Advice on arranging pop songs
f_unde...@hotmail.com
your brains :)
Basically this is about creating a piano version of pop songs. I have
no problem with ones that are based on piano accompaniments
originally. In this case I just copy what I heard. But what do you do
for ones that don't have a clear melodic harmony (for example, bring
me to life by evanescence). I couldn't hear anything other than "drum
beats" with the melody, but I might need better ears. What I do is
just stick a I IV I V left hand arppegios with a right hand melody.
Should I be trying to fit chords for each measure depending on what
the melody is? Or is this a waste of time coz using a standard chord
progression will give the same result anyway?
Marc Sabatella
> Basically this is about creating a piano version of pop songs. I have
> no problem with ones that are based on piano accompaniments
> originally. In this case I just copy what I heard. But what do you do
> for ones that don't have a clear melodic harmony (for example, bring
> me to life by evanescence). I couldn't hear anything other than "drum
> beats" with the melody, but I might need better ears. What I do is
> just stick a I IV I V left hand arppegios with a right hand melody.
> Should I be trying to fit chords for each measure depending on what
> the melody is? Or is this a waste of time coz using a standard chord
> progression will give the same result anyway?
I don't know the song in question. If there are truly no chords in the
original, you might want to just accept that it wasn't meant to be
played as a piano piece. But it is also possible there is something
like a bass riff or drone that you could work into your arrangement.
The melody itself might suggest a harmonic center you could use as a
drone. Or, you *could* try making up your own chords for the song, but
then, you're on your own - there are about as many different ways of
harmonizing a given melody as there are arrangers, and assuming there
weren't chords provided originally, none is inherently more correct than
any other.
--------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
The Outside Shore
Music, art, & educational materials:
http://www.outsideshore.com/
Patrick L.
<f_unde...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Personally, those types of songs I would never bother to learn. My ears
require a strong melody, which, if the chords are not published, are easy
enough to figure out.
I was at a restaurant, and the pianist was accosted by a young man who
requested "innagoddavita", by Iron Butterfly.
Needless to say, the pianist did not honor the request.
Some songs will never meant for a piano :)
Patrick
ptooner
> requested "innagoddavita", by Iron Butterfly.
>
> Needless to say, the pianist did not honor the request.
>
> Some songs will never meant for a piano :)
>
>
> Patrick
>
>
acoustic shows (just voice and acoustic guitar) and some joker requested
Inna Gada Davita (I don't know how to spell it either)
Gerry
f_unde...@hotmail.com
> requested "innagoddavita", by Iron Butterfly.
> Some songs will never meant for a piano :)
I totally agree, but I don't know what genre you'd put in songs never
meant for piano. In my mind, as long as the piece has some sort of
melody, it can be played on the piano. It won't sound the same, coz
the piano version will invariably be "softer" sounding then the heavy
rock one. The only pop music I have trouble imagining being played on
the piano is rap. One could hardly repeat the riff (usually there's
only one) over and over for more than 30 seconds.
Tom Shaw
there is perhaps a question in call rap music but to be politically correct
I guess it is a requirement. I have heard some modern classical music I
wouldn't call music also :-).
TS
<f_unde...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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f_unde...@hotmail.com
> Personally I think the genre for rap, if there is one, would be chant. IMO
> there is perhaps a question in call rap music but to be politically correct
> I guess it is a requirement. I have heard some modern classical music I
> wouldn't call music also :-).
> TS
I have more problem with modern art than modern classical music. At
least when they are playing the music, I'd be able to say, "this is
music", not that I think it's anything musical. Some of the pieces
displayed in tate modern (a modern art museum in london), if it's put
in someone's home, I wouldn't be able to point out that it's supposed
to be a piece of art. For example, a big cubic container made of
steel, scribles on serviettes, or a pile of used cotton balls and
tissues from someone putting make up on.
Tom Shaw
CraigM
> least when they are playing the music, I'd be able to say, "this is
> music", not that I think it's anything musical. Some of the pieces
> displayed in tate modern (a modern art museum in london), if it's put
> in someone's home, I wouldn't be able to point out that it's supposed
> to be a piece of art. For example, a big cubic container made of
> steel, scribles on serviettes, or a pile of used cotton balls and
> tissues from someone putting make up on.
