“Over the Rainbow” is a ballad by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Yip Harburg. It was written for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, in which it was sung by actress Judy Garland in her starring role as Dorothy Gale. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garland’s signature song.
Dedicated to my best friend, Sergio Nabatar Jr aka Jok-Jok, who I have not seen for a long time. This is his favorite song, playing with his ukulele.
Also, dedicated to all peoples looking for a hope and peace in this troubled world.
Bravo Rene. Very touching. So many chords to keep track of. Your lagging vox really has a relaxing feel. This is my second fav song of all time. My first is Louie Armstrong’s It’s a wonderful world. Both classics that give one the chills.
I didn’t think it was possible, but you are getting a little better each song.
Big atta boy on this one
Hi Paul,
Love your comments, every time!
Thank you!
Pls do not hold up on your wonderful feedback.
You inspire me!!!
Your kindness is so much appreciated, and much needed in this world.
Respectfully,
Rene
Hi Andrew,
I am starting to develop some timbre, and I am so happy to hear this from you!!!
Augment chords are super-nice, and Paul seem to think I have many chords, and these augmented can be done in so many places, sounds kinda different, but the same.
Also excellent voice-leading and truly musical.
Love your wonderful comments.
Thank you!!!
Respectfully,
Rene
Beautiful song and splendid performance Rene! Your voice is indeed showing many facets through each song and style, and your voice displays much resonance and soul on this one.
On the technical side - and I think it may be caused by the deep resonance of your voice on some of those notes - I heard some flares of distortion in my left speaker as your crooning reached a crescendo. It’s possible that it’s my speaker, being small computer speakers and not able to handle that deep resonance, but I also wonder if your microphone might have gotten a bit overloaded in those places? I first noticed it at 0:40 when you come in with that first big resonant note, then it seemed to happen at 1:54 and for a little while after that.
I’m curious if you’re able to hear that on your own playback systems, and if anybody else is able to confirm it? Again, it could be my left speaker reacting to some very low frequencies, but I wanted to point it out. That would at least suggest you might want to address some low sub-frequencies in your recordings in cases like this.
I heard the distortion also. In some cases it had a bit of a cool vinyl quality to it, but there are definitely a couple trouble spots.
@ReneAsologuitar I know I’m a fan of yours already and I tend to pat your back pretty routinely, but this version man. wow. This is special. You really need to consider a proper re-do and get this out there on a bigger scale. This was a home run. I realize the IZ version has become the “standard” at this point and captures the island vibe, but I think your version brings back an emotional piece to it that Garland nailed so well. You bring back the want and the longing that this song is truly about. Dang.
What about that note he holds from 1:57 to 2:02…the sky is not even the limit for this dude. He needs a manager. I can’t hear those spots in question…or my wife telling me to take out the garbage…just sayin
Hi Stan,
Thanks for the excellent feedback. Truly appreciate all the wonderful comments, and much especially the distortion.
I will surely check tyhsat out, and maybe turn back my recording levels, just a tad.
You are so appreciated.
Warm regards,
Rene
Thanks for the confirm, Andrew!
I will surely turn back my recording levels to remove distortion possibilities on future recording.
Thank you so much!!!
Rene
Hi holster,
Truly huge compliments, especially coming from you!!!
You are so inspirational, and I am so humbled.
IZ is the standard, and your feedback on “emotional throwback” is simply fantastic.
Thanks and respect to you!!!
Stay well!!!
Rene
Hi Paul,
Love you, Man!!!
You are so kind, Paul.
This song is a special one, and dedicated to my best friend, currently residing in Hobart, Australia.
Shout-out to Sergio aka Joe-jok, and to his family - love and peace to you, my friend!!!
Thanks again - Paul.
Respectfully,
Rene
It may have just been this song, with the Super-Crooning energy of the vocal. I don’t recall hearing it on your other recordings. With awareness, you can turn your head to the side of the mic for louder notes (i.e. “off-axis”), rather than straight on, to minimize the vocal projection and potential mic overload. It might look a little funny on video, but could help the audio (aka “mic technique”). You tend to move around while playing anyway, so you could pretty easily fit the vocal technique into your performance. Or you can turn your recording levels down as you say, which might help.
As Andrew (ColdRoom) said, you could also have a high-pass filter in the signal path somewhere, to minimize the subsonic frequencies. It doesn’t look like your Edwina mic has one built in, and it might be best to focus on your vocal air stream anyway. It looks like your Edwina mic comes with a “Knit Windscreen”, so that might help a little bit, and shouldn’t affect other parts of the performance. I do think it’s more of a mic signal overload situation than ‘airflow’ though, but vocal energy follows airflow.
Hi Stan,
Thanks for the additional recommendations.
I will surely do these things, as they make sense.I
I will investigate my high-pass filter capabilities.
Love the feedback and all the help.
Rene
On my new OneOdio headphones I did not hear any distortion, Rene, but that being said, it is possible your voice doesn’t always do well on lo-fi speakers in spots.
This is one of my favorite performances, my friend. I’d share this with everybody as a top example of your talent and style.
Hi Steve,
I am glad that your “distortion comment” is on the “none” category.
That said, I already lowered my recording inputs, just a tad, and I think I had some improvements.
With all these feedback, I am also thinking that my distortion might be coming from my guitar.
I say that, because on this particular song, I lowered my Taylor All-Koa BTO guitar, yet another fret.
I normally play this Taylor BTO with standard tuning, but lowered to “D”.
But on this Somewhere Over The Rainbow, I tuned it to “Db”.
That is the reason why my guitar might be the distortion culprit.
Thanks for the super nice compliment on this song, I was bit hesitant to cover this song, but my best friend requested this particular song, which is currently recognized as IZ - Israel’s famous ukulele song/version, which he did phenomenally!!!
You are simply awesome, Steve!!!
Rene
