Falling Into the Dream (part 1)

I am in the process of writing a series of articles about the songs on my fourth Jamendo album, Points of Departure. This is the first article, about the first song.

“Falling Into the Dream” is the longest song on Points of Departure. It’s also one of my favorites. I have been playing this song — or variations of it — for more than four months. In the next article, I’ll give a little bit of the story behind the music and the song’s history. For this article, I’ll give you enough information and resources to play it yourself (or even play along, using my tracks as background). First, I wrote out sheet music for this song using GNU Lilypond:

Falling Into the Dream (pdf, 340K)

I didn’t include absolutely everything. The melody was interpreted rather broadly (that happens, after I play a song long enough — it “drifts” into a new shape). The synth pad can be pushed by about a 16th notes at times; the piano chords main route of expression is through their changing dynamics. And of course the bass line is wildly embellished on the final track. But the sheet music gives the general idea, the foundation on which the song is built.

In case that’s not enough, as I mentioned in a previous article, I am uploading all of my original tracks to ccMixter. If you are new to music, or learning to play jazz, I highly recommend downloading these tracks and creating your own “Music Minus One” or “Aebersold” backing track. For one thing, this song oscillates between four cool chords with jazzy scales:

• Cm7 (scale of C Dorian, key of F major)
• B9#11 (scale of B Lydian dominant, key of F# melodic minor)
• Ebm7 (scale of Eb Dorian, key of Db major)
• F7/D (scale of D phrygian, key of Bb major –OR– scale of D phrygian natural 13, key C melodic minor).

At about the 5 minute mark, there is also one of my characteristic “composition within a composition” pieces, which I (informally) call “Sleeping in Light”. (I have actually mixed this segment down as the introduction for one of my wife’s podcasts, now, so really it has become a bit more independent.)

Interested? Then here are the tracks. I’m not kidding, you can recreate the entire song using these — maybe even improve on it. Certainly I’m not the one to sing the lyrics. (In my mind, I hear this being performed by someone like David Bowie). Follow the links:

• ccMixter – Falling Into the Dream (1 of 7: bass and percussion) — also includes the sheet music, and the percussion in MIDI and Hydrogen formats.
• ccMixter – Falling Into the Dream (2 of 7: Darkpad)
• ccMixter – Falling Into the Dream (3 of 7: Lead Guitar)
• ccMixter – Falling Into the Dream (4 of 7: Piano)
• ccMixter – Falling Into the Dream (5 of 7: Resopad)
• ccMixter – Falling Into the Dream (6 of 7: Subtlepad)
• ccMixter – Falling Into the Dream (7 of 7: Trem Guitar)