I think you might be missing the point here. The pieces in
contemporary art galleries are not designed to be put in a domestic
environment (the Tate Modern is a regular haunt of mine).
Whilst I'm not quite sure which specific pieces you're referrring to,
but I assume the sort of thing you have in mind is Equivalence #8 by
Carl Andre - aka the pile of bricks. I love this piece for the way in
which it challenges you to confront how you define art or, more
accurately, considser where art resides. To use an analogy: if you
took the Mona Lisa and threw it in a builders' skip, where would the
'art' be? Well, in a skip, obviously. But if you did the same with the
Andre, then where is the art? Well, it isn't anywhere - it's simply
vanished. It is only by displaying the bricks (or whatever) in a
defined space called an art gallery that the object qualifies as art:
once you remove it - whether to a skip or to your own front room -
that description ceases.
The Equivalence pieces date (I think) from the '70s, but similar ideas
are at work in a lot of more recent conceptual art, Tracey Emin's
unmade bed being an obvious example. An Oak Tree by Michael
Craig-Martin (also at the Tate M) is an even more extreme version of
the same idea: it consists of a glass of water on a shelf accompanied
by this text http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/ig206/oak_tree.html .
Is it art? Of course it is - because it can't be anything else.
Whether it's good or bad is a different question...
Tom Shaw
TS
"CraigM" <snowma...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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Thunder9
>"CraigM" <snowma...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:3281cd78.04010...@posting.google.com...
>> f_unde...@hotmail.com wrote in message
>news:<8e4ae4bb.04010...@posting.google.com>...
>> >
>> I think you might be missing the point here. The pieces in
>> contemporary art galleries are not designed to be put in a domestic
>> environment (the Tate Modern is a regular haunt of mine).
>>
>> Whilst I'm not quite sure which specific pieces you're referrring to,
>> but I assume the sort of thing you have in mind is Equivalence #8 by
>> Carl Andre - aka the pile of bricks. I love this piece for the way in
>> which it challenges you to confront how you define art or, more
>> accurately, considser where art resides. To use an analogy: if you
snip...
>Horse shit
>TS
That's art too. : )
Regards,
Thunder9
f_unde...@hotmail.com
> I think you might be missing the point here. The pieces in
> contemporary art galleries are not designed to be put in a domestic
> environment (the Tate Modern is a regular haunt of mine).
Thanks for explaining this to me.
> Whilst I'm not quite sure which specific pieces you're referrring to,
> but I assume the sort of thing you have in mind is Equivalence #8 by
The steel container is part of the collection where the artists
seperated their hand from their art. They drew up tech diagrams some
geometric shapes and employed people to build them. The make up
cottons were with the other pieces that were collections of normal
everyday items piled together. There were another piece in the same
room that's got stuff the artist collected over a long period (20
years?).
> Carl Andre - aka the pile of bricks. I love this piece for the way in
This reminds me of the piece where the artist collects stuff to put in
a shed, then blew the shed up, and now the remnents are hanging in
Tate Modern.
> the same idea: it consists of a glass of water on a shelf accompanied
> by this text http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/ig206/oak_tree.html .
I like the text :)
Marc Sabatella
> meant for piano. In my mind, as long as the piece has some sort of
> melody, it can be played on the piano. It won't sound the same, coz
> the piano version will invariably be "softer" sounding then the heavy
> rock one.
It's one thing to say you can plunk out the melody; it's another to say
you have "arranged" the song for piano. If the original featured, say,
a drum part that accompanied the melody and was really an important part
of the song, any piano arrangement will really suffer for it. If the
tune was nothing but melody and drum, it might have been satisfying in
the original, but will be be extremely lacking in the piano arrangement.
CraigM
Cornelia Parker's Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View
> > Carl Andre - aka the pile of bricks. I love this piece for the way in
> This reminds me of the piece where the artist collects stuff to put in
> a shed, then blew the shed up, and now the remnents are hanging in
> Tate Modern.
