"Ta-Ke" (Japanese word meaning Bamboo) is the first song I composed and produced by using BIAB a couple of years ago. Its lyrics is based on the Japanese famous poem "Ta-Ke" by Sakutarou Hagiwara, but I modified the part of the second verse that has irregular structure and does not fit to the melody as it is. I uploaded it to Youtube with the video I made then, and it has been played more than 1000 times which is my highest record so far. This time I remixed it and reproduced the new version. The female voice in the song was made by using "Sinsy vocal synthesizer and generator" integrated into BIAB.

The first verse of the poem describes the sensitivity or delicacy of the bamboos underground such as their thin roots and fine hairs, whereas the second verse describes the strength or dynamism of the bamboos over the ground.

I hope you like it.

https://soundcloud.com/hirokata1121/ta-ke

********** Summary ************
Key: C Tempo: 60
Style: Two MIDI styles
PNOMOOD2.STY (PianoMood2 - Gentle Soundtrack S)
LULABY34.STY (Lullaby, Slow waltz)
Instruments: D-PRO
DX Tines
RGC Godin In Tremon
Full Strings (big)

Oh wow Hiroshik, this is beautiful. Incredible what they do today with vocals synths.

Mike B.

This is a beautiful song. So haunting. Beautiful vocal. Loved it

Hi HiroshiK, Great work on this! I really enjoyed the poetry behind this. Love the DX tines! Keep it up!

Hauntingly pleasant.

No doubt a very traditional song, and beautifully presented.

Beautiful in every aspect!
(Like all your songs).

Rob & Anne-Marie

Hiroshi,

Very nice. Enjoyed the listen.

Hiroshi

Lovely piece great use of the vocal synth.

Peter

Hauntingly beautiful!

Your scores are always super and you have mastered the vocal synth. This makes for a great mix!

Two thumbs up.

Mike,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you like my song.

For my original version of "Ta-Ke", I used Sinsy as the vocal synthesizer and the voice of Yoko. After that, I have been using the vocaloid and the voice of Mew. For this new version, I initially used the vocaloid Mew, but I thought the voice of Yoko would match the song better, so I switched back to Sinsy. I found the quality of generated voices were improved a lot in more than two years and much less work was necessary to get them. Now I am satisfied with it.

Hiroshi

Scott,

Thank you. I am glad you like it.

Hiroshi

Joe,

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you like my song and enjoyed the poetry as well. (You understand Japanese!) I like the DX Tines, too.

Hiroshi

Thank you for your comment. I am glad you like my song.

Yes, I think it may be categorized as a Japanese traditional song.

Hiroshi

Hiroshi,

As others have already observed, this is beautifully haunting. You've done an excellent job creating it. I especially like Sinsy. The electronic vocals really enhance the atmosphere that your melody and your arrangement develop.

Very nice indeed.

All the best,
Noel

I was very impressed with your sinsy voice.

Loved the music.

On my speakers at least, the vocal was kind of shrill in a few places. Like it was digitally distorting. It lost it's mellow sound in numerous places.

Aside from that, this was cool.

My wife hates...I mean HATES bamboo... the plant.

Rob & Anne-Marie,

Thank you. Your comment always encourages me.

Hiroshi

floyd,

Thank you. I am glad you enjoyed this song.

Hiroshi

Peter,

Thank you for your comment. As I wrote earlier, I believe Yoko's voice perfectly matches this song.

Hiroshi

Mario,

Thank you for your comment. It encouraged me a lot.

I think, in most cases, the songs with the vocal move the listeners much more than the instrumental songs. Unfortunately, I do not have any female singers around me, so I have to use the vocal synth. (I like the female voice much better than the male voice.)

Hiroshi

Noel,

Thank you for your kind comment. I was encouraged a lot.

Yes, it was a great idea that I had chosen Sinsy-Yoko as the female vocal for this song. It perfectly matched it.

Hiroshi

Marty,

Thank you for your comment. My efforts to get the best result from Sinsy and tune it up further paid off well.

Hiroshi

Thank you for your comment and pointing out the distortion issues.

I have listened to the vocal sound carefully several times using my headphones. When I used the headphone of the headset type, I could notice what you pointed out. When I used the high-grade headphone with reasonable input level, I could not notice it. With the higher input level, however, some distortion may start happening. From these results, I presume the voice might cause "high frequency distortion" or "soprano distortion" on some audio systems. Maybe I should have used some filtering or level control for the high frequency to avoid the issues.

Hiroshi

Hiroshik,

Lovely music!
I agree that you are taking the use of Sinsy to a new level and the production is up to your usual high standard.
It would be nice to see a translation of the poetry ( I`m a bamboo fan).

Robert

I have found that my note includes the wrong information. I would like to correct it. The correction is shown in bold typeface.

"Ta-Ke" (Japanese word meaning Bamboo) is the first song I composed and produced by using BIAB a couple of years ago. Its lyrics is based on the Japanese famous poem "Ta-Ke" by Sakutarou Hagiwara, but I modified the parts that do not fit to the melody because of its irregularity. I uploaded it to Youtube with the video I made then (https://youtu.be/zkKkhWvkqtQ), and it has been played more than 1000 times which is my highest record so far. This time I remixed it and reproduced the new version. The female voice in the song was made by using "Sinsy vocal synthesizer and generator" integrated into BIAB.

This is simply beautiful! What a wonderful and relaxing listen. We love traditional Asian music with elements of contemporary sounds. So beautiful ... thank you for the listen!

Alan & Di

Robert,

Thank you for your kind comment. I am glad you like the "Ta-Ke" song.

As for the English translation, I have found the web page that includes it (for the original poet, of course).

http://www.vianegativa.us/2008/12/bamboo-two-poems-by-hagiwara-sakutaro/

The following is the excerpt from it.

In the shining earth the bamboo grows,
the blue-green bamboo grows,
underground the roots of bamboo grow,
roots that gradually taper off
with fine hairs sprouting from their tips,
hazy fine hairs faintly growing,
faintly trembling.

In the adversarial earth the bamboo grows,
aboveground the sharp bamboo grows,
perfectly straight bamboo grows,
with its rigid joints going rin, rin,
at the base of the blue sky bamboo grows,
bamboo, bamboo, bamboo grows.

Hiroshi

Alan & Di,

Thank you for your kind comment. I am very happy that my new song was well accepted by you who are familiar with traditional Asian music with elements of contemporary sounds.

Hiroshi

"The first verse of the poem describes the sensitivity or delicacy of the bamboos underground such as their thin roots and fine hairs, whereas the second verse describes the strength or dynamism of the bamboos over the ground."

We pondered that...delicacy supporting strength. Very nice thoughts.

It's all been said. You put together excellent productions that never disappoint in their sheer power and beauty.

We enjoyed it!

J&B

J&B,

Thank you for your thoughtful comment.　First of all, I am glad you like my song and enjoyed it. As always, I was encouraged a lot.

As for the interpretation of the poem, it seems to be considered that it reflected the mental structure of Sakutarou (the author) himself. That being said, I think your interpretation makes some sense.

Hiroshi

Very nice Hiroshi!! I'm not usually a fan of synthetic vocals but this works very well on this song. Lovely melody and arrangement! Take care. Greg

Hi Greg,

Thank you for your kind comment. I am glad you like my new song.
Yes, I think the Sinsy vocal (Yoko) suits this song very well.

Hiroshi