Songs without Words

I was going to study today, but since it’s a long weekend, it’s the perfect time to write a song.  Plus, I desperately need to practice non-classical writing because of the upcoming second-year show that I’m arranging pieces for (anything from “It’s not easy being green” to “Mo Money Mo Problems”).

I intended originally to write a pop song, inspired by some of ryo/supercell’s writing.  But when I sat down and sketched out an idea, it lent itself better to a more jazzy interpretation.  I’m always interested in the “creative process,” so below is my sketch which consists of the first 12 bars of the piece.  The vocal line begins where it says “VOC,” while the bass and piano patterns are written superimposed above that.  The guitar pattern there was tossed because it sounded bad with the rest of the instruments.  I didn’t mark many chords because they’re pretty straightforward, but the “Bb f#” in the corner refers to the chord progression of the B section (measures 9-12).

The “sw” markings just indicate that those notes need to be swung.  The arrows on the bottom line indicate the rhythm of the accompanying instruments (playing block chords).

You can listen to the song here.  It is just one cycle through A (4) A’ (4) B (8+1) C (8) C’ (8) because I didn’t feel like writing a second iteration through the same material.  I couldn’t get the Garritan instruments to cooperate with MIDI, so I’m afraid this is all MIDI SoftSynth.  In particular, the melody line sounds much better through Garritan (esp. as clarinet or violin), but they did not provide an electric bass instrument.

I’m going to try my absolute hardest to replace this with a Garritan recording …