[Rossini's Semiramide Overtune plays // Subtitles by youtube @anisian]
Umu: You are now reacting to the soloist, Gaho, who is part of the R&B and Hip-Hop collaboration project,
Formed under Planetarium records featuring other solo artists from the label
But you'll be reacting to his 2020 solo release, called "A song for you"
Gaho, when writing the lyrics for this song, was hoping to capture innocent honest love,
and when he thought about trying to capture that he thought of handwritten letters,
Because when you write a letter, it's hard to write if it is not pure or truthful,
Versus just texting the person who you love, so he wanted to portray that in this song,
No text messages, a real, true, honest letter,
"A song for you" lyrics do take place after a breakup and Gaho sings to his ex,
'Despite they're all past, despite they're all memories
I still sing, to make sure I don't keep remembering you who left me'
This song is composed by Leo, Gaho and his bandmates' Ownr, Blue Art D, Hyun (현) and Kim Ji Sang (김지상)
Sam: Is this like a sad song?
Umu: It's kinda like reminiscing but hopeful, 'but I know it's meaningless to keep you in me
despite all that, I could still smile with you, who was the priority of all, this song is for you'
I write a song for you you know- Raffi: Closure
Umu: Yeah, yeah Stephanie: Let's not cry-haha
Stephanie: Mmmm~
Leon: Mmmm~ Stephanie: Mmmm~
Sam: Ohh interesting~ That was like a pseudo circle of 5ths
Kevin: Is that- is that a guitar? Owen: Definitely
Kevin: That is a guitar, okay, I'm like that's a weird sounding piano *vocalizing*
AHHHH That's cool~
Stephanie: aWW~
Jory: oOOH~ Cloud: That's pretty great
Will: Mmhm~
Henry: Oh that octave doubling is so rich Cloud: And the nice little like flat descending like *vocalizing*
Will: Yeah, thirds~ oooOO a little minor plagal cadence~
Oh I love that little guitar *vocalizing* Jory: Guitar~
Jory: So dry
All: MMmMHM~ Sam: I love how he's like embellishing his own melody-
Sam: OH MY GOSH~ Yeah Ju Young: AHHHH
Raffi: Yeah~
Kevin: Nice fuzzy guitar
...the bass
Jory: It feels like he's ahead of the beat when he does those
Kevin: The whole syncopated displacement thing is...
Well done here
Ah~ It plays it's contour so straight and I like it
Henry: Ooo is that unison doubling Cloud: Strings~ I found them
Jason: Strings~
Set!!
Kevin: Ooh I like that he didn't repeat the OooOoOoh the third time, because that would've been overkill
Owen: That's a good point
Raffi: Mmhm
Will: Mmhm
Jory: That's a fat delay
Cloud: He woke up and said I'm gonna scream these high notes
Stephanie: That just felt like so personal, so relatable
I feel like the message in this song was really like compact and clear,
I was really paying attention to the lyrics, which I don't usually do
Literally, throughout the whole song, he uses like one like beautiful melodic statement, and then repeats it,
Then that really matched like with the lyrics too, it's like how the phrasing of the lyrics was too
It's like saying like two kind of like similar things-
And then that each melodic phrase like goes with each like sentence
But the second sentence might be like, a bit more emotional and the music goes with that,
Because it goes like slightly higher at the end of the phrase or something
Sam: First of all, that chorus was really really well written, there's just lots of like stepwise motion,
and lots of like chromatic tones to make it really memorable and really like harmonically tense,
So that way you could just feel the motion within it, but,
Sort of going back to the after the piece and this kind of ties into it,
Is that, despite all that tension, he was able to keep all of those unison, and in a way where it was very delicate
In my opinion, and sort of he let the embellishments sort of tell what his emotions where,
So the fact that he was able to keep that chorus relatively untouched throughout the entire song was really interesting
Henry: Those little upward- melodies the OoOoOoOhs was like really clean Cloud: The sequences? The OoOoOoOohs I really love those
Henry: I can't do those that cleanly, I really like the sound, I like the repetition of that I couldn't wait to hear them each time
After a while, I'm like this is probably like gotta be the most beautiful sounding...
Monkey sounds I've ever heard in my life- Cl & U: HAHAHA
[Gaho's OoOoOoOoOh~ plays]
H: It kinda- it kinda- after a while it kinda sounds like a monkey- CL: Oh my god-
H: Like I can definitely hear a kid going like, tHat sOuNDs liKE a moNkEy (CL: I cAN't-) ...cause I work with children
H: But, like it's so clean and it's beautiful
JS: *piano* Okay, the chorus melody *piano* that's a pentatonic scale,
and- on it's fourth cycle, so like *piano* that's the fourth scale degree of a C pentatonic so it's- *piano*
H: And he, he picks a really good vowel to do it on too, the song is for 'you'
Cause you can really float up in your falsetto voice going, *vocalizes*
Instead of like 'E' that would be really tough, So-
I don't know if that was purposeful but it definitely makes it easier for him to get up there,
CL: There was- hold on, do you want to go back to like 1:30?
