VII

“VII” is the working title for my seventh Jamendo album.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here on WordPress.  About a months ago, I finished my series of articles about my sixth album, In Unexpected Places.  I thought it was time to check in and report on some of my upcoming projects.

FAWM 2010?

In about a month, I’ll be participating in February Album Writing Month (FAWM).  I’ve done it twice before, in 2007 and 2009.  Four of my songs from FAWM 2009 made it all the way to In Unexpected Places.

VII Composition

During the past month, I’ve been working on my chordal composition skills.  My goal for VII is to focus on harmony and unusual chord structures.

A major influence in my work is Jazz chord-scale theory.  I’ve been expanding my horizons beyond the traditional major, minor, and seventh structures.

Classical Harmonic Relations

I found a lot of resources in studying classical harmony and voice leading.  Although this is an enormous subject, I’ve found it’s usually possible to take what I find out of the traditional (and often obscure) notation and transform it into more modern Jazz type voicings.

For example: there is a chord that sometimes precedes a dominant called a “Neapolitan Sixth.”

Now, my definition of a “sixth” chord is something like C6 = C E G A or C69 = C E A D G.

However, the “classic” definition of sixth chords is actually based on the intervals found in chord inversions.  That is, because the C triad = C E G, inverting the chord to E G C gives E in the bass, G a minor third up, and C a minor sixth up.

Therefore, the chord I would call C/E is actually a “sixth chord” in classical harmony!

For this reason, the definition of “Neapolitan Sixth” looks a bit obscure to the jazz musician.  Typically it goes something like this: the first inversion of the major triad built on the lowered second degree of the scale.

Got that?

Let’s try it again.  Say the scale is C major.  The second degree is D.  Lower it by a half step, and it becomes Db.  OK, now turn Db into a major triad, or Db F Ab.  Finally, put this chord into first inversion, like so:

Classical "Neapolitan" chord, modern interpretation. Click image to enlarge.

Therefore, the “Neapolitan Sixth” is nothing more than something we see all the time in Jazz — a chord related to G7 by tritone substitution.  The difference here is that in classical composition, the exact voicing of the chord is important — we would call this chord Db/F.  The F in the bass establishes a smooth, one step transition to the bass G of the next chord.

Harmonic Major Chords

Without going into too much detail, my work in pitch class sets led me to recognize four seven tone scales.

First is the traditional Major scale, which I usually abbreviate with a capital delta.  Therefore, C Major = C∆ = C D E F G A B C.  This is the famous “Do Re Mi”, etc. scale, the one just about every Western musician is familiar with.

Second is the Jazz Minor scale, based on the ascending melodic minor.  I use this scale enough that I generally abbreviate it with the lower case Greek letter “mu” (for minor), as in Cµ = C Jazz Minor = C D Eb F G A B C.

[For an excellent discussion and explanation of these two scales and how they relate to Jazz chords, I always recommend the best book on the subject, Mark Levine's Jazz Theory Book.]

Beyond these two Jazz type scales, there is one more pitch class set.  Unlike the first two, it is not symmetrical.  That is, if the major scale is inverted, it is still a major scale; if the jazz minor is inverted, it is still a jazz minor scale.  However, when the Harmonic Minor Scale is inverted, it becomes the Harmonic Major Scale:

• C Harmonic Minor: C D Eb F G Ab B C
• C Harmonic Major: C D E F G Ab B C

Although the Harmonic Minor saw a lot of play early in classical music, it never really saw much use in Jazz.  I use it to give a Spanish sound to chords such as E7 (using C Harmonic Minor, the scale contains F, the b9, and Ab, the b13, so the chord is effectively E7b9b13).

Despite being only a single alteration away from the major scale, C Harmonic Major definitely sounds alien and exotic — dark, I’d say.  Here are a few chords that make use of Harmonic Major harmony: [Note: these are best played using a grand piano or Rhodes type voicing.  A 23-foot Steinway would be best, but you know ...    ]

Some chords from the Harmonic Major scale. Click image to enlarge.

Augmented Modal Chords

Finally, I’ve been making use of a lot of the synthetic scales, that is, scales based on repeating interval patterns rather than overtones and diatonic series.  For example:

• The Diminished Scale, an 8-tone scale based on the repeating unit of step / half-step.  Cdim, for instance, I spell C D Eb F Gb G# A B C.
• The Whole Tone Scale, a highly symmetric 6-tone scale, based on repeating steps.  Cwt I would spell as C D E F# G# Bb C.  Because of its symmetry, this scale is sometimes difficult to compose with.
• Finally, the six tone Augmented Scale, based on the repeating unit minor 3rd / half-step.  Caug would be spelled C D# E G Ab B C.

