Three Cool Mice
Cliff
arrangement. The whole thing is four note chords played on the top
strings.
Still having a bit of trouble getting my fingers around the quicker
changes. Should I drop a few chord tones and play some parts with
alternate single notes or do I just need to play cleaner and more
smoothly?
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=598068&songID=4414531
Nothing too serious going on here as your be able to tell when you hear
the tune.
Cliff
Lumpy
> ...Still having a bit of trouble getting my
> fingers around the quicker changes. Should I
> drop a few chord tones and play some parts with
> alternate single notes or do I just need to play
> cleaner and more smoothly?
>
<http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=598068&songID=4414531>
I suggest experimenting with the former.
Try and put more focus on the melody. The chord
tones are accompaniment. If we play a complete chord
with EVERY melody note, it can get too busy. Like an
auto arranged harmony with one of those antares units.
We don't HAVE to hear all 3 or 4 notes of every chord
on EVERY beat, every note. Play just the root/bass plus
the melody on some notes. Play just the melody and nothing
else on some. Not on several in a row, but just on one note
here and there.
Example - (Letters above lyrics are melody NOTES not CHORDS)
G C C B A B C G G
(They) all ran af - ter the far - mer's wife
You've currently got it harmonized on EVERY note.
ie there's a chord on every note/lyric syllable.
Consider experimenting with something like -
n c n c n n c c c
G C C B A B C G G
(They) all ran af - ter the far - mer's wife
letters above (n/c) indicate either
n=note or c=chord.
You're an orchestra now. Bass, drums, comping
instrument (piano) plus melody instrument (wind
instrument like sax). Those 4 band members play
at YOUR direction. All at once is probably too
busy. Tell some of them to tone it down.
Make sure the bass and drums have the beat nailed.
Lumpy
--
You Played on Lawrence Welk?
Yes but no blue notes. Just blue hairs.
www.lumpyguitar.net
Cliff
Hi Lumpy
Thanks very much for your reply
They say start with something simple that you know well - hence the
choice of tune :-)
I got the harmonising ideas from a book on jazz guitar which suggested
the close voiced four note chord approach. I really like the sound of
the jazz chords / substitutions but as you say it's too busy if you
harmonise every melody note.
I would appriciate it if you could give me a few tips on bass lines.
Regular root note and alternate bass lines are obvious but how do you
approach a looser less regular bass line. Are there any rules that one
should try to stick to or, is it just a case of if it sounds good and
sets a groove then it is good. Should the bass line stick mainly to
root notes and fifths or can you also use thirds, sevenths etc.
Sorry about all the questions but I've heard your arrangements and like
your contempory and accessable style of playing. It takes fingerstyle
beyond the traditional rags and blues styles but still keeps it within
the boundaries of popular music.
Cheers, Cliff
Lumpy
> They say start with something simple that
> you know well - hence the
> choice of tune :-)
I think using a seemingly simple tune is a great
idea for chord malody. The complexity in CMel lies
in the harmonizing, not in the complexity of the
melody. The listener is fascinated by the sound
of the "orchestra" coming from your single
instrument, not by the wild melody.
> I would appriciate it if you could give me a few
> tips on bass lines. Regular root note and alternate
> bass lines are obvious but how do you approach a
> looser less regular bass line...
> ... Should the bass line stick mainly to
> root notes and fifths or can you also
> use thirds, sevenths etc.
My approach is something like...
Start with the melody. Typically, but not always,
we'd put that in the soprano voice (highest).
Then find a desirable bass note. We're trying
to define a chord here so think of which chord
tones you want/need at this point in the arrangement.
Soprano/Root and Bass/Root will suggest very strongly
a chord on that root note, obviously. If you're in the
key of C Maj and the soprano and bass both play, we'll
probably hear C Maj, even without the other notes
of the chord.
Sop/5th, Bass/Root will probably do the same.
Sop/3rd, Bass/Root suggests minor, of course.
Yada, yada, yada. All of those are root in the bass.
Whenever we give a note to the bass that is NOT the
root, there is a sense of tension. That's not a bad
thing. Tension and repose are what western music is
based on. But if we keep the bass OFF of the root
for too long, the tension doesn't resolve.
Example with the first three notes of the song.
