Blog Archives

Major to Minor - A Musical Experiment

3/24/2018

Hi Everyone!

Today I would like to spotlight Chase Holfelder and his
Major-to-Minor musical transpositions of popular and traditional songs.

I find this to be a wonderful musical experiment that in my opinion can expose the true nature of lyrics that may sometimes be couched or hidden underneath a happy melody (major key).

If you visit Chase's YouTube channel you'll find songs such as:

Girls Just Want to Have Fun - Cyndi Lauper
I Dreamed a Dream - from Les Misérables
Every Breath You Take - The Police
All I Want for Christmas is You
The Star-Spangled Banner
Blackbird - Beatles
Amazing Grace, and more...

Note: some of his videos begin with an introduction where he explains details about the song, and most end with a bit of him seeking funding, following, and support.

Here are a few songs that I've found particularly striking:

A Traditional/Folk Example

A Pop Music Example

A Christmas Music Example

A Disney Song Example

Brief Commentary

I find this major-to-minor experiment is very intriguing to the felt sense experience of music, because in some cases we may come to realize how creepy some lyrics are (such as in pop or holiday music). In other cases, we may find ourselves struck more deeply by the emotions behind lyrics that had been softened or that we had become numb to by repetition.

In listening, I have found for myself that in the case of spirituals or folk music, many of these songs, when turned minor become songs quite worthy of the "Spirit Sorrow" macro-genre of music. What is Spirit Sorrow?

Spirit Sorrow: A macrogenre of music encompassing authentic expressions of sorrow throughout a variety of sub-genres including but not limited to: folk music, spirituals, flamenco, yoiking, throat singing, folk-metal, and bossa nova.

See my other musing titled "The Mother of All Musical Genres" if you're interested in more on that topic.

Ok, that's all for now. I hope this has been a moving experience for you. Until next time!

Best Regards,
Yeon-Hee

Yeon-Hee Yim (Yuns)
Creative Director, Music Curator, Sacred Guide
@Sonaesthetics Studios

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When Love Doesn't Make Sense

3/24/2018

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I am generally not world's biggest fan of smooth jazz music, but there has been this one song I have loved for many years called "Bueno Funk" by Peter White.

Something was catchy about it for me--
the melody, the tempo...

Here it is for you:

This was a song that I had uploaded onto a picture collage back in high school, and even my younger siblings can still recall the tune.

Now for some reason, there was a moment when I let an off-hand comment by a friend diminish my love for this song, but after hearing a live jam version this morning, something has been rekindled and reaffirmed for me.
(And wow, the seamless quotes of other songs!)

Here's that version:

What my friend had said was something like,

"hey-- that song sounds like the music
you hear in the background
on the weather channel!"

and for some reason, that felt like a diss and I thought to myself, oh.. the weather channel? How lame...

The lesson here? On the surface it may be something like:

"music labeled as 'background music'
is actually really important for
creating a vibe or environment
that someone actually wants
to stay in for a while."

On the deeper level, perhaps something more like,

"Don't be afraid to love what you love,
even if it doesn't make sense.
Do use discernment, AND
your body knows what it loves."

Or
"Don't let your own likes and tastes
be negated by the opinions of others."

or simply...

Cheers!

Yeon-Hee Yim (Yuns)
Creative Director, Music Curator, Sacred Guide
@Sonaesthetics Studios

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Passion and Temperance - A Personal Journey Towards Balance

3/19/2018

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Anyone who has known me for any significant amount of time is likely to have a sense for how deep my practice is. What follows is a personal story of passion and the lessons my body has been teaching me in temperance, to guide me towards balance.

--It runs deep.
a passion with roots
i often cannot see,
an undertow i am
slowly coming to know--

Musically speaking, I have gone to some rather extreme extents in attempts to reach higher levels in the past...

