MattandtheJays' Ambience: June 2022

June 10, 2022

Kenichiro Isoda - プリオシンの浜辺 (With Wave)

Divine celestial shores of Ico’s Afterlife. Each dispersing powdered sand rings out and on. Vanilla scented breeze and decades of ocean, breathing with ease. Magnolia birds lounging in air stretched to infinity.

1. プリオシンの浜辺

Introduction is arpeggios on Fmaj7, E-7, D-7, Cmaj7. Then Fmaj9 arpeggios flourishing (F A C E G, perhaps up and down many octaves) and then on to the form:

||Fmaj7#11 | | | |

|C-7 | | | |

|Cmaj7 | | | ||

Then back to the top, including introduction.

With Wave is made up of 4 pairs of chords, each one playing twice. Example, the Fmaj7#11 and Cmajor7 chords alternating, then a pair of Bbmajor7 and Ebmajor 7 chords, etc. Looking at key changes, the first ¼ of the song is in the key of Cmajor, the second ¼ is Bbmajor, third ¼ Ebmajor , then Abmajor, until that Cmajor chord resolve at the very end, which is kind of its own thing. But each major chord can stand on its own as is and they all transition nicely as they weave in and out, so key analysis might be needlessly complicated! ANYWAYS ON TO THE FUN STUFF. Here are some fun guitar voicings I like for this song:

Fmajor7: xx3555 x87980 or x87987 xx3210 or xx3010

Cmajor7: x32000 x35453

Bbmajor7: x1303x or x1323x

Ebmajor7: xx888(10) x65333

Abmajor7: 4x554x or 4xx543

Dbmajor7: x4x564

C-7: x3x343

Cmajor: x35553

All these chords are good stuff! And of course each shape is shiftable on guitar. So if one rly rings true for you just slide that pattern around the fret board to get the other chords of the same type!

Some melodic notes of interest, a lot of the melodies appear to be minor pentatonic mode stuff happening over its corresponding major chords. So the melodic segment over the Fmajor7#11 chord starts out B A G E, D E G E, which outlines E minor pentatonic scale, which would be the VI mode of the G major scale, but in this case it’s being used as the III mode of the C major scale, and being played over the IV chord (Fmajor7) at that. So it’s technically “incorrect” but since the pentatonic modes only have 5 notes, they leave out a lot of the true key defining notes, so they can overlap in other keys since the scales offer more tonal space. I HOPE THAT MAKES SENSE LOL.

And we see the same thing during the Bbmajor7 segment, the melody is: A G F D, C D F D. Same pattern as before. This is D minor pentatonic melody. Lots of fun stuff like that happening in this song!

So if you’re gonna rip it over this song, E minor pentatonic, D minor pentatonic, and C minor pentatonic will sound pretty magical over these chords changes J

2. Still Silent -for S.A.-

Curious soapy iridescence giggle through the breeze. Bubble feathers lilt in sun. They resound through time.

I read on discogs.com this is a tribute to Satoshi Ashikawa's "Still Park". Totally you can hear it, the same vague unresolved feeling, and someone on that site pointed out it’s even got the same melodic theme. Still Park, Still Silent.

This one’s a breeze. The basic recurring melody is C down to F, G Bb down to D. The last bit outlines G- triad! Cool! The chords are as follows:

||Fmaj7(11) | | | |

|Bbmaj6 | | | ||

That’s really it. What’s wonky about this one is that first Fmaj7(11) chord. Usually we see major7s with #11, but not this time. I worked out a voicing on guitar, x8896x. It’s a little funny coz we’re getting that 4^th scale degree (the 11) into the I major7 chord, which normally doesn’t happen. It’s like combining a Sus4 chord with a major7, the 4 and the 7 usually don’t go together in this context. But when it does it’s like a freshly cut lawn, edgy and fragrant with foliage.

For the Bbmajor6 there are some 4thy Harold Budd harmonies happening in there! If you’re jamming over this, try it out with xxxx33 to xxxx11. It’s D and G sliding down to C and F, over top the Bbmajor6 chord! Also a good voicing for this bit is x1301x.

Not much to say over the Ebmajor7! That could be considered an anchor point, since the other chords are somewhat unresolved and floating. The Ebmajor7 is the most standard chord in this piece, not really any funny extensions going on here.

