Abandon in Place, part 2
Yesterday, in part 1, gave the background story on “Abandon in Place,” the second track on my new Jamendo album, handmade. Today I’ll talk a bit about the composition itself.
This has a very complex chord progression based on two simple ideas:
- Parallel bass line movement in the first eight bars.
- Pedal bass in the last 4 bars.
Now, in practice, when I put these ideas together, I felt the need to alter the chord series the second time around. Therefore I have two 12 bar units that make up the song. (There’s also a fill in vamp between the four official sections of the song — listen to the drums carefully to hear the change.) Anyway, here are the chords:
| G∆ | Ab∆ | G∆ | F∆ |
| G7 / E | F∆ | G7 / E | D∆ |
| C13 / D | F∆ / D | Bb13 / D | Eb∆ / D |
| G∆ | Ab∆ | G∆ | F∆ |
| G7 / E | F∆ | G7 / E | Dm9 |
| G / Eb | % | G∆ | Eb∆ / D |
The first four bars are a series of major 7th chords (symbolized above with the standard jazz abbreviation, “triangles”). Notice how the bass line goes G – Ab – G – F — half step up, half step down, full step down. This pattern repeats a minor third lower, but I change the chords to G7/E (E phrygian), Fmaj7, and Dmaj7.
The final four bars in the first section are four chords over a pedaled D bass–actually, the chords themselves are not so strange. C13 to Fmaj7 and Bb13 to Ebmaj7 are standard jazz circle-of-fifths type progressions, but take them out of context, then pedal an unusal chord tone, and they sound really exotic and cool.
In the second half, these final four are replaced by a new progression. G/Eb is a slash chord, a G triad over Eb bass — the same thing as Ebmaj7#5 or Ebmaj7+. This is a pleasant but unstable chord, and readily resolves to the tonic Gmaj7. Finally, I repeat the Ebmaj7/D turnaround to the top of the song.
Now, this chord progression took me a while to play and master. I was so happy when I finished recording it that I shared it with a friend of mine, which will be the subject of part 3 (tomorrow’s entry).