I make a lot of use of the diminished scale, but certainly one of the more interesting finds is the augmented scale.  I’ve used this scale in compositions as far back as La vie sous la mer — it’s in the chorus to the song “Werewolf” (you can hear the exact part starting at the 41 second mark.)

At any rate, there is a hidden relationship between this scale and the so called “Coltrane Changes.”  Without getting into too much theory, notice that these two chords — derived from the augmented scale — actually have nice voice leading, even though they aren’t traditional chords:

Chords derived from the Augmented scale. Click image to enlarge.

The chord C/B has the C triad, and Ab/E has the Ab triad.  When C goes to Ab, the C remains the same, the E half-steps down to Eb, and the G half-steps up to Ab.  This pattern of contrary motion can be found throughout the series C – E – Ab, the basis tones of the augmented scale.

Finally . . .

I will check in on this blog periodically, but my focus in January will be composition.  In February, I will be doing FAWM.

And sometime after that . . . hopefully . . . album #7!

Alone on the Tracks: guitar and bass

This is the final in a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  Today I discuss the fourteenth song, “Alone on the Tracks.”

It’s finally here.  Today, I complete the article series for In Unexpected Places.

“Alone on the Tracks” began life as one of my “Rhythm Method” Prototypes (P24, which is hosted on SoundClick, so you can listen and compare to the finished product.)

Today I’m going to explain a bit about the guitar and bass part for this song.  Before I get started, though, I need to clear up a notational issue . . . .

The 3-Side vs. the “Invisible Barline”

In traditional Western music, standard notation puts an “invisible barline” in the middle of each bar.  This isn’t exactly convenient for Latin or world beat music.  Below, I’ve shown three parts.  On top is the 3-side of the son clave; the bottom two parts are the guitar and bass for the third bar of “Part A” (next section).  With the “invisible bar line”, the second note of the clave (and the second note of the bass) look rather awkward, being written as an eighth tied to a quarter note:

3-side with "Invisible Barline."

The solution?  Ditch the invisible bar line.  The notation looks much cleaner:

3-side without "Invisible Barline."

I bring this up because the 3-side beat is the basis for this entire composition.  “Alone on the Tracks” features a guitar part that provides the essential rhythm for the entire song.  In contrast, on this one, I pulled waaay back on the bass, mostly hitting whole notes.

Part A

The repeating four bar unit in the “A” sections of “Alone on the Tracks” goes like this:

Arrangement for Part A of "Alone on the Tracks." Click image to enlarge.

As far as the bass is concerned, the only departure from whole notes is in the third bar.  However, an important feature of this song is not so much the specific notes, but the timbre.

The guitar is phased, and so tends to occupy a lot of the higher frequencies.  In contrast, although I am playing fairly high on the bass, I have voiced it so it creates a deep, rich fundamental note.  (If you’re into these sort of things, I call this setup my “Jon Evans” sound, after Tori Amos’ bass player from back in the day.)  I chose an amp and bass setting so that the lower frequencies are strong, almost monolithic, and the higher harmonics are very sparse.

Part B

The “B” sections in the song go like this:

Arrangement for Part B of "Alone on the Tracks." Click image to enlarge.

Here, the chords mostly stick to variations of D dorian — but then, there’s that surprise C at the turnaround.  Although it’s not necessarily a tense chord, the key to its sound is it’s voicing — it is the same dyad I used for Dm7, just moved up two frets (D – F to E – G).  The most important element of the “turnaround” is, in this case, the higher pitch, not a particular chord scale theory.  Theory is only good up to a point!

Part C

Finally, since this is my last article in the series, I decided to write out the entire guitar part for Part C.  This section only gets played once, as a break in the middle of the song.  I didn’t write out the bass, since, as before, it’s mostly just root whole notes.  All of the action here is in this series of 3-side arpeggios:

Arrangement for Part C of "Alone on the Tracks." Click image to enlarge.

Heartbeat of the Desert: the composition

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the thirteenth track, “Heartbeat of the Desert.”

This song was actually written and recorded for FAWM 2009.  At the time, I’d just completed my fifth Jamendo album, Martian Winter, which was composed exclusively of songs in unusual time signatures.  For FAWM, then, I had decided to try a change of pace — writing songs in standard meters!

Now, from time to time in FAWM, there are weekly “challenges”: specific song goals that are put out there to spur the creativity of the participants.  For example, one year, the challenge was to write a song using only two chords.  In FAWM 2009, one of the challenges was, ironically . . . write a song with a time signature change!

So I did, and the result was “Heartbeat of the Desert.”  Although I’d been writing composition articles for each of the songs I produced for FAWM, on this one, I never had the time.  (I posted a short article explaining the reasons.)  Well, here at last are some of the details.