3. Land Scape -for J.C.-

Intro chord is somewhat vague and just in general floats around the Bb major key, but seems to slightly anchor on a D-7 chord (D F A C). When Isoda is ready to break into form he starts touching on Bb notes to set up the following chords:

||Bbmaj13 | | | |

|Ebmaj7#11 | | | ||

The harmonic rhythm I notated isn’t exact, but idea is that Isoda bops back and forth between the two chords. During the Bbmaj13, the left hand (if played on piano) is Bb D F G A D. All notes ascending the arpeggio. Then he does Bb D F G A G. Almost the same thing, just stepping back down to the G note after the A note. Sounds somewhat like Bjork’s “Cocoon”! On guitar an approximate voicing is x1523x. It’s quite a stretch, but sounds super chill!

Other notes of interest, during Bbmajor13 chord Isoda plays a lot of A minor arpeggio influenced melodies, so that’s touching A, C, and E notes overtop the Bbmajor13. Those notes functioning as the 7, 9, and #11. BOOM, most of the upper extensions right there. Also he plays some C major (C E G) arpeggio melodies too, which adds 9, #11 and 13 colors. I think a big component in general with this chord is the G and the A notes being so close together, gives it a cushy cozy kind of squeeze.

On to the Ebmajor7#11 chord! The left hand pattern I gathered is: Eb down to Bb, back up to Eb, F G A. Then Eb Bb Eb F G C. Similar pattern as the previous chord.

After Ebmajor7#11, back to that intro thang with floating D-7. Not tooooo much else to say about this one. Very cozy and drifting. Good piece to sleep to.

4. ジョバンニの悲しみ

Okay! With Wave is ending with a classic rock ripper. Pull out your Paul Reed Smith’s and channel your inner Santana. Isoda is celestial harp jamming on F#-13 AKA F# Dorian mode! The sky winks, the waves chuckle. This tune is a celebration, an honest dance, a union with the universe.

F#-13 arpeggio is F# A C# E G# B D#. Play what you wish! F# minor pentatonic works rly well too. I’m curious how C# minor pentatonic would work over this!

Saxophone comes in ! Plays some melody like G# F# B, A B C# D# E G# F# D# C#.

With Wave, where heavenly ghosts play. Luminous, pure tropics. Transparent gelatinous fruits from pale sun worn trees.

June 5, 2022

Shinsuke Honda - Keiryuu

Shinsuke Honda @ discogs.com

A vivid washed winter of a sumi-e, where blurs of misted waters rush silent, nearly fallen leaves radiate vibrancies of grayscale and everywhere around an intimate snow.

1. 渓流 (Mountain Stream)

|| Dmaj6/9 | | | |

| D-6/9 | | | ||

Royal, majestic and humbled stream honors. Honda plays these somewhat open major and minor D voicings, X54200 for Dmaj6/9 and X53200 for D-6/9. One note difference, but it is the difference between spring waters and the dark secrets seeped beneath.

After back and forth with those 2 chords, he goes to:

||G maj13 (#11) | | G-13 (b5) | ||

Somewhat the same motion, slightly more mystical. The G maj13 (#11) I figured something like 3x5420, notes are G G B C# E.

G-13(b5) I gathered 3x5320, very similar shape to previous chord. Notes are G G Bb Db E. The C# (Db) notes in each chord important as is the E from the open E string.

Sometime later there is a bridge (over the mountain stream LOL), that is quite wonkadoodledoo, very unorthodox chord playing, almost primarily colors splashing about the babbling stream rather than functional harmony:

|| G-13(b5) |Dmaj7/G |C7#11b9 | ????? |

DAAAAAYUUUUMMMM, what are you doing here fellow. Let’s see. G-13(b5) we know from the previous passage. Dmaj7/G he plays as 3x0222, so it’s like an open D major 7 chord with G in the low bass, or could be viewed as some funny G major7 sus2 thing. Anyways notes are G, D A C# F#.

C7#11b9 good golly gave me a headache typing that LOL, I estimated a voicing like x32322. Notes are C E Bb Db F#

Fmaj7#11 seems standard F major barre chord with the open B and E strings, 133200. Notes are F C F A B E

D-maj11 is some tasty uncertainty! X53020 tabbed on guitar. D F G C# E

Then he goes back to that Gmaj#11(13) open jam thingerm, then after another repeat he rolls his waters flowing with the beginning section of the Dmaj69 and D-69 and somehow leads his way into the bridge section again.