Aka Cold, Dark Matter: An Exploded View by Cornelia Parker - this
struck me in an entirely different way than the Carl Andre because
there's so much more detail to look at than in Equivalence #8. What it
seems to be attempting is to recreate the contents of the shed at the
moment of the explosion - a very intricate work, and one of the big
crowd pullers at the Tate.
> > the same idea: it consists of a glass of water on a shelf accompanied
> > by this text http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/ig206/oak_tree.html .
> I like the text :)
Well if you print out the text and put it in a frame next to a glass
of water on a little shelf, you get your own oak tree!
CraigM
> "Tom Shaw" <a000...@airmail.net> wrote:
> >Horse shit
> >TS
>
> That's art too. : )
>
> Regards,
> Thunder9
It puzzles me why modern art (or art in general I suppose) generates
such strong antipathy in people when it doesn't happen with music,
say, or literature. Strange.
And I'm not immediately aware of any actual horse shit in art,
although famously Chris Olifi (who won tyhe Turner Prize in 2001) uses
elephant dung in his paintings. (Apparently he gets it sent over froim
the Zoo in Regent's Park.) There's a terrific painting of his in the
Tate Modern in memoriam to Steven Lawrence including dung. You should
go and have a shufti.
Edward
> > "Tom Shaw" <a000...@airmail.net> wrote:
> > >Horse shit
> > >TS
> >
> > That's art too. : )
> >
> > Regards,
> > Thunder9
>
> It puzzles me why modern art (or art in general I suppose) generates
> such strong antipathy in people when it doesn't happen with music,
> say, or literature. Strange.
Well, if you're referring to so-called Conceptual Art, there is really
no equivalent in music or literature. The "art" of Tracey Emin and
her ilk consists entirely in pulling the wool over the eyes of the
critics, so that all they can see is the sparkling, Imperial raiment.
People are antipathetic to much of modern art because it is
self-evidently lacking in either vision or skill in execution (though
I would exclude the TV potter who won this year's Turner Prize since
he can clearly pot, though whether he is "artist" or "artisan" is a
matter for debate). Damien Hirst can draw and paint and occasionally
chooses to do so - Ms Emin can do neither and only embarrasses herself
and others when she tries to. It is the failure to communicate the
noumenal that irritates the tits off me - surely that is the single
pre-requisite of all art.
Edward
--
The reading group's reading group:
http://www.bookgroup.org.uk
bill turner
"Tom Shaw" <a000...@airmail.net> wrote:
I haven't "fit into" RMMP yet, and this ain't gonna help... ;-)
When I listen to a song like Eminem's "Lose Yourself," I can easily
imagine mapping it to piano. The "riff" as it were is a tension created
by straight eight notes with a bass on the root and a guitar a fifth,
then augmented fifth, above. (Plus some drum tracks but, piano being
percussive, they're easily handled.) What's key is the musical tension,
and though Eminem's arrangement doesn't move around the notes much, as
long as you're maintaining that tension, there's lots of room for
variational development.
The "melody" as it were doesn't exactly consist of pitches, but Eminem
is doing relatively complex polyrhythms imposed on intervals with a
great deal of dynamic expression. The only thing needed is to map
Eminem's intervals onto notes; several blues scales do nicely.
The "hook" or chorus maps directly to notes, and it's sufficiently
distinct that most listeners familiar with the song would quickly
recognize it, even on piano (or accordian for that matter).
If you don't like "Lose Yourself" you *really* won't like it on piano;
but if you do like it, it comes across pretty nicely on the instrument
I've got over here.
Why yes, I *have* played "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" on piano ;-)
Pretty cool, too!
-- bill
f_unde...@hotmail.com
> When I listen to a song like Eminem's "Lose Yourself," I can easily
> imagine mapping it to piano. The "riff" as it were is a tension created
<snip>
> The "melody" as it were doesn't exactly consist of pitches, but Eminem
> is doing relatively complex polyrhythms imposed on intervals with a
> great deal of dynamic expression. The only thing needed is to map
> Eminem's intervals onto notes; several blues scales do nicely.
You are an inspiration! I guess I've never thought of fitting scales
or improvised bits over the rap part because I'm an (amateur)
classical pianist at heart.