H: Right here CL: Yeah, you can hear a little bit of-
H: There's a little bit of uh- not vocal fry, that's just- that's just tension coming out as really strange sound,
That might not have felt good, but the nature of the commercial music industries, is that you only gotta really do it once
and you record it even if you scream your vocal folds out, that- that's there now,
That- that made me feel a little viscerally, like ooP that's tense- but it had a really strong, affect, emotional affect
H: Of just like outcry- I have a- CL: It was really like- yeah raw emotional
H: I have a lot of respect for vocal flexibility, he's just got a great control over his voice, H: Of just like outcry- I have a- CL: It was really like- yeah raw emotional
H: I have a lot of respect for vocal flexibility, he's just got a great control over his voice,
Flipping between his falsetto and his head voice, and his chest voice,
Balancing out balancing that out through the song like in the bridge we hear a lot of his low bits,
He doubled sometimes his high falsetto singing with an octave like in his chest voice,
and that sounded so rich, I love that sound
OW: The vocals were very interesting, it had a good like-
Shallow tail in the beginning and in terms of intensity and dynamics, that coming up was pretty satisfying,
And the just- the general like experience of listening to it, the whole vibe really built a nice soundscape to just sit in
I like all the tropes, the bringing back of the sort of 80s power ballad
U: You mentioned that there's a lot of classic or cliche things happening (WL: Yeah)
What emotions are given with those cliches, like why are they used?
JR: Well it's nostalgic because you can think of 17 other songs that use the same cadences,
The same like *vocalizing* like it was a great riff
WL: To me as a listener like when I hear something like that, that I recognize, it just like draws me into the song,
JR: Immediately familiar WL: You know like when I hear *vocalizing*
WL: It's like yeAh~ I like that
K: I think what really made the 80s power ballad good was the production, I think that it did sound like rock,
But a very soft type of rock, like karaoke rock you know,
But the instruments still popped when they should and when the second verse really switched up the sound into like-
A full, you know- 3,4 piece band, it sounded kinda- it sounded really good, it was a nice development,
It felt like development and the instruments didn't feel like they were compressed,
Or they're all trying to fight for the top spot, and I always appreciate that
U: And you talked a little bit about the chord progression K: Yeah, there were some weird clashy chords
K: That I couldn't really make heads or tails of, and I liked it
It was like- but, but yet they made logical sense, like how do we resolve the end of the chorus, oh let's do this clash chord
That probably couldn't be analyzed with classical theory as much as if you just wrote the jazz slash chords,
You know its like the bass is this, and the chord is this, boom combine them together, it makes sense!
I liked that, I like that type of pop theory, and you know like, slash chords,
They're jazz theory but when they're used in pop music, there's a special type of flavor to it,
And I think this song really had some of those really nice chords
LE: I just really like the first part of the progression, I don't really like the second one, the second part is kind of weird
U: Ok, tell me, tell me- LE: I don't know-
LE: Yeah, it's like a lot of notes that conflicts with each other so I don't really like the second part
LE: Yeah it's like- This part, I don't really like it ST: Oh true, you're right honestly,
ST: In the melody he sang, like *vocalizing* it could just be *vocalizing* Yeah (LE: Yeah)
JY: The guitar is singing with him and not the piano, like that and then it goes like that
JS: It just goes, it just goes to sharp *vocalizing* it's almost like a half step above where it should be
I think it's just because of his breath JY: It might just be his style though
JS: I- I- It's cause it's not- yeah but- it's not a part of the chord JY: It's- it's for- I feel like it's for the next chord
JY: Ok, that makes sense JS: And there should have been- U: NT Right? Non-non-
JS: Yeah it's a non-chord tone, and if there was like a common tone of that chord,
that if he played another chord before that going into the next one, then that would've worked really well,
But that was- that's just too out there
That's like singing, like you're playing C major and you think it's like C sharp randomly
JY: I think it sounds nice, I like stuff like that
U: Right, can we also talk about the minor plagal cadence
WL: I love the minor plagal cadence (JR: That's tight), that's the best cadence (U: Why?) Objectively the best cadence
U: Why? WL: BECAUSE IT SOUNDS SO GOOD (All: HAHAHA) that's why!
U: You gotta be more detailed than that WL: It SOUNDS SO GOOD
*spongebob narrator voice* ~5 minutes later~
WL: *piano* and then does it go directly to it?...major and then... JR: I think Minor 2?
JR: No it goes 2, 4 (WL: Oh, 2, 2 minor?) Yeah to 4 minor
WL: And it's a minor 6 with a D in there *piano* (JR: Nice)
WL: And then there was one melodic moment in there where he like went to the 9 I think on the *piano*
JR: It was like the 2nd chorus or something WL: Something like that and I was like oh yeah that's killing!
WL: I don't know, minor plagal, *piano* sounds so good like you can voice it like anyway *piano*
WL: I don't know, it's just like uGH (U: iT souNdS uGH) the gravity it's this note,
It's this note, this is the one, flat 6
*piano* cause it's the only chromatic note, the only note that's outside of the key center,
And it just has like extra gravity to resolve to the 5, and then the 4 resolves that back down to the 3
And it's just like aH sounds so good *piano*
JR: Because you hear that chord and you know exactly where it's going U: Mmhm (WL: Oh yeah, totally)
JR: And when it does, you're like, 'called it' U: Haha
JS: *vocalizing and piano* So that- that's one of my favorite things that happens in a song
Is when you have *piano* so this is just F major, F A C and then you get F minor,
So it's the parallel minor, F- A flat, see because it's a lower third,
So what happens is if- when the melody and the song needs to be the exact same *vocalizing*
I'll show you it but it's- *vocalizing and piano* on the 3rd *vocalizing* the lower third, I love that
That's just, it's like this cascading, falling, you know like melody that-
Because this is tinged with sadness you know, so it's *piano* hopefulness, *piano* like this kinda-
Nostalgic pain *vocalizing* and then it brings you back *vocalizing*
It's just so gorgeous, it exemplifies the exact emotion that he's feeling *piano*
JS: Major, minor JY: tAstY
[BGM: AKMU (with IU) - Nakka // Subtitles by youtube @anisian]
U: Cat or horanghae (Tiger) Gaho: aGH...oOoo...