here's my little song I wrote. Took my baby to the doctor. Didn't know what was wrong. Took my baby to the doctor, know what was wrong. My sweet,

I done him wrong. Let me take it apart for you so that you can hear the flat five. Took my baby there. It's, there's a flat five. One flat three five, flat five to the doctor. Yeah. Four flat, three, four flat, three, one. Didn't know what was wrong and then again, took my baby to the doctor. Again, nice clash with all the nice, cause I didn't know what was wrong.

Now the turnaround. My sweet honey child. My sweet honey child. One eight, flat seven, flat five. Oh yeah, it's nice and ugly. I know I done him wrong and I end on the flat seven down below. My sweet honey child lying there. I know I done him wrong. Can we do it from the top one? Two, took my baby to the doctor.

Again. I know. I didn't know what was wrong. Took my baby to the doctor. I didn't know why was wrong. The.

Him wrong. Break it down. I'm gonna go child him wrong. And then again, oh.

I done him wrong from the top. Here's the song. Took My Baby to

Wrong Baby Doctor. What was wrong? He's the.

I'm gonna stick to tempo now so you can jam along from the top. Oh, 1, 2, 3. Took my baby to the doctor. Know was wrong, baby to the doctor. Know what was wrong.

I done him wrong. All right. Now focus on your twang for me. Where are your,

oh, I took mine. Ready one. Two, three. Took my baby to the doctor again, didn't know what was wrong. Open your mouth up. Took my baby to the doctor. Didn't know what was wrong. My sweet.

I've done him wrong. I wonder if you can make some words up for me if I just play the form for you. Can you make up your most cliche blues thing? You've got someone's moan and groan about something. You gotta let it out. Look around you. Take your room in.

Here we go. One, two.

We're gonna sing Lap My Baby to, didn't know what was wrong,

what was wrong. Oh.

Him.

Sweet.

I done him wrong.

How'd you go? Send me your verse. I wanna hear it so bad.

This has been a Twig Bird Productions podcast.