The letters above the lyrics are the sopranos.
The letters below the lyrics are the bassos.
I'm going to assume the implied chords here
are C G C. You could assume the first chord
is Dm7 or FMaj7. But for purposes of my
examples it's in straight chords C G C -
1st way:
E D C
Three Blind Mice
G G C
That first way is with the bass always playing
the root.
2nd way:
E D C
Three Blind Mice
E(low) B G
That second way is with the bass never playing
the root. Bass is playing 3rd - 3rd - 5th.
The second way comes across to the listener as
more tense or un-resolved.
3rd way:
E D C
Three Blind Mice
B F B
Third way is the bass playing M7 - m7 - M7.
Very tense. Putting the 7th, Maj or min, in the
bass works when you're passing from one chord
to another but a chord doesn't stand alone very
settled with the 7th (third inversion chord)
on the bottom. The third pair of notes B and C
are particularly tense. The interval is a
flat 9th (or augmented octave). Pull the
octave difference out of that interval
and you have two notes a half step apart.
That interval is very tense.
4th way:
E D C
Three Blind Mice
G F E
Fourth way is the bass playing 5th - m7 - 3rd.
In this case, the 7th is in the bass on the second
chord, but it's used to move from the first chord
to the third chord. It probably sounds a little
more settled - less tense. So we've allowed the
bassos to sing the 7th, but only as a passing
note between the more harmonic tones of
the 5th and the 3rd.
This last one, however, introduces a new caution.
Parallel movement. Any time you have two voices
moving in parallel for more than 2 notes, it
attracts attention. You can do it deliberately
to attract attention (Smoke on the Water) or
you can avoid it if that section sticks out
too much. Whichever two voices are moving
in parallel will tend to obscure the other
two voices. Parallel 5ths and parallel octaves
are particularly attention getting.
So there are a lot of possibilities. The melody
note is typically pre-defined and we usually put
it in the sopranos. So that eliminates a lot of
the choices. Next thing I choose is the bass note.
Pick how tense I want it to sound and then find
the note.
I haven't even begun to deal with the tenors and
contraltos yet. I want to define the outside two
voices first, then fill in the middle with the
remaining chord tones. OR don't fill it in if I'm
trying to reduce the "wall of sound" at that point
in the arrangement.
Lumpy
--
You were the "OPERATION" game voice?
Yes. Take out wrenched ankle.
www.lumpyvoice.com
Cliff
Thanks Lumpy, this is brilliant.
For some reason I'm OK with a melody line because that's fixed and
fairly obvious, I'm happy enough with chords and harmonising 'cause
after a lot of playing and reading the basics of using tension and
chord subs has sunk in but, for some reason I couldn't get my head
around bass lines.
I'm gonna print off your post a reread it a few times but, I can see
now that there are a lot more possibilities than I have allowed myself
to use.
Last night I rearrange my original Three Blind Mice into a basic 3/4
time with bass,chord,chord accompanyment and melody on top. Using all
the original chord voicings it came together a lot more quickly that I
expected, proably because it's a very easy tune. The difference is
amazing. I've now got seperate bass, seperate two note chords with a
melody on top. The chords go up to three note when the melody falls
above them and the bass notes are mainly played as pinches with the
melody.
The thing that surprised me was, the feel of the original four note
chords has not been lost. I can still hear maj7, min7 etc even though
the chord tones are not all played at once. In fact I think the
harmonies show more clearly than the original four note chords.
Thanks once again for your help. I think it was the little reashoring
push I needed to get me onto the next level.
Cheers Cliff
Lumpy
> Thanks Lumpy, this is brilliant.
Naw, just some stuff I thought up.
Might be totally wrong..;-)
I think that what I like to keep in mind
that whenever you're playing more than TWO
notes, you're playing MORE intervals.
CM7 chord, for example.
C E G B
You're playing the obvious intervals of
C E G B
M3 m3 M3
but you're also playing
C E G B
| P5 |
| M7 |
| P5 |
And when you start inverting the chord
you come up with some different intervals.
C G B E
| M6 |
|P4|
That Major 6th is an odd interval. We don't
typically think of an M6 in a triad. It's
the first interval in the NBC theme. The
perfect 4th is also an interval that we
don't typically think of in western triads.
