More to the View

This song is in G, the same note with which we started “Small Theories”.

I recently re-discovered a quote from one of my biggest musical influences, John Coltrane, in the “Giant Steps” album mentioned last time: “I'm worried that sometimes what I'm doing sounds like just academic exercises, and I'm trying more and more to make it sound prettier.” I'm certainly not Coltrane, but strangely I could relate to this. These songs have been, and continue to be, experimental, but if they really are music, I believe they should be musical. Not just a collection of notes, but a song.

I used to look out my window every night before going to sleep. Rather than being the same, each day was different; it is always changing. Music, in this way, is the same. Every time a piece is performed, it is played differently. When we are first learning a song, we play it one way, and may struggle through, but the more we play it, the more familiar we become with it, and the easier it is to express.

This is a song of hope. I was playing my guitar one night, trying to comfort myself in the midst of a situation I knew would somehow get better, and this is what came out. It was originally down a half-step, but I moved it up. Sometimes the only thing you can do is play; the only note you bring, is music that must come from somewhere inside. I played this for a few years before I was finally able to transcribe it.

Manuel Obregón, musician and Minister of Culture and Youth of Costa Rica, a country with no military, said in an interview: “Todo el arte debe ser popular, no tiene sentido hacer arte para uno mismo. Yo creo mucho en que el arte tiene que abarcar a los sectores más amplios de las sociedades. Cuanta mayor calidad tenga la cultura que le llegue a las personas mejor es su calidad de vida, mejor es su concepción de lo que le rodea y mejor se relacionan con los demás. Muchos de los problemas nacionales se pueden resolver con cultura y educación.” (http://www.manuelobregon.com/noticias/2010-05-25.php)

I roughly translate this as “All art should be popular, it doesn't make sense to make art for oneself. I believe that art has to embrace the widest sectors of society. The higher the quality the culture has that reaches the people, the better their quality of life, the better their conception of what surrounds them and the better they relate with others. Many national problems can be resolved with culture and education.”

When I read this, I began thinking more about why I began composing, and have continued working with these songs. They may not be popular in the sense of a trend enjoyed by many, but they are what I have to offer, and that is why I am sharing them here. This has been a very personal, perhaps introspective, project, but is it also meant to be shared? What would music, or any art, be if it were not shared?

What if we can't hear music? What might we experience instead? The great Helen Keller, a pacifist like myself, stated: “When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” Even if we can not immediately see – or hear, there is always more to the view.

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnrVJXzaS4

Mixed Bricks

What can I tell you about this song? I mentioned last time that “Puzzle Peace” was like an introduction. That is one option. We can count this off with four beats, then we're in.

 

Why “mixed bricks”? I thought of bricks, building blocks, and wanted to write a song that would emulate them forming a larger structure. The first beat in the first measure is a quarter note rest, but one player from the rhythm section would start off the tune on beat one. Like stacking bricks, an additional musician or part would enter, building up the sound. However, as I continued composing, other ideas came to mind, and I let myself see where they would go.

There are two main sections. The first chord is a Cmaj7, and no key signature is indicated. The roots of the chords in the “A” section use all 12 notes found in western instruments, such as pianos. The type of chord, however, does not fit any specific pattern. As the lead sheet shows, the second measure is on an F#7, followed by a measure split by a Bbmaj7 to a Bbm7. The Asus that follows can be sustained the whole measure, or can go to an A major chord for the second half. The rest of this section incorporates the remaining root notes. After the measure with the D9, the “A” section is played through once more before proceeding to the “B” section.

In jazz, it is common to find chord changes from different keys within the same song. Dave Brubeck's tune “The Duke” is an example of the twelve tone structure, and was partly influential for my writing this piece. John Coltrane's great “Giant Steps” is worth studying, on which there are many other resources investigating the work, so I won't delve into that here.

However this piece may be interpreted, it is always good to have an underlying groove. The melody – and the rhythm – can be played with straight-eighth notes, like in the driving beat behind Jaco Pastorius' composition “Teen Town”.

The “B” section was originally called “Mode Ring”, before that song came together. I decided to combine this with the “A” section – “mixed” with “Bricks”. You'll notice that the “B” section contrasts with the “A” section in that it uses all chords – from the same key (C major), before transitioning to the key of D major, of which it uses the majority of the diatonic chords.

Why was it called “mode ring”? I thought that a composition could cycle through chord changes such that no one mode would feel central. Again, the composing started with this idea, but grew to incorporate others. When we get to the Em7 in the second line of the “B” section, this is shared between the key of C major and D major. The rhythm here is not exactly as written, or, the eighth notes are swung, giving it a different feel. The groove can stay the same, though. Joe Satriani's “Flying in a Blue Dream” is an excellent example of keeping a mode (and groove) constant while changing keys, similar to what is happening in “Mixed Bricks”.

On the first A7, the last eighth note in the measure has both a B and a G. Either can be played, or both, if the instrument allows. The Ebm7b5 is as written, it is not an Ebdim. The Em7 to A7 is a 2-5, as is the Dm7 to G7 that follows. Note that the melody is the same as in the last measure of the “A” section.

Solos are flexible, and after the last repeat of the form, the “B” section can be carried to the Cmaj9#11, or this can be arrived at from the “A” section, owing to the shared melody.

There is one more composition in this set of small theories.

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ujlMwK9IZM

Puzzle Peace

A brief composition, “Puzzle Peace” fits in with this set much like a game-piece. If we consider these first songs as one larger composition, this is a tune that links other sections, or movements, yet is flexible enough such that it can be treated as its own entity.