> The "hook" or chorus maps directly to notes, and it's sufficiently
> distinct that most listeners familiar with the song would quickly
> recognize it, even on piano (or accordian for that matter).
That's exactly what I aim for. An arrangment that sounds nice and can
be recognised by people who are familiar with the original.
> If you don't like "Lose Yourself" you *really* won't like it on piano;
> but if you do like it, it comes across pretty nicely on the instrument
> I've got over here.
I like most of Eminem's stuff, and lose yourself is among my
favourites.
Marc Sabatella
> It puzzles me why modern art (or art in general I suppose) generates
> such strong antipathy in people when it doesn't happen with music,
> say, or literature.
Sure it does. Lots of people hate John Cage and Anthony Braxton too.
Indeed, it seems to me many people tolerate abstract art more than
atonal music, as long as there is *some* frame of reference for seeing
it as art - like, say, a rectangular frame :-)
CraigM
> > such strong antipathy in people when it doesn't happen with music,
> > say, or literature. Strange.
>
> Well, if you're referring to so-called Conceptual Art, there is really
> no equivalent in music or literature. The "art" of Tracey Emin and
> her ilk consists entirely in pulling the wool over the eyes of the
> critics, so that all they can see is the sparkling, Imperial raiment.
> People are antipathetic to much of modern art because it is
> self-evidently lacking in either vision or skill in execution (though
> I would exclude the TV potter who won this year's Turner Prize since
> he can clearly pot, though whether he is "artist" or "artisan" is a
> matter for debate). Damien Hirst can draw and paint and occasionally
> chooses to do so - Ms Emin can do neither and only embarrasses herself
> and others when she tries to. It is the failure to communicate the
> noumenal that irritates the tits off me - surely that is the single
> pre-requisite of all art.
>
Edward
Two thoughts - not sure who you mean by Tracey Emin's 'ilk', but I
wouldn't tar every contemporary artist with the same brush. I speak as
someone who has actually seen the infamous Unmade Bed and other things
she's done, and I can sympathise with the comments you made. But TE is
not the same as modern art - there's a lot more stuff out there which
is worth giving serious attention. Not least Grayson Perry (the TV
potter). But it's interesting that the tabloids always use Tracey as
the Great British Artist - and I suspect that this is part of the
reason why art is held in such low esteem by the public at large.
And two: not sure what 'so-called Conceptual Art' means, but surely
there is a rough counterpart for music in the work of people like
Karlheinz Stockhausen. Can't say I know his work very well, but there
isn't, I don't think, the same antipathy to music as there is to art.
And I would have thought there is an even bettter art-muisic
readacross in the case of Carl Andre-type minimalism in the music of
Philip Glass, John Adams and Steve Reich. But I don't have any sense
of anti-minimalism as far as music's concerned. And it's certainly
terrific stuff: I remember being blown away when I first heard Reich's
Six Marimbas and Glass's scores for Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi are
fantastic.
CraigM
> "CraigM" <snowma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > It puzzles me why modern art (or art in general I suppose) generates
> > such strong antipathy in people when it doesn't happen with music,
> > say, or literature.
>
> Sure it does. Lots of people hate John Cage and Anthony Braxton too.
> Indeed, it seems to me many people tolerate abstract art more than
> atonal music, as long as there is *some* frame of reference for seeing
> it as art - like, say, a rectangular frame :-)
Marc
Maybe. But when I made a remark about art, the response I got was
'Horse shit'. I wonder if the same would have happened if I'd
mentioned Berio? (I wasn't offended, merely intrigued.) I get the
sense that people are quicker to damn visual art than music where, I
think, there is more acceptance of the legitimacy of differing tastes.
PS: Your website is very impressive!
Marc Sabatella
> Maybe. But when I made a remark about art, the response I got was
> 'Horse shit'. I wonder if the same would have happened if I'd
> mentioned Berio? (I wasn't offended, merely intrigued.)
I'm not familiar with him, but I see musicians like the ones I mentioned
elicit similar reactions all the time.
> PS: Your website is very impressive!
Thanks!