Help with a Process: Andy??

[Sudara]

Andy!

Here is what I asked you about on the phone the other day! I need a bit of help...

This is a short repetitive tune I have been working on. There is an appregiated chordal figure in the left hand and a melody in the right.

The melody came long after the chordal figure. It has been something that I have whistled for over a year and  just happens to be in the same key as the chordal figure.

This is the melody, which is played slowly and with the eigth notes swung.


I liked this melody, but it it was in 4/4. I wanted to play it over the chordal figure in 7/8 and was having trouble piecing it together. After some fooling around, I ended up cutting the melody down to 7/8 by removing a beat and adjusting each phrase so that they remained evenly spaced as in the original. The end result is that the melody is spaced evenly, but the actual amount of time between each phrase sounds a bit awkward to me. Here is the current version:




Click to listen to the audio of both examples

What do I need help with? Well two things:

1. I want to know if the melody in example 1 can be preserved exactly as is and still fit into the chordal figure in Example 2. Can this happen without it sounding completely odd?? I think I did the math, and the chordal figure is 1.75 times longer than the melody, so it seems like it would be possible...

2. I want to know if Example 2 is notated properly. The melody has been forced into 7/8, but ultimately, can I notate it more appropriately than how it is?

-marko

[ben m.]

bam!  is that notation software server side in MT 3.0?

(what did you use for that mark?  is this a MT first?)


Andy, I think I still have Finale in Santa Fe ... did you want that?  I'll be back that way next week.  I want to put up some real notes, that looks fun.

well, i gotta get the piano out of the bag now!


Ben

[ben m.]

hahaha Great! ... Example 2 sounds cool how it is right now. 

have you tried to multitrack the melody over the 7/8 riff?  and just see where your ear would put the notes?

if i were at this junction, thats what i'd do.  if you can imagine that!

am I allowed to have input in this thread? ... well, I'm curious to see what Andy says.

But I like how the melody fits in their rigidly in Example 2 -- not to say I wouldn't like it if it was spaced out in a different manner, as well.


B

[Sudara]

Bennemy:

a. Of course you are "allowed" to have input!

b. My very first impulse was "multi-track it!" For the first time in awhile I managed to fend off the urge and realize that I wanted to build the song out so that I can actually play it! No computers, just Piano, Pen, Paper. Hypocritical for someone who says written music is dying out, but hey...This is part of an 11 minute mish-mash medley that I play every day, so I wanted to keep it isolated, perhaps...Of course, here I am posting a recording and two computerized score segments....oy.

...ok, this is the real truth:

c. I think I like how it is right now. Originally, I just played the medley by ear (also whatever was easiest on my fingers), but it ended up sounding really disjointed. Maybe I just wanted some actual critisim this time- I want to know if the meledy as originally intended in example 1, comes through in example 2. Does the meledy get lost in the rhythmic flurry? Does it sound hacked in 7/8? Is the meledy catchy at all, or is it a total bore? These are the tender sub-textual questions I have for the ModernThings Composers!

-mark

[arrsuarez]

Mark a couple things.

The melody as played in ex. 2 harmonizes well with the left hand, fits snuggly and doesn't sound forced.  The way it's notated is fine, I think if you consistently subdivide with the pulse of the left hand, (dotted quarter, half) then it's fine, especially when the only who is reading it currently is you! 

However, I noticed you didn't really play ex. 1 as it is written.  The played part is 2 measures of 3 and not swung, thereby sounding a bit more similar to ex.2 than it should.  My only questions is if it is a problem in your mind that this adapted motif is essentially in half-time of the first?

Keep rockin' the abersold voice and the melifluous tunes!

[arrsuarez]

But wait there's more!!

You could try playing ex.1 as written and repeat it 7 times over 8 repetitions of the left hand, I think that might be fun to try, and I thought this piece had at least something  to do with left and right hand independance so this would be a nice addition.

The thing that concerns me most is that ex1 is a variation on the bluesy, swung figure you showed me in PA, right?  Though I think swinging the 7/8 might be tricky/ugly, perhaps you can eventually incorporate the descending chromatic element that is at the end of the blues lick to re-inforce the relationship even more, give it a try!

Helping?  Writing it for you?  Being a jerk?

[Sudara]

Huh!

I never thought about the melody's relationship to the "Drunken Waits" (as benemy calls it) blusey chromatic thing I showed you in Palo Alto, Andy...This melody has been around for awhile, probably stolen from somthing else, as I have just been whistling it mindlessly until i realized I should use it for something. I could throw a reference to Drunken Waits, as the melody in example 2 is basically a teasing G# minor chord figure, and the Drunken Waits song is a teasing G minor figure. Anyway, I tried it out and its sounds good, but its dificult to swing to such a chunky 7/8  accompaniament.

I am going to regret asking this, but how is Example 1 played incorrectly? Should the swung eighth notes actually be dotted-eighth/sixteenth notes? You are right, the notation is solely because i am feeling stupid playing piano without writing any of it out. Writing out what I play is just another way of pressing record (or vise-versa, in the chronological world), and it helps me feel like a musician, despite walking though the notation-world feeling like i am walking through a swamp.

Oh ben, i missed that post about the notation all together....You are going to be upset but....the used program is LOGIC! (duh-duh-dumm!)
Shit, ben, server side notation sounds ingenoius!...I wonder...

-mark

[arrsuarez]

Oh shit!  Busted.

Erg, so I had been listening to this at work, with built-in speakers and a projector clattering in the background, so I could not even hear the faint, yet ever-so orienting click of the metronome in the background.  Take that, the relative down-tempo-ness, the fact that the second two sets of triplets are a little rushed and the fact that I'm an idiot and there you have it.

[Sudara]

WOW!

Double-busted. I admit, I rushed the second set of triplets, but said "close enough for jazz!" and put it up!

out of curiousity, were you hearing it in a different time sig/tempo, or are you just busted?

marko polo

[alec]

Um...I feel kind of like a fool for sneaking into this discussion, as I don't really have much to say that is HELPFUL, but I just thought I'd let you know Mark that I listened to "Example One" and was sort of nodding my head and thinking, "Uh huh..." and then when "Example Two" came on I said out loud, "FUCK!"  I like the sound of the piano A LOT.  (Maybe because I have not been in a room with one for two years?)  But something the little sample was very MARK-ish.  I wish I could sit with you and hear the whole 11 minute mish-mash-medley!

I'll stop now,
Alec