Our arrangement is quite simple. The guitar arpeggiates the chords, the bass is subtle, though it lends its support in anchoring the changes, and the melody is simple. We decided to voice the melody an octave higher the second time through. The last two measures on the last repeat of the form slow down.

To quickly dissect the structure, you will note that the melody is indeed very simple. It repeats itself, though the changing accompaniment gives it a sense of mobility. The majority of the chords are 2-5 progressions, with the exception of the second line shown here, which makes use of diminished chords. The Bb at the end of this line may be played on the last quarter note of the measure, like the melody note, or may evenly split the measure with the preceding Adim.

While it may sound like a lullaby, the form may be used for additional improvisation. This style may even be abandoned, as the notes would lend themselves well to a 12-bar blues, or swing form, or any interpretation the performer desires.

 

This song will lead us, like a musical introduction, into our next piece....

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDnvvJG5Kl8

Mode Ring

This song might seem a little tricky at first, but hopefully its structure will make sense after reading. “Mode Ring”, like a mood ring, changes. There are three distinct sections in the composition, but they are able to blend into each other.

The introduction is an unaccompanied solo that can be played on a bass (I wrote it on my bass) or guitar, or whichever instrument you like. The first “small theory” we find in this song is a scale I constructed. I wanted to modify the notes of a scale, so I took a key, that of Ab major, and changed a few notes. The Ab remains as the “root”. Next is the Bb, as would be found in a “normal” Ab major scale, and continues with a C natural. The first alteration we encounter is a D natural, which would normally be a Db as the fourth in this key. Eb as a root note is a constant, but the F is raised to an F#, whose enharmonic is Gb. The remaining note, then, is a G natural. It may strike you as strange that there is both a Gb and a G natural in the same key; or, if the Gb is indicated as an F#, can that really be in the same key as a Bb, an Eb and a Gb, with no other “sharp” notes? The naming, as you see, becomes difficult, so we should ignore this problem and use the notes as they appear on a piano, or any other instrument, rather than in writing alone. For the sake of consistency, I will use F# here to better distinguish it from the G. To demonstrate this scale's novelty, using these notes, Ab, Bb, C, D, Eb, F# and G, some of the simpler chords that can be constructed are:


Abmaj7 = Ab + C + Eb + G
Bb7#5 = Bb + D + F# + Ab
Cm7 = C + Eb + G + Bb
D7b5 = D + F# + Ab + C
Ebmaj7 = Eb + G + Bb + D
F#b5 = F# + Bb + C
Gm(maj7) = G + Bb + D + F#


Because of the unusual choice of notes, several other chords can be made. For example, an Ebmaj7 is closer to the Eb7 that would normally occur in the key of Ab, but if we keep the Eb in the root and choose other notes to go with it, we may find: Eb + F# + Bb + C = Ebm6. An Ebm6 chord sounds quite different from an Ebmaj7. Also, the F#b5, the least conventional chord in this case, may also be an F#(#5). It may be a worthwhile exercise to come up with other possible combinations. Compare these to those that would more normally be found in the key of Ab:

Abmaj7 Bbm7 Cm7 Dbmaj7 Eb7 Fm7 Gm7b5

I tend to play this intro in a similar manner each time, but it can certainly be improvised using this new “scale”. This is a lot of discussion for just an introduction, and a loosely defined one at that.

To look at the A and B sections, we will use the lead sheet pictured below. I did not have any useable handwritten transcriptions for this piece, so this computerized copy will have to suffice for now. The introduction is not transcribed; it took me long enough to come up with a way just to visualize the A and B sections.

The end of the introduction, also not pictured here, takes this new Ab scale and starts to shift the piece into the A section. The chord progression of Am7 – Cmaj7 – Bm7 – D9 is directly preceded with the same four bars, though a half step lower (Abm7 – Cbmaj7 – Bbm7 – Db9). The pick-up notes at the end of the first line here mark the start of the real melody of the song. At this point we are now in the key of A minor, or C major. This melody can be repeated as many times as desired, with or without stacked harmonies. The last time the melody itself is played in the A section, the last note should be an A, not the E quarter note depicted here. The following repetition of the Am7 – Cmaj7 – Bm7 – D9 progression can be used for improvisation, or can simply be a segue into the B section. The feel of this A section is more rock, almost funk. If a bass is present, slap style fits well, in my opinion. What we have usually done is to play, as quarter notes, an A, another A an octave higher, a C followed by its octave, a B and its octave, and then a D and its fifth, the same A that is the octave of the first A. Alternatively, the octave of D can be played in place of this last A. Whichever notes the bass player decides on can fill the following two bars of a D9 (or D7) chord.

Eventually, the next part of the melody enters, at the end of the line third from the bottom. One person can play the four bars that follow, minus the top two eighth notes at the end of the second-to-last line; this riff can then be repeated. After the first repetition, a second player can then play the remaining melody notes as another riff, while the first player continues. After these two riffs have been played together for the first time, the bass notes change to a groove that fits the chord changes. Up to this point, the bass line is the same as in the A section. One possible bass line for the B section uses passing tones to approach the Em7 from below and the A7 from above.

Once everyone has joined in the B section, the most appropriate key, perhaps, is that of D major, where Em7 is the 2 chord and A7 is the 5. Our friend Stevie Wonder has made a good example of a 2-5 groove in “I Wish” (by the way, check out his song “Send One Your Love” for a chord progression slightly similar to that of “Mode Ring”'s intro). The B section is a fun place to take solos, which can last until the song's end. We have enjoyed locking into a groove after the solo(s) and then ending the piece on a tremolo'd A7.

Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA_5K2Jljew