My cover of Within You Without You

Today I completed my version of Within You Without You, by George Harrison.

I play all the instruments and sing.  It was quite challenging because the original includes Indian instruments (tabla, tambura, dilruba and sitar) and classical instruments (cellos and violins).

My goal was to recreate the essence of the song and the original arrangement using the instruments I have at hand: electric and acoustic guitars, congas and bongos.  This is how I recreated each instrument:

• tabla: I used congas and bongos - see my previous post Within You Without You - Tabla patterns
• tambura: I used an eBow on acoustic guitar and the Echoplex to create a loop of the drone - see my previous post Within You Without You - recreating the tambura sound
• dilruba: I used a Fender Strat, finger picked (eBow for long sustained notes) - see my previous post 

  Within You Without You - Practicing dilruba solo

• sitar: Fender Strat
• cellos and violins: eBow on Fender Strat for long sustained notes, finger picking for fast runs
• harp: Ovation acoustic guitar

In each case I try to imitate the phrasing of the original instrument, and use some effects (mostly EQ and compression) to enhance the sound.  I am happy with the results for now.  I am planning to work on a real video clip to go along with the music, and may also improve some tracks and the overall mix in the future. But for now you can listen to my cover of Within You Without you here (the video is just a screen capture of my Logic Pro project for the song):

Cheers,
Fabio

Within You Without You - Tabla patterns

I've always loved the sound of the tabla, the Indian percussion instrument.  And it plays a huge role in George Harrison's song Within You Without You, which I am working on to record my cover.

I don't have a tabla set but my friend Jim (percussionist, we are the duo Cabsha here in Ottawa) has a pair of congas and a pair of bongos, so that's what I am using to recreate the rhythm patterns in the song.

Most of the song is in 4/4, except for the instrumental solo in the middle which is 5/4.  In these videos I do my best to play each pattern along with the original recording.

I still miss the sound of the tabla...  But this might work a lot better once Jim is the one playing the patterns :-)
The 5/4 pattern is pretty much the same throughout the solo. But the 4/4 pattern is actually 4 bars long, and the "bass" sound of the tabla is the one that changes across bars, totally disappearing every fourth bar.  We will have to work hard on the percussion tracks.

Within You Without You - recreating the tambura sound

The drone or continuous chord in Within You Without You is produced by a tambura tuned in C (G & C for a "power chord").  The version on Sgt. Pepper was sped up a it so it sounds almost like a C#, but the instrumental version on the Anthology is at the original speed, in C.

The tambura has a wide bridge against which the open strings vibrate in order to produce the characteristic buzz. The long neck and loose strings provide lots of sustain. I recreate this sound by using an eBow for infinite sustain, and every so often touching the string with the eBow to get some buzzing.  I use a looper (the Echoplex Digital Pro) to overlay multiple notes (GCgc).

In this video you can see how I start the looper (pressing RECORD) and after a few seconds I put it in overdub mode (pressing OVERDUB).  Then I overlay each of the four notes adding buzz and changing the sound slightly without any particular rhythm, to create a drone with a rich texture.

For the actual multitrack recording I will add EQ and other effects to approximate the sound a bit better, but this approach seems like a good starting point.

Within You Without You - Practicing dilruba solo

My daughter Jazmin suggested I cover Within You Without You and I took the challenge!  I will record all the parts for a full cover, and I will also arrange it to play live on guitar and loops (to build the drone), with Jim on percussion.
George Harrison recorded this song with Indian musicians.  George plays Sitar and sings, the Indian ensemble includes Dilruba (Indian violin), Tambura (drone), and Tabla (percussion).  George Martin added cellos, violins and harp.  I am slowly working through all the parts.  In this video I am practicing the dilruba solo in 5/4.

It's quite challenging to transcribe the dilruba part for guitar and try to emulate the phrasing and expression.

Will post updates as I make progress with the other parts.