Like the time I basically locked myself in a small practice room with a friend, each with a marching snare drum, with the idea that we would not leave that room until we finished playing a double stroke roll together for an hour straight without stopping. And I, with the audacity to not wear earplugs for sake of being able to hear how cleanly we were playing the roll together.
Or the times I stood at home with my practice pad in the mirror and played a double stroke roll to myself for an hour straight, then carving a notch in my practice pad for each hour I finished. (And sometimes this would be with weighted sticks-- the "Ralph Hardimon Hammer Sticks" as they were called, which I would say are at least twice if not three or four times heavier than your average marching snare drum stick).
Or the time I went to a Mormon church camp for a week with some of my friends in high school to help encourage them to keep practicing because band camp was the following week, many of them were in the drumline, and I was responsible for the drum section.
Or the time I auditioned for a drum corps and stayed through the entire weekend to drum along in the background even after they decided to cut me.
Or the time I rubber banded my pinky down for the most part of a day, trying to train my left hand how to have proper traditional snare drum grip, as my finger went from red to purple.

With all of these experiences and more, I thought for sure-- the thing that would bring injury to these hands would be drums, but actually, those drums ended up bringing injury to my hip flexors instead-- from repetitive strain/trauma directly this hip flexor area because the harness I wore, even at its shortest setting was too big for me, and we were asked to make these pelvic thrust motions to each side quite often as we played our drums in college.

For my hands though-- it actually ended up being guitar that, as they say was the "straw that broke the camel's back." And before I go any further, here are some pictures to give you a sense of the time period of my very focused drumming.

These are from my time at Kennewick High School [KeHS], West Valley High School [WVHS], and the University of Washington [UW]:

Now, the guitar.

The guitar was something I picked up around 1995, to contribute to the church I was attending at the time, and I've been with guitar off-and-on ever since.

In 2009, I found myself living in Sweden and missing my instruments so much that I went out and bought myself a guitar. (I ended up playing drums in a band and also leading an acapella group there, but I'll focus mostly on guitar now for the purposes of this story arc). It was hard to really know how much I was spending because I was still adjusting to paying with Swedish Kronor, but it felt like a decent yet still budget acoustic/electric steel stringed cutaway guitar.

The trouble with it was that it had such a 'high action' (meaning the strings were so far off the fret-board) that it required a lot of force to press the strings down enough for a proper tone.

So, I resorted to removing the strings and using a knife to sand down the bridge of the guitar a bit. Even after that, it was not enough, but I was missing the feeling of playing guitar so much, and I was so into trying to learn some song at the time that I spent several hours a day for weeks upon weeks on this guitar.

My old habits of pushing through pain for the benefit of growth kicked in again and I strained past what was tolerable by my hands. I slowly yet surely accrued some damage, and at its peak, I was unable to do simple things like open doors or hold grocery bags. It was mostly my left hand at the time, but now I can feel it in both. And to add to that, I had a trip planned with my friends to go to Northern Sweden for dog-sledding right after my hands were at peak pain, and I decided to go anyway, despite the signals.

Perhaps it being the first time ever going dog-sledding, I didn't really know how hand intensive this experience would be.

It was like holding on for dear life as the dogs ran, because letting go or falling off would risk losing the dogs and the rest of the group, and being left behind.

Now, so many little connections are going off in my brain that are contributing to self-compassion and healing as I write this musing, so thank you for taking the time to hear and witness me as I tell my story! May I let go of the voice that says: "this isn't the right place for this."

It has taken me a long time to realize and admit to myself the implications of a lot of the patterns I built through my earlier experience in music.

Most recently, I have become very aware that I likely have nerve damage in my hands because I have been practicing my instruments more lately as I have become interested in getting back into practice for a little bit of performance again, after about 7 years of deciding to exit the music performance scene.

All of this has been hard for me to say out loud, mostly because of how scary "nerve damage in my hands" sounds to me and what that might mean for me as a musician, and how that could affect how others perceive me in my capacity to teach, perform, and otherwise do my work in music.

I am realizing that the embrace of it and the open sharing of my experience is actually quite important for my process and seems like meaningful information for those who are interested in this studio in any capacity.

So truly, at the roots of Sonaesthetics-- the audio production studio and center for musical exploration-- I can say with clarity that there is an enduring love of music, rich and deep practice, a journey through struggle and healing, infused with a lot of love and intention. <3

As I wrap up this part of the story, I give you the image of a nylon-stringed guitar that came to me as soon as I released the idea that if I played guitar, I needed to play a steel-stringed one because for some reason I thought they were "better" in my old mentality of

"pain = progress"
"martyr = glory"

So with these nylon strings, I mark the beginning of a path that takes 'extreme pain' off the pedestal, replacing it with kindness, love, gentleness, and temperance to go along with my surefire passion. May the sensation in my hands guide me with the wisdom to be able to identify and hold my boundaries to proceed forward on a sustainable path.