Structure

This song has two main parts:

• Part A in 11/8.  There is really only one “chord” here, and I’d call it either Dm7/B or Bø. (See my list of Chord Abbreviations for an explanation.)  However, the key to this section is the arrangement, which I’ll explain in more detail below.
• Part B in 8/8.  Fairly straightforward: there is a repeating chord motif, Bm7 – C#ø – D∆#11 – C#ø.

Voicings for Part A

Although there is only one “chord” in Part A, it is really more of a modal piece.  I’ve established the chord and created movement using Drop 2 Voicings for each chord, combined with a suitable octatonic scale.  I’ll show the arrangement first, then explain what these terms mean.

Bass and synthesizer arrangement for "Heartbeat of the Desert." Click the image above for a larger version.

Octatonic Scales

There are only 7 notes in the traditional major, minor, and jazz minor scales.  This creates a problem in sequences of 8 notes; the strategy generally is to have chordal tones on the strong beats, and non-chordal tones on the weak beats.

An octatonic scale solves this by adding one passing note to the standard scale.  (Probably the greatest exponent of this is David Baker, in his series How to Play Bebop.)  For example, if the desired chord is Dm7, the chordal tones are D – F – A – C.  If I write the D dorian mode as a descending series over strong and weak beats (with the strong beats in bold), I get D – E – F – G – A – B – C – D – E – F – . . . , for instance.  By the fifth strong beat in the series, I’m already “off the track.”  If I add in a single passing note — for example, C# — notice how the series gets put back “on track”: D – E – F – G – A – B – C – C# – D – E – F – . . . .

Drop 2 Voicings

Octatonic scales work phenomenally well with Drop 2 voicings, expanding the idea from two dimensional (pitch, time) to three dimensional (voice, pitch, time).  In the arrangement above, notice that each voice follows a descending contour in the chosen octatonic scale (Dm7 + C#).  Further, each voice makes a Drop 2 chord:  start with a standard inversion, say D-F-A-C, and drop the 2nd voice to the bottom.  The result is A – D – F – C.

Above, all the “on beat” chords are in the Drop 2 series for Dm7.  The “off beat” chords (3 part of the 8:3 groove in 11/8) are made up of the “leftovers” in this octatonic scale: E, G, B, C#.  This can be read as either Em6, or, better yet, as a rootless voicing for A9.  In other words, the off beats form a hidden A9 – Dm7 – A9 – Dm7 pattern — a series of V-i’s.

For this reason, the voicings sound very smooth, even though, as you can see, I’ve taken great liberties with the harmonies in the bass line.  One of the inversions looks almost insane: Dm7 / C#.  However, the C# is matching up with the implied A9, not with the Dm7!

Actual Voices

So in short, “Heartbeat of the Desert” was a pretty daring composition.  When I wrote it, it took me a long time to find the right instruments to represent the voices — if the individual voices were too strong, the higher harmonics would clash.  I chose a wide variety of synthesizer voices to play this song.  Some start loud, and diminish; others start soft, and swell.

At the time I wrote it, I never thought it would be on an actual Jamendo album — but the final result was one of the most memorable of FAWM 2009, at least for me.

New Beginnings

The holiday in America is about giving thanks; today, however, I’m marking some new beginnings.

Three years ago today, I started my blog here on WordPress.  I had just released my first album, evolution, on Jamendo. At that time, Jamendo required me to post an identifying piece of code “on my website” in order to get my album published.  As of November 25, 2006, I had no official website.  So I landed here!

And despite this being a sort of internet “shotgun wedding”, the relationship has prospered.  I’ve found WordPress to be an excellent host — and I’ve come to enjoy blogging.  Today, I have six albums available on Jamendo.  I’ve had more than 5,000 downloads and 50,000 total plays.  I look at the results of my leap of faith, sometimes, and find it all hard to believe.

So today, let me direct you to someone else who’s recently made a similar leap of faith:

Whiparound

(Now available on IndieFlix.)

I first met Dan Valentine, online, back in February of this year.  He and his friend Tony Kekich were making a travel documentary in Australia, and asked for permission to use some of my music.  Not necessary, really–I publish under a Creative Commons by-sa license, meaning it can be used in for-profit works, provided the license terms are followed.  But it was nice of them to ask, and it had the bonus of making me aware of their work . . . which was quite good!

I’ve never had the opportunity to travel.  Heck, as we’ve seen, I can’t even have a summer that’s free of some sort of major life changing event.  But Dan and Tony’s Whiparound series really made me want to visit Australia.  It’s not the touristy places: it’s the type of places I like to go, the off roads, the hidden places.

I do not publish my music for profit.  As I said in my last article, I know that my days on Earth are numbered, and that one day all of this will come to an end.  I want to leave something behind that’s worthwhile.  Maybe, along the way, I want to see that my work has inspired others in some way.