Quinoa salad - cleansing

Yesterday I started on a week-long vegan cleansing (fruits, veggies and grains). I made quinoa salad and I loved it!

Quinoa salad ready

I used Red Mill Organic Gluten Free Quinoa.
I followed the recipe on the bag plus a few extra ingredients (sweet red pepper, scallions, garlic, fresh parsley, fresh coriander, cucumber, grape tomatoes, fresh lemon juice, olive oil, salt & pepper).
It was delicious, and together with strawberries, cherries, nectarines, tons of water and decaf expresso it carried me through the day.

So far so good, lots of energy (went for a walk in the evening and ended up jogging a bit).

Chopping all the veggies

Cooking quinoa

We met Ringo!

It is 2012 and Ringo is on tour with his All Starr Band. Seeing Ringo in concert was on Jazmin's bucket list. The only Canadian date was in a casino in Niagara, where Jazmin is not allowed because she is a minor. So we selected the closest US venue, the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in New York state, 560 km from home. 
We drove down on Friday and checked in at a hotel in Monticello, which is 15 km from Bethel Woods.
On Saturday we showed up at the Center before 4 PM (gates opened at 6:30 PM and concert started at 8:00 PM). We visited the gift shop, bought a couple of souvenirs and went across the hall to get an ice cream and a drink. That's when Jazmin noticed that Ringo and his band members were entering the gift shop! So we went back in after them.
Ringo was there for a few minutes, picked up four "Peace Love & Music" T-Shirts ("one of each" colour), paid for them at the cash, and went out to be carried away in a golf cart.

Ringo at the T-shirt rack

Leaving in the golf cart

He was really nice with everybody in the store, posing for photos and making jokes. He is a bit shorter and thinner than I imagined and looks very fit and younger than his age.
After he left we went back in for our ice cream and drinks, we were very excited and couldn't believe our luck (got there way early for a reason I guess :-).  That's when we started talking with other people that had also seen him, and a guy named John walks by saying he had snapped a few good pictures of Ringo.  Suddenly John says "This is you in this picture with Ringo!" as he recognized me! Turns out Jazmin and Viole are also in that picture. I can't thank him enough for capturing that special moment for us and for emailing me his pictures.

Jazmin, Viole and Fabio behind Ringo (photo John Harris)

Later I went back in the store and bough one of the T-shirts Ringo chose for me, in blue (my favourite colour).
We then went for a walk to visit the site of the original Woodstock festival in '69.

Monument commemorating Woodstock '69 festival 

Behind us is the site of the original Woodstock '69 festival

During the concert Ringo mentioned that he had visited the gift shop and people there were very surprised. Indeed!
The concert was fantastic, the band amazing, lots of hits as a group! My favourite was Greg Rolle, who played keyboard in Santana's Abraxas album, and sang Black Magic Woman at Woodstock in '69 (and again Saturday). Ringo was in great shape, played drums and keyboard, sang and danced. Overall a fantastic experience.

Jazmin waiting for the concert to start

Thousands of people, many more of them in the lawn space around the pavilion 

Ringo and his All Starr Band on stage (photo John Harris)

I would say Jazmin can now scratch seeing Ringo from her bucket list :-)

Here I am wearing the T-shirt Ringo chose for me :-)

Ain't She Sweet - cover with loops (live)

Here I use the Echoplex to overdub ukulele, bass and guitar.  All done live.
The Echoplex is a looper that I control with a foot pedal with buttons like Record and Overdub.
I've always loved this song.  George plays it on ukulele and sings it on the Beatles Anthology, with Paul also singing and Ringo playing rhythm.
After I heard the song in Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris I looked it up in Wikipedia and realized it was composed much earlier than I thought, in 1927!

Gibson Epiphone Les Paul Ukulele
Epiphone Viola Bass
Ovation 1867 Legend Acoustic Guitar
Gibson Oberheim Echoplex Digital Pro