Admittedly the ???? chord is a mystery to me! Though all the chords in that section have a similar color to them, so I’m willing to bet it’s a subtle rearrangement of the notes from the surrounding chords.

Final time through the bridge he resolves on our Dmaj6/9 thank goodness. My paddles were well worn after that one.

2. 日の出 (Sunrise)

Refreshingly simple chords dry us out after coursing down mountain streams, wowzorz! The beginning section of Sunrise seems just a repeating Dmajor7 to Amajor7. Nothing off the wall here, x5767x and x02120 respectively.

Next section is harder to follow, bass line is so obscured by lens flare! I’m catching a glimpse of Dmajor, F#-, Emajor, C#-, Dmajor, F#-, Emajor, Amajor. Then Dmajor and Amajor back and forth a little more slowly than the intro. The harmonic timing is straight forward even if the exact light is misted. For this bit, think punk rock emo chord changes. What’s more important is the wash effect Honda is creating with a melodic pattern being repeated overtop of a subtle changing bassline.

In general, open or barre chords do just fine for this one.

3. 冬の海 (Sea Of The Winter)

||F#-11 | | | ||

He hangs on this for a little while, 2x2200, lots of ringing open notes. Then he does:

||: B-7(no3) | |F#-11 | :||

And this repeats for a long, slow winter of a time. Like an open endless frosty chill. The B-7 is voiced x20202, B D A B F#. And the F#-11 is the same as before, very important is the open B strong in this song.

There’s a brief change to:

||: E-7 | |C#-7 | :||

Where E-7 is x75700 and C#-7 is x42400. C#-7 here is the same voicing as Incubus's "Pardon Me"!!. Again, lots of open E and B strings. After some repeating of this Honda goes back to the top.

4. 融雪 (Melting Snow)

||C#-9 | C#-9 | F#-13 | F#-13 |

|Emaj7 | Emaj7 | Dmaj69 | Dmaj69 ||

Somber A section, thawing frost trickles away like the end of a dying life. This C#-9 is tabbed on guitar as xx6640. Honda does a little hammer on pull of action on the 4^th fret of the high E string and pulls off to let the open E ring, and quickly frets the 4^th fret of the B string to nail the dissonant crunch the D# offers next to the open E string. Good stuff!

Quick note, G# is the lowest note in this chord so adds a cool sustained V type of sound!

F#-13 (not quite sure what to call this) is nearly the same chord, just the 6^th fret D string moves down to 4^th fret, the F# note. Tabbed as xx4640. The open E string next to the 4^th fret B string (D#) gives this song the frigid tinge.

Emaj7 tabbed as xx2440, again just the D string note moving downwards.

This passage ends on Dmaj69, that’s been happening a lot in this album! This one voiced as xx0200, almost all open strings.

After melting this section a few times he moves on to a simple B section that vamps between Cmajor7 and A-7, the ease of the B section probably to make up for the intensity of the A section. One thing I admire about Honda’s harmonic progressions is his ability to just GO FOR IT and combine chords together that aren’t quite obvious, that could sound a bit wrong, like an abrupt key change, but he pulls it off everytime!

Melting snow alternates between A and B sections, and ends with the A section, on his thematic Dmaj69 chord.

5. 紅葉 (Colored Leaves)

||A-9 |A-9 |Fmaj7#11 |Fmaj7#11 |

|A-9 |A-9 |Fmaj7#11 |Fmaj7#11 |

|B7b9(11) |B7b9(11) |Esus4 |E7 ||

A-9 is great open here, x05500, and a trick in this song is to hammer on 3^rd fret of high E string and pull off to open, he does that over the Fmajor chord too. This F major chord is roughly xx3200, like a C major 7 shape shifted up a set of strings.

Wowowow, B7b9(11), I think is a good way to call this one?? It’s like this 021210. It’s like the regular B7 open shape, x21202, but with both E strings open, which makes it weird, and he MIGHT not be playing the actual B note. But the D# note is definitely there (1^st fret D string) and the higher chord partial is open E string, 1^st fret B string, 2^nd fret G string.

And then Esus4 to E7 is the very classical Vsus turn around, open E major voicings work fine for this.