Invert the chord to
B C G E
|m2| |M6|
That minor 2nd is very tense. Second in tension
only to the tritone.
If we remove one of the chord tones the tense intervals
can become stronger and change the flavor of the chord.
C G B E with the C removed becomes
G B E which is an Em chord.
B E C - Besides an inverted CM7 without the 5th,
that three notes could be a rootless Am9 or an Em(#5)
or probably several others, depending on the
chord heard just before and after it. It's
the second chord in the "James Bond Progression".
Here's another one. G7 plain old dominant chord.
G B D F
The killer interval between the B and the F is
the dreaded Augmented 4th or diminished 5th,
the devil's interval, intervalis diablos. It's
the most tense interval in western music.
There's also a minor 7th interval and TWO m3rd's
in that chord. All of those are tense. That's why
the dom 7th chord wants to lead to the tonic chord so
strongly. C F G7......if you don't resolve
to C again, the listener loses sleep and you
don't get the panties.
G B D F
| aug4 |
| m7 |
| m3|m3 |
The textbook normal resolution of that Aug4/dim5
(aka the tritone) is inward. The B resolves to C,
the F resolves to E.
But start moving chord tones around and leaving some
out and you change things in the ear of the listener.
Drop the G out of it, for example, and you get
B D F the chord built on the 7th degree of the Maj scale.
That's the "half diminished chord" that we rarely play.
It has TWO minor 3rd intervals and ONE dim 5th interval.
All of the intervals are tense.
For an experiment, play something in the key of C.
Any time you come to what SHOULD be a G7 chord, substitute
just the tritone interval of B-F. Or try it with the
half dim chord of B-D-F. Plug it in here and there.
Not every time, but once in a while when you want
a little more tension.
Take it one step further. G9 chord
G B D F A
Start dropping the root out of that chord and you get
B D F A = Bm7(b5) or B half dim 7
Take it all the way to a G13 chord -
G B D F A C E (G) (B)
| GM |
| Bhdim |
| Dm |
| FM |
| Am |
| CM |
| Em |
Recognize all those chords? It's all the triads
formed from the scale degrees of the C Maj scale.
Rearrange the notes and you come out with -
C D E F G A B, the C Major scale. On a piano,
you could play a G13 chord with a stick. Just
cover all the notes from C to B. (It's been done,
don't bother recording it to get famous).
Pretty complex and academic. Are we supposed to think
of all this stuff while we're soloing and improvising?
Some players claim they do. I frankly don't believe them.
I think some jazz prima donnas claim that they do just
because they think it's cool to be an intellectual.
For me personally, I think like a choir. I move each
chord tone up or down a small interval to the chord
tone of the next chord.
But I probably do think a little more academically
when I'm arranging on paper. But even then, I have
to "prove it" by playing or singing it. I have a
piano and guitar at my arranging desk so I can
really simply test what I'm writing.
As long as my mind is wandering...
You COULD come up with great arrangements and
compositions by the "chimps typing shakespeare"
method. You know that old line about "if you
put 100 chimps in a room with 100 typewriters
for 100 years, eventually they would type
shakespeare". Composing could be the same way.
There's only about 40 notes we can play on the
guitar. Pick one. Then pick a second one. You
have a 1 in 40 chance of that second one being
the one that sounds good.
Knowing a bit of the theory about which note
to pick just makes the process quicker.
I could be totally wrong. After all, I don't center
my thumb on the back of the neck.
Cliff
I started to look more at the intervals in chords after a previous
post, in which you mentioned the dom7 chord contains a b5th interval.
All this extra info really takes that thinking to another level.
I've read a lot of teach yourself books over the years but, nothing
beats hearing how someone, who plays the way you'd like to, approaches
using that theory stuff. Without a bit of external input I'm often left
thinking "is this the right approach for the style I'm trying to play".
Thanks for all the pointers, just give me a few years and then I may be
back for more.
Cheers, Cliff
P.S. Don't worry about the thumb thing, know ones perfect :-)
thostetler
> I could be totally wrong. After all, I don't center
> my thumb on the back of the neck.
Yeah but if you use it to grab the 6 string, it does kinda point toward the
nut(s).