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https://soundcloud.com/mark_hayes/the-juniper-tree-2 Official Version!
https://soundcloud.com/mark_hayes/the-juniper-tree Original version, now DEPRECATED

“Two thousand years
Red as blood and white as snow
Bury me under the juniper tree

“Mother she killed me
And father he ate me
And sister she gathered my bones
Buried me under the juniper tree
What a beautiful bird am I”

I wrote this music around 1995 as a song with a story but no words, and have since recast it as various instrumentals. This is my first attempt at rendering it with any kind of vocals, albeit using a prosthetic voice. Some aspects I am very happy with, others less so, but I need to call this a version for now. TIA for any listens and/or thoughts.

Synthetic vocals by Emvoice
Keys and drums by Logic
RealTracks by BIAB
~~465:Bass, Acoustic, Bossa Ev 140
~~522:Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking Ev 120
~~406:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Ev 136

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Here follows a much abbreviated version of the original story by the Brothers Grimm (https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm047.html) which can be a bit wordy. But my intent is for this to be more than a Cliff Notes recap; this is my re-telling. There’s obviously far too much here to try to fit into a song like this, so my lyrics are purely schematic and presume a knowledge of these tragic events.

THE JUNIPER TREE

Long ago, at least two thousand years, there was a man, and there was a woman, and they loved each other dearly. They had no children, but they longed for one.

In front of their house there stood a juniper tree. One day in winter, the woman was standing beneath it, peeling an apple, and she cut her finger, and blood fell onto the snow. “Oh!” said the woman, and cried. She looked at the blood, thinking, “If only I had a child as red as blood and as white as snow." As she said that, she knew it would happen, and she did not cry any more.

In the coming months, the woman grew heavy with a child. One day, she called her husband to her and said, "If I die, bury me beneath the juniper tree." Then she had a little boy as red as blood and as white as snow, and when she saw him, she was so happy, she died. The man buried her beneath the juniper tree.

In time, the man married another woman, and had with her a daughter, Marlene.

When the new wife looked at her daughter, she loved her very much. But when she looked at her stepson, she thought he would always be between her and her husband, and she hated him.

One day, she grew very angry with the boy. She told him to get something from a large chest, and when he looked inside, she slammed the lid on his neck, cutting off his head.

She put his head back on his body and tied a scarf around the neck, then called her daughter in and told her to box the boy’s ears for being lazy. When Marlene did, the head fell back off, into the chest.

Marlene said, "Oh, mother, I have knocked my brother's head off!”

"Marlene," said the woman, "what have you done? Be quiet and don't let anyone know. It cannot be helped now. We will cook him into stew."

Then the woman took the little boy and chopped him into pieces, put him into the pot, and cooked him into stew. Marlene stood by, crying and crying, and all her tears fell into the pot, and they did not need any salt.

Then the man came home, and sat down at the table and said, "Where is my son?" The woman served him a large dish of stew, and Marlene cried and could not stop. The man said, “This food is delicious. Give me more. You two shall have none of it." And he ate and ate, throwing the bones under the table, until he had finished it all.

Marlene gathered all the bones and tied them in a silk scarf, then carried them outside, crying tears of blood. She laid them down beneath the juniper tree, and after she had put them there, she did not cry any more.

Then a mist began to rise from the juniper tree, and in the center of this mist it burned like a fire, and a beautiful bird flew out of the fire, singing magnificently, with fine red and green feathers, a neck like pure gold, and eyes which shone like stars in his head. The bird flew high into the air, and when it was gone, the juniper tree was just as it had been before, and the scarf with the bones was no longer there.

Then the bird flew away and lit on a goldsmith's house, and began to sing a song:

My mother, she killed me
My father, he ate me
My sister, she gathered my bones
Buried me under the juniper tree
La la la, what a beautiful bird am I

"Bird," said the goldsmith, "how beautifully you sing! Sing that again for me."

"No," said the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing. Give me a gold chain, and then I will sing it again for you."

So the goldsmith gave the bird a gold chain, and the bird sang his song again.

Hearing it this time, a shoemaker ran out.

“Bird," said the shoemaker, "how beautifully you sing! Sing that again for me."

"No," said the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing. Give me a pair of shoes, and then I will sing it again for you."

So the shoemaker found a pair of red shoes, and the bird came and took them, then sang his song again.

When he had finished he flew away, in his right claw the chain, and in his left claw the shoes. He flew far away to a mill, and sat on a linden tree, near which millers were working, and sang his song. One by one, the millers all stopped working.

“Bird," said one miller, "how beautifully you sing! Sing that again for us.”

"No," said the bird, "I do not sing twice for nothing. Give me the millstone, and then I will sing it again for you.”

Then the bird came down, and twenty millers took a beam and lifted the stone up. The bird stuck his neck through the hole and put the stone on as if it were a collar, then flew to the tree again, and sang. When he was finished, he spread his wings, in his right claw the chain, in his left claw the shoes, and around his neck the millstone, and flew back to the family’s home.

The man, the woman, and Marlene were sitting at the table.

The man said, "I feel so contented. I am so happy."

"Not I," said the woman, "I feel uneasy, as if a bad storm were coming."

Marlene just sat and cried. She held a handkerchief before her eyes and cried until it was wet clear through.

Then the bird seated itself on the juniper tree, and sang:

“My mother, she killed me...”

The woman stopped her ears and shut her eyes, not wanting to see or hear, but there was a roaring in her ears like the fiercest storm, and her eyes burned and flashed like lightning.

“My father, he ate me…”

"Oh!” said the man, "that is a beautiful bird. He is singing so splendidly, and the sun is shining so warmly, and it smells like pure cinnamon."

“My sister, she gathered my bones…”

The man said, "I am going out. I must see the bird up close."