Next is a brief key change to A major:

||Amaj9 |C#-7 |Amaj9 |Emaj |

|Amaj9 |C#-7 |Amaj9 |Esus4 E7 ||

The voicing x06600 for Amaj9 is great here, since it reflects the similar A-9 voicing, and it’s just plain pretty J. C#-7 seems the regular barre chord version, x35343, and same with Esus and E7.

Small note, the A section of this song is fun to solo over with E minor pentatonic! That scale focuses on notes like G and B which are a good fit for the A-9 and Fmaj7#11 chords, since B is both the 9 in Aminor and the #11 in Fmajor. Let your inner Hendrix rip.

6. 落葉 (Falling Leaves)

Falling Leaves is very simple but very dense. It consists of two vamps, both with a few chord voicings layering on top of each other. The first vamp seems to be B-7 and F#-7. But the 2^nd chord might be Dmaj7/F#, voiced as 2x0220.

The 2^nd vamp is more clearly E-7 to B-7.

Honda seems to be finger picking these chords, using open strings wherever possible (usually the B and E strings) and I think he plucks two strings at a time, while skipping a string in between. So I think he’s playing it like A string and G string together, D string and B string together, then E string alone? Or maybe he pairs that with the low E string, or a string before it. I’m not sure. It’s a little wild, very flourishy, dense and vague, but the chords themselves are not out of this world. Standard jazz barre chords seem to do well for this one!

7. 見果てぬ夢 (An Unfinished Dream)

||E- |E-/D# |E-/D | C#-7b5 |

|Cmaj7 |A-7 |A7 |D7 ||

WOOHOO some functional harmony! This is that descending minor progression jam that shows up in a lot of places. Any E minor will do, and keep lowering the E note one fret at a time, and if you want you can voice the C#-7b5 as x3434, but it’s really just E-/C#.

Barre chords and open chords work well here!

Next section is:

||E- |Gmaj7/F# |E- |Gmaj7/F# |

|Amaj |Amaj ||

Chord voicings are a bit specific here. Honda’s playing something like E- as x7998x, coz it transitions well to the awkward Gmaj7/F#, x9978x. It’s such a strange voicing having the F# on top and the G as the highest note, but the bass movement is important in this section because of the Ab diminished and B diminished chords.

Resolves to an open Fmajor7, adding the 9 (3^rd fret of high E string) here and there. I voice this Fmajor as xx3210, because it slides up easily to the Gmajor and Amajor that come next.

Then he bops Gmajor triad, same happy major shape, to A major, then Gmajor…and then…BOOM back to the A section for E minor. What a fake out. The dream almost resolved.

After playing this form a few times through we are unresolved again when Honda ends the song at the top of the form on a mournful E-9. Good golly, Ms. Molly.

8. 夢の果て (The End Of The Dream)

The dream will end and it’s a touch more in key than The Unfinished Dream.

||E- | | | |

|A- | |Fmaj7#11 | |

|Emaj | |Emaj | ||

That’s it, pretty straight forward! All regular open guitar chords work on this one. One note is that he hammers on from open strings almost once per chord. During the E- segments he emphasizes voice leading that goes G, F#, E, F#. Then G, F#, E, for E-, Dmaj, Cmaj7.

During the A- he plays with hammering and pulling off open B string to the first fret B string (B to C). And when he hits that first Emaj he hammers on an open G to first fret G string (G#) to give a bluesy flare. Then play with Esus to Emaj as your heart desires.

9. 急流 (Fast Flowing Stream)

Opening low riff is D, E, F#, A B...A, B, D. D major pentatonic riff, Cool stuff! This one is a breeze, jam between C major7 and Dmajor. It’s fun to solo using both B blues scale and E blues scale. Switch up the scale in the middle of phrases to hear the emphasis the different scales put over the chords!

10. 日没 (Stream)

A play off of Amaj/C# and our old pal Dmaj69. The Amaj/C# is x4x200, the Dmaj69 is xx0200, we’ve seen that one before. He finger picks the high strings in the order of B string, G string, B string, G string, E string, B string.

The 2^nd mode of A major pentatonic works well here for soloing. I like to call it the mode of Falling Leaves ;).

~Fin~

MattandtheJays' Ambience

June 10, 2022

Kenichiro Isoda - プリオシンの浜辺 (With Wave)

June 5, 2022

Shinsuke Honda - Keiryuu

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