Whiparound was one of those signs.

I’m always looking for more.

One Last, Perfect Sunset: the story

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the twelfth track, “One Last, Perfect Sunset.”

Here I am at 41, and full of regrets.

Now, I’m happy with who I am and what I do — but I’m surrounded by people with ambition.  I’m content to teach middle school science, but sometimes, I realize I could have done anything.  I’m good at mathematics and physics.

But way back, there was a time I sold my dreams for 30 pieces of silver.  That is, I always liked astronomy.  But there’s this one problem: finding a job as an astronomer.  Seems like you either work for NASA — you know, that organization that was once famous for something besides spectacular failures and entrenched bureaucracy — or for a University.  At the university level, as I understand it, you are supposed to abandon the idea of having any other life than work.  I can’t do that.

I chose to be a chemist.  You can always find work as a chemist.

Now I’m a teacher.  You can always find work as a teacher.

Nevertheless, I love astronomy, and I always have.  It all began with the flu . . . .

Star Trek

When I was 6, I lived in Albany, Georgia.  My dad was in the Marine Corps, and we were stationed at the nearby base.  I went to first grade at Mock Road Elementary — my teacher was Dorothy Blair.  (I wrote a song about her on my fourth album, Points of Departure).

Those were very formative years for me.  Unfortunately, I had one serious problem back then: I was sick all the time.  If there were a disease within 100 miles of me, I would get it.  I can remember having to take a bath in ice water to cool down a 108 degree fever one time.  I always had bronchitis.  I even got a staph infection once.

So one time, I had the flu.  I was home, lying on the couch, feeling like crap.  I was watching TV.  There was this show on I’d never seen, called Star Trek.  I can remember the exact episode: “Metamorphosis.”

I was hooked.  That was the moment I became interested in space.

Cosmos

Flash forward from 1974 to 1980.  Cosmos was on PBS.  If anything, this made me even more interested in astronomy.  My family had just discovered the idea of used book stores, and so I was able to get a wide selection of college level books for cheap.  Also, Cosmos (the book version) made astronomy popular enough that the mainstream press started publishing more books along those lines — entry-level advanced science in everyday language.

I still remember most of Cosmos.  But there was one eerie quote that always stuck with me.  I heard it first on the TV show, but here’s a passage from the book on the same topic:

One Last, Perfect Sunset

Billions of years from now, there will be a last perfect day on Earth. Thereafter the Sun will slowly become red and distended, presiding over an Earth sweltering even at the poles . . . . Eventually the oceans will boil, the atmosphere will evaporate away into space and a catastrophe of the most immense proportions imaginable will overtake our planet.

– from Cosmos, by Carl Sagan.

Now you know where the title for this song comes from.  “There will be a last perfect day on Earth.”  I’m imagining that day.  I’ve let you into my world a bit.  The guitar line advances and recedes, foreground to background, clear then distant and echoing.  The world feels exactly like that to me, most days.  But this is a special day: the end of the world.

Or at least the start of the end.  I’ve included a For Further Reading section at the end of this article, so you can learn a bit more of the story.  Short synopsis: as the Sun runs out of fuel, the core collapses, and the outer layers heat and expand.  Since the amount of radiation we receive from the Sun is related to the surface area, the larger Sun will make Earth steadily hotter, until the surface becomes uninhabitable.

By that time, billions of years away, I hope we’ve had enough sense to develop space travel, and found other places to live.  Looking at the world around me, though, I doubt it.  We see clear, immediate problems all around us — and all our politicians do is argue and pose.  One side hates the other so much they’d rather see us all fail to prove their point.

If it’s still this way a million years ago, maybe we deserve to be scorched out of existence.

Middle School Science

Flash forward again, to 2009, now.  I teach 8th grade Physical Science.

I let my students ask questions.  The advantage of being me, a person who has studied science almost all his life, really helps me out in class.  There are some teachers who hate questions, but I encourage them — the more aggravating and puzzling the “What if” question, the better.

Yesterday, we were talking about conservation of energy.  One of my students prefaced her question with something like “I’m sorry to ask a stupid question, but–”  Bad idea!  There are no stupid questions, because this is what she asked: she wanted to know what makes objects have certain colors.

Now, those of you who know any degree of Physics out there probably laughed, because that’s a very famous question — one that destroyed 19th century classical physics and led to the entirely new field of Quantum Mechanics!

I explained what I could of quantum, but I was really proud of having that question pop up in my class.  It made me feel that I was actually making them think.  Imagine, one of my students — asking a question that changed the world!

My Own Sunset

So there are regrets, but there are also joys.  I know a lot of science, and I’ve found the job where having such a broad knowledge base is actually useful.