And finally, I leave you with some fun pictures of my escapades through Sweden! And a little audio recording from The Nowhere Orchestra, the pop/rock/funk/jazz/Carribean band I was in while over there.

It's an intimate little recording from an unplugged impromptu rehearsal we were having. The song and lyrics are by: Florian Seraul and I've transcribed the lyrics to the best of my ability below. The percussion you'll hear is a 5 gallon water jug. <3

Cheers and thanks for reading! Until next time~~

// yuns

Lifejacket

[Verse 1]
All around me
They're staring at me
I'm a curiosity~~
Some think I'm crazy
But still they love me
I'm a monkey on the stage
Ready to play!

[Verse 2]
Second kiss
You'll never get it
____ be incurred
guilty in the red.
Close to dreams
Freaking out
Seeing what used to be
but it's so exciting!

[Chorus]
Would you follow me?
If you disagree?
Would you come and save me
If I jumped in the sea?
Oh, life my lifejacket
Life a lifejacket
Life a lifejacket

[Verse 3]
Ooh-- the ever love
even in my heart
glean what i did
believe it was for yours
all of __________
second to nothing
living on the right side
it's all right by me [Chorus]

Yeon-Hee Yim
Nature Lover, Explorer, Audio Director,
Lead Composer, Master Music Guide
@Sonaesthetics Studios

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Call of the Wild

3/17/2018

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I heard this song, "Call of the Wild," by MILCK (aka Connie Lim)
for the first time yesterday, and it brought me to a pause.

--I held my breath
as my body absorbed
the fullness of feeling--

I was struck by the simplicity, yet complexity and range
and delicate touch that this song required.
So I found a guitar tab and started plunking through,
but then realized this was calling me to the piano.

Oh, the piano!

That thing I was forced to take lessons on for four years as a child, before finally deciding I'd tell my mom I didn't like my piano teacher and that I didn't want to do classical piano anymore. To my surprise, I was allowed to quit.

And as I sat down at the piano yesterday-- that's when all the voices set in...

"But that's your favorite key to play on the guitar~~"
"Look at all those sharps!"
"You're so out of practice..."
"That chorus is so high-- and you're a 2nd alto..."
"How will you ever play and sing at the same time up to your
standards enough to record and even think to post it online?"
"Posting your voice online? Way to feed your ego -__-"
"Come on, give it up... don't you have better things to do?"

So yes-- this song brought me back to that place at the once dreaded piano. This time with an authentic desire to want to practice and learn.

Thank you, Connie Lim, dearest soul sister who shares the ancestral family name of the forest with me. Lim, Yim, Lin, & Im--
as I understand it-- are Romanizations of
the same family name, which means 'forest.'

Thank you for speaking out, singing out,
and being the inspiration that you are.
May our voices be heard throughout the world
as we continue to seek and speak our truths
and inspire others, under what ever names we choose.

You-- MILCK, I-- Yuns / Sonaesthetics /
Winged Earth Sky Lotus Rising~~
I feel blessed to share roots and a name with you.
May my simple acoustic cover of your song be enough.

[Verse 1]
I did my best to tame
The beast that cries my name
Flicker into a flame
Into a raging fire
I can't contain

Your temples and your graves
Give weary souls their shade
I was meant to fly
With shadows in the sky
I cannot stay

[Chorus]
I can hear the call of the wild
I can hear the call of the wild

Holdin' out for me
I have to listen

[Verse 2]
I want to be erased
For darkness to embrace
Let nothing hold me back
Let the whole world collapse
There's freedom in that

The love of many years
Grows cold and now I fear
The mountains and the trees
Cry like a symphony (a symphony)

[Chorus]
I can hear the call of the wild
I can hear the call of the wild

Holdin' out for me
I have to listen

Holdin' out for me
I have to listen

Holdin' out for me
I have to listen

[Outro]
I did my best to tame
The beast that cries my name