Extreme Jazz Harmony with only voice 'My one and only love'

My arrangement of "My one and only love" with only voice

How I came upon arranging this piece.

I started writing this piece as “homework” for one of the vocal classes when I was still in college.(I think it was just 4 part harmony at that time) Along with that I was studying big band writing at the time and thought, what will it sound like if I do big band-ish harmony with voice?

Big band harmony is often written over 4octaves, unfortunately I don’t have that much range, so I had work within about 3octaves and a bit. Also being a male singer the lower interval limit(concept that defines the lowest pitch which intervals can be heard without sounding muddy) was such a drag forcing me to create harmony in higher positions. I encountered many issues such as pitch control, timing/rhythmic issues, harmonic issues, and so on, but probably the most challenging was tone character and volume control.

-Tone/volume control-
Every voice and wind/brass instrument has their own comfort range that’s
1. Too low to have control over tone character/volume,
2. Low but able to control tone/volume.
3. Middle, comfortable and has good control, blends very well.
4. High, but still able to control tone/volume
5. Very high. Low control in tone/vol. Usually loud and bright tone.
(This will vary depending on the players skill.)
Obviously, the more comfortable=more control in tone/vol=blends way better.
ex) Sing/playing the lowest note in fortissimo/pianissimo
ex) Sing/play the highest note in pianissimo.
This is usually difficult. (Bari saxes, maybe not you)

So in big band harmony, the writer will usually write so that the player/s will feel comfortable.

But.....for me, I only have one voice.

Approaching my lowest note(B2-Db2)my voice gradually gets darker and airier from brassy chest, due to the vocal folds ability of staying together.
(I had to record right after I got up to sing the lowest notes)

Approaching my high chest(around F4-G4) my voice gradually gets brighter and brassier and louder. Very difficult to sing soft and quiet in chesty tone. Easily produced in heady voice, but sounds really soft not much volume control.

Approaching my highest(Eb5-G5), my tone goes to exclusively brassy and loud. Singing pianissimo in this range is almost impossible(for me)

So I had to work around these certain tone/volume limitations my voice had, in-order to create a blended voice.

This is just a demo of what I will be doing in the future, and I’m not totally satisfied with the outcome of the piece. But I did learn a whole lot of what works and the what nots.
I’m still in the journey of exploration as all musicians/artists probably are.

It would be such a pleasure if this piece was entertaining to you, inspired you, surprised you, touched you, anything that gave you a positive emotion.

Finally, I personally want to give a great big Thank You to Mike Holober, my Teacher back in college. His concept and technique of creating harmony was clear and crisp, so inspiring, and just so damn beautiful.

Thank you for listening.
Tak Iwasaki

[Polaris]

The voicing of "wings of spring" is so amazing. I had to listen to that at least 100 times. Looking forward to listening and learning more of your work. Thank you for sharing your talent.

[dalithopaera]

How do you conceptualize singing those chromatic lines in your head while keeping intonation intact?