But now flash back to the summer of 2009.  When I was writing In Unexpected Places, there came a time when I remembered Carl Sagan’s quote: there will be a last perfect day.  Long before the Sun becomes its own funeral pyre, I’ll see my own last day.

I plan on writing music as long as I can, but I know some day, it all has to come to an end.  I plan on being the best teacher I can be, but some day, it all has to end.  There will be a last, perfect musical composition; I will teach a last, perfect class.

And one day, I’ll see that one last, perfect sunset.

For Further Reading (online)

• The Sun’s Death: Sooner Rather than Later? by Adam Frank (Universally Speaking)
• The Sun’s Death by Fraser Cain (Universe Today)
• The Once & Future Sun by Richard W. Pogge (Ohio State)

Tell Me, Madame Fortune Teller: the chords

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the eleventh track, “Tell Me, Madame Fortune Teller.”

This was originally the final song of FAWM 2009.  At the time, I was exhausted.  I’d been writing composition articles for each song as I finished — and I said I’d do it for the 14th — but I never got around to it.

Structure

The song is comprised of four rhythmic and chordal units (A through D), grouped as follows:

(Above, i stands for intro, which is based on pattern D.)  Here are the chords for each section:

Part A

Am7, Bm7	GΔ, Am7	Am7, Bm7	GΔ
Am7, Bm7	GΔ, Am7	Am7, Bm7	F9

Part B

Am7, Bm7	GΔ, Am7	Am7, Bm7	GΔ, Am7
Am7, Bm7	GΔ, Am7	F9	E7#9

Part C

Am7	Bm7	Am7	Bm7
Dm7	Dm7	Am7	Bm7
F13	E7#5#9	F13	E7#5#9

Part D

Am7	Bm7	Am7	Bm7
Am7	Bm7	Am7	Bm7
Am7	Bm7	Am7	Bm7
Am7	Bm7	Am7	F9

Method of Play

The key to this song is the guitar part, the chords.  I’ve shown them below in standard notation and tablature using GNU Lilypond.  What I can’t show is how to play them.

The chords are all played on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th string, and are neither strummed nor picked.  Instead, I am using my fingers to pluck all three strings simultaneously.  (I did something similar on one of my wife’s favorite songs, “It’s Always Raining Somewhere“, from La vie sous la mer.)

Part A chords

Probably the most critical element in creating a chordal line is the voice leading.  Even though F9 isn’t really part of the key — A Dorian, equivalent to G major — the chord comes as no surprise in this line.

Chord voicings for Part A of "Tell Me, Madame Fortune Teller." Click the image above to enlarge.

Part B chords

Here, the F9 is held over a break, and the next chord is E7#9.  If this is thought of as E7alt, then it is merely a tritone subsitution for Bb7, and this can be recognized as a standard V of V transition.  Certainly E7#9 is a good chord for “turning around” into the Am7 chords that follow.

Chord voicings for Part B of "Tell Me, Madame Fortune Teller." Click the image above to enlarge.

Parts C and D

The chords here are fairly wildly improvised, using mostly “t4″ chords from my list of Jazz Guitar Voicings.

A Dream of Crows: the story

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the tenth track, “A Dream of Crows.”

In my last article, I said that I would tell the story behind “A Dream of Crows.”  Certainly, a lot of people tell me they like the name.  A few even catch the van Gogh reference.  However, the true origin of this song is . . . my dogs.

Neri and Nora

I have two big, full size Collies.  Rough Collies, in fact (the fluffy ones).  Neri is the big sister — we got her in 2001 — and Nora is the little sister (from 2002).  Both of them have very distinct personalities: Neri is outgoing and playful, Nora is affectionate but vigilant.  Normally it’s Nora that barks at strange objects and potential dangers.  However . . . .

Neri Hates Crows

I don’t know why, but Neri hates crows.  I mean, really hates crows.  She can be inside the house and hear them squawking outside — she will start running around and barking anyway.  When we lived in Florida, if I opened the door, Neri would shoot out into the yard and scatter them like a bowling ball through a forest of pins.

The New House

Well, in 2008, we moved to Virginia.  This past summer — 2009 — we bought a house here.  Moving is always a strain.  Unfortunately, our move had a lot more stress than the typical move.

There came a time when finally, we had made it: we were in the new house.  So was all our stuff — packed in hundreds of boxes.

The weeks after we moved in were exhausting.  One day, I was moving boxes upstairs to unpack.  At noon, the dogs needed to go out for a walk.  I took them, but when I came back, I was very sleepy.  I don’t normally sleep in the middle of the day, but I’d just been through too much.

The bed was covered up in junk I was unpacking.  I could lie to you and tell you I went to sleep on the couch . . . except we didn’t have a couch back then.  I couldn’t sleep on the floor downstairs or upstairs, because they were covered in boxes in various stages of unpacking.

