Sandakan, Music, and Whiskey for the listeners!

Good day all, Mike here! For our first blog post I will be giving you a few updates and a peek into some behind the scenes production.

What a week it has been! I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to a few good days off this weekend. Although, I do need to put up a fence...so there is that. If you have anything better planned this weekend, let me know in the comments. Surely putting up a fence is a low bar and I expect my plans are easily beaten.

On to Sandakan. Episode 19 is written and ready for recording. Sam and I will be doing that on Saturday night if you are in the US or Sunday morning for our Australian friends out there. We have a special guest as well. Warwick, creator and host of the Australian Military History Podcast, will be returning for another great episode with us. We are excited for that. It will release on Wednesday December 7th so be on the lookout.

If you are curious about the photo for this blog, good! The instrument pictured is one of my favorites and it is called an erhu. The erhu is a Chinese two-stringed instrument played with a bow and in the West is often referred to as the Chinese fiddle. Exact dates for its creation are unknown but there are earlier instruments similar to the erhu dating back to the Tang Dynasty. We are talking the 600's CE. Why is it pictured and relevant? You might hear an erhu in episode 19 behind some dialogue, so keep an ear out. I was working on creating some musical fillers and backing tracks and figured an East Asian instrument was appropriate given our topic for the episode. After that I had to go with the erhu out of my personal appreciation for it.

I chose a very simple Japanese chord progression to match up with themes for the upcoming episode. The IV⁷–V⁷–iii⁷–vi progression, also known as the royal road progression, Ōdō shinkō or koakuma chord progression, is a common chord progression within contemporary Japanese pop music. When I paired it with an erhu and slowed it to a tempo of 70 beats per minute it created a somber melody that is well suited with the episode's topic. I hope you all enjoy hearing it next week.

If you have never heard erhu music, then definitely listen to some. You will not be disappointed. It has a beautiful tone and can be played to sound like a human voice, birds, and even horses. It truly is a unique and curious instrument. If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, you may know the song 'Concerning Hobbits'. The stringed instrument playing the melody of this song is an erhu.

It is almost 5 o'clock on a Friday and there is hockey on tonight. It is a good day, friends. Enjoy your weekends and I will say cheers to you all when I sip my whiskey this evening.

Check out Warwick's podcast by clicking this text!