GRABBING AT PARADISE #3- Rolling over
Here it is the last part about SEVENTH HEAVEN music with ken’s and tetsu’s thoughts. With some nice and interesting remarks by tetsu on hyde’s way of singing.
I was surprised as I found so many info on this song. It’s wonderful, of course, but the number of post is increasing rapidly. And I haven’t touched the lyrics yet. I’m still half-way…
ken: I think hyde played the guitar very well! (laughs) It gives you the impression to go on rolling over and over! It rocks! Rolling over and over! Somebody stop it…! No, doesn’t have to! (laughs). I played the guitar aiming at recreating that atmosphere as much as possible. (C)
ken
ken: I think that the basic parts in the demo were quite similar to what we have now. There was also the backing, and everything till the solo. In the demo the guitar sound was rather aggressive, so I thought: “Ah he wants me to play like that?”. It was really cool, so I decided to keep that atmosphere. For this song, more than wondering about the guitar sound, I just followed the demo: “Ah, in this way… Good, lets’ play like that!”. In an aggressive way, with a low barycenter and … an impression of going rolling over and over. (B)
ken: This song was made by hyde, so I tried not to destroy or cut down the parts where hyde managed to surprise me. There were also parts where I thought: “Here I can’t add anything”.
[…] I think he played the guitar very well! (laughs) It gives you the impression to go on rolling over and over! It rocks! Rolling over and over! Somebody stop it…! No, doesn’t have to! (laughs). I played the guitar aiming at recreating that atmosphere as much as possible. When it came to the arrangement, I didn’t say much. yukki did the programming putting there his heart and soul. “How cool!” I thought. I had only the petty idea of adding keyboards. About this, again rather than something in a big scale, I thought it would be cool to have that part going rolling over and over even more. I did nothing special. (C)
ken: If we talk of SEVENTH HEAVEN, in the preproduction I took a lot of time to put keyboards in. “I want to make them sound exactly as I thought”. I had such a strong desire. I think that also hyde and yukki had the same desire. I created the sound making the proper choice without any rush. While I was playing the guitar, I was hoping to be able to play till the end enjoying the rhythm. I tried not to get tired and to register while being fresh.
[…] I could enjoy recording a lot this time. What to say?... we talked a lot, too, you know. (C)
ken: [About L’Arc-en-Ciel’s interesting point] It’s interesting the fact that I can do different things for each song. I myself have the desire to play guitar in different ways. About this song… well, the drum in itself was rough, but yukki added breakbeats to it, so I thought that playing rock chords would be good. (B)
ken: […] Anyhow, this time I’m facing recording wishing to be surprised in my own way. I worked on SEVENTH HEAVEN with the same purpose. […] It’s a frame of mind close to the one I had when we were making “TRUE”: “I want to be surprised” at any rate! I really wanted to be surprised all the time! […] At that time, I had only simply played the guitar for a long time. So when I handled other instruments, I wanted to be surprised. Besides, at that very time, I changed the composition method from the one based on riff to the one based on melody. I wanted to be surprised in that challenge, too. At the time of “TRUE” I felt almost like that. (C)
tetsu
tetsu: [about the demo] I thought: “The guitar has a good sound”, “hyde's good at guitar”. […] I feel it hasn’t changed that much, compared to its present shape. […] Well, it’s not that in the past we hadn't anything of the sort [=a song with a dancing rhythm].
[…] I don't remember [if I gave any suggestion during the arrangement] […] It's not a song that stands out because of the bass. I didn't change anything in particular. (A)
tetsu: I think there was only a problem. Okano-san’s role was not clear this time and I was really bothered. Basically, leaving aside the producer and the arranger, I think that there must be a director of production for all the song, but this time it depended on the song. (C)
tetsu: […] I think that the demos quality was surely high. But in my solo work I made things at the same level, so... I can’t tell any difference between my solo work and work with L’Arc-en-Ciel, or perhaps should I say that I am a person who easily forgets the past (laughs). So when you told me that the quality of L’Arc-en-Ciel’s work has now increased, I thought: “Ah, surely during the past meeting about songs I couldn’t reach this level” (laughs) (C)
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I heard [from other members] that, compared to other works, this time the recording is going on in a relaxing way, the communication is more direct and for some persons the number of takes decreased. What are your impressions?
tetsu: Since the demos were almost complete, it was easy to understand the idea behind them. The actual work was quite quick this time, I think. Also, hyde’s singing improved a lot. His pitch is truly incredible! Compared with the past, the registration of his voice was really quick, I think.
Why?
tetsu: You should ask to hyde, but if you want my opinion, even if it’s only my personal impression (laughs), I think it’s because he has come to sing with a lower volume [of the accompaniment]. It’s my pet theory, but I think that the lower the volume [of the accompaniment] is, the easier to get the right pitch. As for me, I sing with a really low sound, so if I check the volume of my headphones, I get surprised: “Eeh? I’m singing with such a low sound?”. If I sing with a low sound, I can really concentrate, I can hear the sound of other instruments and I can listen to my own voice. So when it’s time to sing a song, it’s easier to get the right pitch. That said, I think that hyde, compared to the past, has lowered the volume of surrounding sounds, too. During my solo, I rehearsed with the karaoke back accompaniment in the studio. There, I turned up the volume of karaoke little by little, searching for the easiest volume to sing with. The more I turned the volume up, the more tone-deaf I was!
Eeh?
tetsu: Even if I was trying to sing with the best pitch…
And with a good feeling.
tetsu: Yes! I thought: “With loud volume, because it’s rock!” (laughs). When I listened to that after having it recorded, it turned out that when I sang with a low volume the pitch was right, while the pitch got out of sync as the volume increased. I didn’t know that, you know. I thought I could sing everything at the same level, but it turned out like that. So I realized that the higher the instruments sound is, the more difficult it is to get the right pitch. I think that if you listen carefully trying to concentrate, you can hear the sound of several instruments better.
This is quite interesting.
tetsu: Well, I don’t know if hyde agrees with that. In the past I heard hyde saying: “I can sing only with loud volume” many times. But he has recently changed that into: “I can sing also with a low sound now”. That’s why I think like that. But if you tell hyde, he may say: “No, it’s not really because of that!”. (laughs) (C)
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(to be continued)
Sources
(A) L’Arc-en-Ciel to drop a “danceable”, powerful new single with different origin!!, CDdata, June 2007
(B) L’Arc-en-Ciel SEVENTH HEAVEN, PATI-PATI June 2007
(C) SEVENTH HEAVEN, L’Arc-en-Ciel WORDS II, April 2010