So I went to sleep on Neri’s dog bed.

Now, those of you saying “eww” don’t realize these are the Cadillacs of dog beds, these nice orthopedic beds we got from Foster & Smith.  The dogs don’t use them much, ironically, preferring to sleep on the floor (go figure).  The cover is machine washable, and we keep them fairly clean.

Well, this time, as soon as I layed down, Neri came and plopped down right beside me.

That was it.  There’s no greater force for sending a person off to sleep than a snoozing dog.

The Dream

While I was sleeping, I had an ominous dream about crows.  I can’t go too much into the details — because, after all, you know the bore at the party that just has to tell you every detail about that weird dream — but it was chilling and spooky.

Not Just My Dream

I woke up because Neri was kicking me.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a dog dream, but they do.  Sometimes they even bark in their sleep.  Well, Neri was not barking, but was dreaming about something pretty hard — she was lying on her side, doing slight motions with her legs that reminded me of galloping.  I’d been the ground, I guess.

Suddenly I was struck by an odd idea: what if she and I had been dreaming the same thing?

It was an odd feeling.  Was she chasing the crows from my dream?

The Prototypes

It was the middle of summer 2009, and the last time I’d released a Jamendo album, it had been 2008 (Martian Winter).  At this time, I didn’t even have internet access anymore.  The move had taken me out of my world, and I was struggling to recover my sense of place in it.

I wanted to work on music, but my days were spent in unpacking, home improvements, settling in.  It would be months before I completed the new “Rhythm Method” prototypes, and months before I would release In Unexpected Places.  At that time, in the middle of that miserable summer, I had nothing.  Music is sometimes the thing that keeps me going, and with my life packed in boxes, it was hard to find my way home.

I did, however, have some CDs I’d burned.  One day, as I was unpacking, I listened to my earlier prototypes (The Periodic Table of the Groove).  I suddenly latched on to two patterns: #34 and #18.  As I mentioned last article, these eventually became “A Dream of Crows.”  The dream had given them meaning.

Neri Really Hates Crows

Flash forward to the beginning of September, 2009.  I wrote an article about the seven songs I’d completed so far for the new album.  “A Dream of Crows” was on that list — but not in its present form.

When I said Neri hates crows, I mean, Neri really hates crows.

See, the first version of that song had some actual crow sounds in it, at the intro, bridge, and ending (I sampled them from Freesound).  Before I release an album, I like to burn it to CD, then listen to it on a number of different stereo systems, just to test the balance and the mix.

I played “A Dream of Crows” on the stereo downstairs . . . .

Big mistake.  Neri went ballistic.  It was the Barkpocalypse.  If the song stayed as it was, I’d never be able to play it in the house.

So, in the first ever decision of its kind, my dog made me remix a track on my album!

A Dream of Crows: the chords

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the tenth track, “A Dream of Crows.”

“A Dream of Crows” started out as two song fragments, older even than my “Rhythm Method” Prototypes.  When I was composing my previous album, Martian Winter, I did a series of prototypes called “The Periodic Table of the Groove.”  There was a lot of good material there, and some of the fragments I meant to come back to later.

The story of how these two parts crystallized into one is a good one, so I’ll write about that next time.  The title “A Dream of Crows” suggests something about its origin.  But today, I want to cover the song structure and chords.

Overall Structure

There are two main parts in this song.  All of the prototypes I created for “The Periodic Table of the Groove” were in odd time signatures — these two parts are actually in different odd time signatures.

• Part A, the “verse”, is in 7/4 swing.  (Technically, I’d call this 33233 7-clave 4:3 swing . . . see my article “Rhythms in Seven.”)
• Part B, the “bridge”, is in 5/4 swing.  (Again, I’d call this by its full name, 2332 5-clave 3:2 swing . . . see my article “Rhythms in Five.”)

Part A (7/4)

The main part of the song is actually a Bluesmorph (as defined in a previous article in this series) — it’s structure can be mapped to the standard blues progression (think minor blues, with some extensions and alterations):

Dbm9	%	%	%
B13#9	%	%	%
Dbm9	%	Em7	%
Eb7#5	%	Dbm9	%

Part B (5/4)

The bridge is probably my favorite part of the song — the part which, to me, suggests dreaming.  It uses the following chord progression:

Abm7	%	BΔ	F#Δ
Abm7	%	EΔ	Ebm7
Abm7	%	BΔ	F#Δ
Abm7	%	EΔ	Ebm7
Db13#11	%	Eb13b9	%

About the Diagrams Below

As I’ve done in previous articles, I’ve given some chord voicing diagrams in the sections below.  However, this time, I had to make a huge simplification:

I want the diagrams to focus on the notes and the voicings.  These songs are written in odd time signatures.  If I included all the correct rhythmic information, they would become much more difficult to understand at a glance.  Therefore, I wrote all the voicings below “as if” they were in 4/4, so I could get away with using clean looking whole notes for each bar.

