Sunday, November 16, 2014

5. Your Cool



OK, so the tune itself concerns itself with the fleeting and ridiculous nature of hipness, but there's also something else going on here.  Or rather, there's something missing.  If you listen carefully, you'll notice that there aren't any chords.  There are only single lines going here and there over the churning electro beat.  It all began with a tune from my previous album, Instant Classics.  There's a tune on it that has four different independent parts joining in.  I transferred that practice to this album and wrote this tune.  And another.  In total, I wrote four tunes without chords for this album.  Now, I don't mean to say that tonality isn't at work.  No indeed, each tune is in its own key, but without triads getting in the way, there's a lot of melodic freedom that you can work with.  Also when that happens, the tune - and this tune in particular - becomes quite a bit harder to sing, because there few guide tones.  The melodic line, though prominent, is just one of many.  So you just have to learn how it feels in your throat, otherwise it's gonna sound wrong.

Like I said, this is just the first of four songs on this album that don't rely on chords.  I'll point them out as I post them.      

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