A couple of weeks ago, I laid down the basis of a new song. I wasn't too happy at first with the chord sequence to the first half of the verse as it is very similar to several other songs of mine, but at least the second half was more interesting. I sequenced a couple of verses along with an instrumental section that includes a modulation. Of course, no words.
Then along comes David Bennett Piano with another of his videos giving examples of common chord progressions. On the basis of this, I thought to myself that I could add a chorus to the song that would add some variety, especially as almost none of my songs have a chorus. I used a variation of one of the progressions that DBP talked about: I IV iv V (in the key of D, D G Bm A). I repeated this twice, then added another IV V at the end, just to make the sequence slightly less four square.
I then sat at the piano, played those chords a few times and came up with a melody that is centered on the note A. This note appears naturally in the D and A chords; it's the seventh over Bm, which is fairly regular, but over the G chord it becomes a ninth - somewhat unusual. I then added this chorus to the sequenced song and listened to it. I added an arpeggio'd guitar part for the chorus that really boosts the entire song, so much so that I now enjoy listening to it.
A few days later, I had a delicious thought: why not create an instrumental coda, or as it is known in the trade, a hidden track? This would begin with the same chorus tune then morph into 'the wedding reel'. In order to do this, I would, of course, need the notes to the reel. After some false leads, I found the tune in sheet music form.
Yesterday I 'typed' in the notes and today I worked on the arrangement: the important thing was finding the right sounds that didn't saturate the aural space. I think that the arrangement still needs a little work, to be thinned out some more.
* It turns out that the Fairport song does not use this progression, so I'm safe on that count.
No comments:
Post a Comment