As usual, the diagrams were prepared with GNU Lilypond 2.12.2

Verse

Below, I’ve taken the chords from Part A and shown the approximate voicing I used for each.

Chord voicings used in the "verse" section of "A Dream of Crows." The rhythms have been simplified for clarity. Click the image above to enlarge.

Probably the most interesting voicing is that mad, mad voicing for B7#9.  I break several “rules” here.  Ordinarily the more traditional music theorists balk at chords with a minor 2nd interval in them . . . not to mention two!  And yet the voicing C## – D# – G# – A represents exactly the color tones of the chord: the #9, the major 3rd, the 13th, and the 7th.

This is a great voicing, but as I said before, voicings of this type won’t work on every keyboard instrument.  A concert grand, yes; a cool electric piano, maybe; a parlor upright, possibly; a Hammond organ set up with a lot of 5th overtones . . . nope.

The Bridge

I used two different types of voicings for the bridge chords, shifting from single handed to two handed.

Single Handed

These are simple enough, but set the stage for what follows.

One handed chord voicings for the bridge of "A Dream of Crows." Rhythms have been simplified for clarity. Click the image above to enlarge.

Two Handed

At the end of the bridge, the song has to “turn around” and go back to the verse with some sort of grand flourish.  I held back on the chords in the first part of the bridge, only to plow through the end with rich, five-note voicings:

Two handed chord voicings for the bridge of "A Dream of Crows." Rhythms have been simplified for clarity. Click the image above to enlarge.

[Note: these voicings should read "D13#11" and "Eb13b9", but I've never been able to get Lilypond to understand that the 13th is particularly important to me -- it always sticks it off on the end, as in "Db7#11add13".  So I simplify the input to remove the clutter.]

These type of voicings are called Upper Structure Triads.  (By the way, as always, I highly recommend Mark Levine’s Jazz Piano Book — it gave me a solid base from which to develop my own chord theories.  Upper Structure Triads were one of the best voicings I learned in that book.)

The basic definition for this type of chord is “A tritone on the left, a triad on the right.”  Here is the analysis of each voicing:

• Db13#11 is voiced as an Eb major triad (Bb – Eb – G) over a B – F tritone.  The B (actually, Cb) and the F are the 7th and 3rd of the chord, the guide tones.  The Eb major triad spells out the color tones — Bb = 13th, Eb = 9th, G = #11th.
• Eb13b9 is voiced as a C major triad (C – E – G) over a Db – G tritone.  Again, the tritone notes are the guide tones for the chord, and the C major triad spells out the color tones — C = 13th, E = b9th, G = restatement of the 3rd.

Step Through This Window: the acoustic guitars

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my sixth Jamendo album, In Unexpected Places.  This is about the ninth track, “Step Through This Window.”

Before In Unexpected Places was published on Jamendo, I sent a preview copy of this song out to a few friends of mine.  It’s one of my favorites on the album, and it has a very subtle feature — the complementary acoustic guitars.  I used a certain technique to get that sound which I’ll describe here.

This song owes a lot to the “folk” tradition, at least in concept.  It’s based on one of my earlier “Rhythm Method” prototypes, P35 (hosted on SoundClick, so you can listen to the original and compare).

Overall Structure

Chord wise, there are really only two parts to this song, “A” and “B”.  The rhythm, pacing, and drum line change throughout, and distinguish each of the key development points.

Part A

The A part is simple — only two chords.  (Quite a departure for me!)  Most of the time, the chords alternate between Em and A2 for 16 bars.  (A2 is my way of writing “A suspended 2nd”, meaning: take an A triad, lose the 3rd, replace it with the 2nd.)

Part B

The eight bar “chorus” is relatively simple as well:

C	Em	C	Em
C	Em	D2	D2

Acoustic Guitar Parts

The important thing to realize about the acoustic guitar part is that there are two guitars playing.  One is played as normal; the other is played with a capo at the 5th fret.  I play the same rhythms on both, but choose different chord voicings on each.  This gives a “natural chorus” sound for the resulting chords.

Below, I’ve given diagrams for each of the guitar voicings using GNU Lilypond.  This is the first time I’ve used Lilypond to make fingering diagrams — pretty easy, really!

Part A

On Guitar 1, I play the standard voicing for Em, and an easy voicing for A2.  The trick here is the complementary line on Guitar 2 — the capo at the 5th fret lets me play a “D” shape and get the sound of G, and an “E” shape to get A.

Acoustic guitar parts for "Step Through this Window." Click image to enlarge.