"Oh, don't go," said the woman, "I feel as if the whole house were shaking and on fire."

But the man went out and looked at the bird.

“Buried me under the juniper tree… La la la, what a beautiful bird am I!”

With this, the bird dropped the golden chain, and it fell right around the man's neck, where it fit beautifully. The man went in and said, "Just look what a beautiful bird that is, and what a beautiful golden chain he has given me."

Then the bird threw the shoes down to Marlene. She put on the new red shoes and danced and leaped into the house. "Oh," she said, "I was so sad when I went out and now I am so contented. That is a splendid bird."

"No," said the woman, jumping to her feet and with her hair standing up like flames of fire, "I feel as if the world were coming to an end. But I too will go out and see if it makes me feel better."

As she went out the door, crash! The bird threw the millstone down onto her head, and it crushed her to death.

The father and Marlene heard and went out. Smoke and flames were rising from the place, and when that was over, the little boy was standing there. He took his father and Marlene by the hand, and all three were very happy, and they went into the house, sat down at the table, and ate.

Quite a write!

This AI vocal stuff seems to be catching on.

Hi, Mark.

I've not heard that story in a while - fun read.

Muscially interesting, and a cool arrangement! I enjoyed the listen.

That's a lot of compression, and the vocals are buried in the mix in some spots. That is, you've got a lot of instruments in the same frequency, so the clarity could be better.

My go-to tool when I'm too lazy to properly carve out space with EQ is Trackspacer, which regularly goes on sale. It basically performs ducking - reducing the volume of one track based on the volume of another track - but uses EQ bands, so the pumping is less obvious. That helps keep the vocals from being buried by other instruments.

Anyway, neat version of your song - I'm glad you were finally able to attach some lyrics to the instrumental after all this time!

Thanks, David!

I looked at Trackspacer and will definitely check out the demo. Like, right now, actually; I just downloaded the installer, and will specifically see what it can do for this piece. Though I do believe Izotope's Nectar (or is it Neutron?) can do something similar, and I already paid for that. =8^)

Hi Mark,

What a beautiful song this is!
And these synthetic vocals sound so well these days.
Cool!

Rob and Anne-Marie

Indeed, at this point I am very annoyed by that version and am working on another.

I think the vocals are pretty much OK, but to my ear there's something VERY wrong with those RealTrack guitars. Solo, they sound great, but in the mix they dry up into a tinny rattle that reminds me of someone shaking an aspirin bottle. It's actually a striking psychoacoustic phenomenon, how degraded they wind up sounding. I have to figure that out. I may invoke SPECTRALAYERS.

I'll be back, my impulse to upload prematurely is under control now. I did try out Trackspacer and totally appreciate its value, though not necessarily here. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks so much for listening, folks. I may try to come up with more Grimm-based songs, now that I have a voice of sorts.

A pretty sound that attracts the ear. Vocals are child like but getting there. Overall, I liked it a lot when you throw the story element into the mix.

A classic example of dark hidden in light.
the synthetic voice suit the song well.
You own assessment of the backing - in terms of EQ overlap and masking is enough for you to get on with.
I really like this song and look forward to updates.

A very good write, Mark. Yes, one you could reshape for many years in many versions. The AI voices sound really good. Quite the story and wonderful interpretation. I'll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite writers, rayc: "I really like this song and look forward to updates."

Nice work Mark.
Synth voices seem to have come along way in a very short time. The keys sounded great.
I also enjoyed reading the tale behind the song.
I liked, but don't necessarily agree with, your comment about the guitars: "but in the mix they dry up into a tinny rattle that reminds me of someone shaking an aspirin bottle".
Cheers,
Mike

TuneMonger, Rayc, Marty, Mike, I am so very grateful for your time and thoughts!!

TuneMonger: I’m glad you liked the story aspect, it really does loom large in my feelings about this piece. I guess I would have left it well enough alone as an instrumental if not.

Rayc: “A classic example of dark hidden in light” – oh, yes yes yes indeed. This tale is DARK, but the main lyric is “la la la”, and I really like that. It’s pretty twisted, I just hope it isn’t taken for mere lyrical laziness on my part.

Marty: I am honored by your interest in an update and should have one shortly. I’m close to the point now where I’m running out of things I think I can improve on my own.

Mike: I once used an aspirin bottle as a shaker on an old old old recording, totally ruining that section of the recording, and I guess I’m still traumatized by the memory.

If anyone’s curious, here’s the original recording from 1995. The piece was created using ConcertWare on a Macintosh SE/30 (or maybe it was a Centris or something by then) driving a Yamaha PSS-680. This recording was the all-at-once audio output of that multitimbral keyboard. It may sound cheesy now, but in its day, the ability to do this was absolutely incredible to me, a dream come true.

https://soundcloud.com/mark_hayes/the-juniper-tree-1995

PROGRAM NOTE: The cymbal crashing at 2:30 was specifically intended to represent the millstone crashing down onto the wicked stepmother. But I don't think I'm going to preserve this particular bit of programicity.

UPDATED VERSION: https://soundcloud.com/mark_hayes/the-juniper-tree-2

I've tried to rebalance everything with focus on bringing out the two guitars in the second part. Mainly I thinned the MIDI mix, deleting cloned piano parts, changing excessive octave-tripled passages into more reasonable octave-doubled passages, and dropping the Logic Drummer track. But many other changes as well, including tweaks to the lyrics, and much effort put into getting the final seconds right.

I'm not sure how well I've addressed the masking problems mentioned with the original, but this does sound good now in my own head. No more rattling aspirins! Of course, suggestions about how to get it to sound good in OTHER people's heads are again more than welcome.

Thanks again to all.

Mark