I keep crowing about how we have a new bass player in Arcati Crisis, but what I have been slightly mum on is that Jake the Bassman is also a formidable singer. He was the other baritone in our erstwhile professional acappella group, and one of my go-to companions for heading out to open mic nights.
Gina and I being the hardcore harmony freebasing addicts that we are, it was only a matter of time until we used Jake to upgrade one of our duets to three-part harmony.
Behold, our first successful attempt on “Better,” with harmony as arranged by Arcati Crisis with the help of my dear wife, E:
When I first started learning to play music I had a free guitar tab notation program, and I would spend endless hours entering my favorite songs into it. In many cases I was notating them in ways that would be unplayable by one, two, or even three guitars.
I didn’t care. I wanted to hear the harmony. I would set the midi patch on “vocal oohs” and pretend that a group of singers were crooning the song back at me. How amazing, I thought, that people could make chords with their voices like I do on my guitar.
(This perhaps explains my obsession with acappella groups.)
That version of Peter barely knew what notes were portrayed on a treble clef, and couldn’t hit one if his life depended on it.
Fifteen years later, three part harmony, exactly like my speakers sang to me back in the 90s.
I love making past versions of me proud to be grown up :)