Why does this work?  At one point, I’m playing Em on one guitar, and G on another.  These chords work together because in total, they spell Em7 (E G B D)!  This is just a huge voicing (extending from that low E to the high 7th fret B).

Part B

I use the same trick on the Em chord in the B part.

Acoustic guitar parts for "Step Through this Window." Click image to enlarge.

Commonalities

Another composition principle for these two voicings is revealed by the top note played for each chord.  Notice:

• Guitar 1 always has the 1st string open “E” as its highest voice.  This establishes a focal point for the progression, a folksy “drone.”
• Guitar 2 always has a descending line within its chordal unit.  For example, in the “A” section Em – A2, the highest note is B, then A.  For the “B” section, the highest note descends as C – B – A.

Ubuntu 9.10, Maxima, and wxMaxima

Continuing on the topic I presented in a previous article:

I’ve encountered my first aggravating problem with Ubuntu 9.10.  It took over a week, so that’s heartening.

The Ubuntu 9.10 version of Maxima (5.17.1, built with GCL 2.6.7 [ . .  somehow! see below]) doesn’t work.  It crashes with a bizarre error whenever it is asked to “solve” anything:

mccosar (1) -> ~
$ /usr/bin/maxima

Maxima 5.17.1 http://maxima.sourceforge.net
Using Lisp GNU Common Lisp (GCL) GCL 2.6.7 (aka GCL)
Distributed under the GNU Public License. See the file COPYING.
Dedicated to the memory of William Schelter.
The function bug_report() provides bug reporting information.
(%i1) solve(x^2 = 4,x);
Universal error handler called recursively (:ERROR NIL
    CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER
    ""
    "Couldn't protect")
Universal error handler called recursively (:ERROR NIL
    CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER
    "" "Couldn't protect")
Maxima encountered a Lisp error:

 Error in CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER [or a callee]:
 Caught fatal error [memory may be damaged]

Automatically continuing.
To reenable the Lisp debugger set *debugger-hook* to nil.

Whoops!  OK, so something’s wrong.  That’s alright, my recent install of Sage includes Maxima 5.19.1 (compiled with an inbuilt ECL 9.8.4) — it works fine on its own, with no errors.

However, when I tried using it with wxMaxima, it wouldn’t work.

I’ll prove this later, but wxMaxima is really worth taking the time to get working right.

Search and Research

Research time.  I compiled my own version of Maxima 5.19.2, the latest and greatest, using SBCL (1.0.29.11.debian).  It worked fine, and was quite speedy!  But still didn’t work with wxMaxima.

OK.  The Ubuntu / Debian version of Maxima was compiled with GCL . . . I set out to do the same.  Problem: the GCL included with Ubuntu 9.10 [somehow!] wasn’t configured with --enable-ansi.  So in turn I tried to compile a new version of GCL . . . .

What a nightmare!  Gnu Common Lisp hasn’t been released since 2005.  I spent an hour trying to configure, reconfigure, update from CVS, and so on.

In the end, phooey.  GCL seems to be a defunct project (and don’t hand me that “there’s a lot of activity in CVS”, because there’s 0, zero, none, nil in terms of actual releases).

So as I mentioned above — how Debian compiled Maxima with GCL in the first place is a total mystery.  They must have a patch file as big as a hard drive partition.

Rethinking the Problem

Up until this point, it hadn’t occurred to me the problem might be in the Ubuntu version of wxMaxima.  In the modern era of computing, it’s relatively rare for a program to have a severe bug, and a program that uses that program to have an equally severe bug.  With tens of thousands of packages out there, the odds of two striking in the same chain are pretty low.

I guess I’m looking at some pretty compelling evidence it can still happen, however

I compiled wxMaxima 0.8.3a from source, and installed into /usr/local.

It worked FINE with the new version of Maxima (the one compiled with SBCL).

wxMaxima

If you haven’t had time to check out the combination of Maxima and wxMaxima — and if you’re even remotely interested in computer algebra systems — this system is a must-see.

Overall, the system reminds me of the Sage notebook (see previous article).  The pages you construct are interactive with the underlying Maxima system, and produce some nicely formatted mathematics.  The website itself has tutorials, which — get this — are downloadable as wxMaxima pages, making them totally interactive.

That alone is a win!  And the system itself is quite intuitive and easy to use.

Enough talk.  Time for a screenshot.  Below, I’m asking Maxima to evaluate a double integral (one of the problems from Tom Apostol’s Calculus, Volume II).  wxMaxima solves the problem exactly — notice it even outputs the answer as a fraction, not a decimal approximation.  However, it doesn’t do too well with formatting the double integral itself, which should read:

Screenshot

wxMaxima demo screenshot. Click image to enlarge.