Let It Burn (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 about the third track, Let It Burn.

Today I’m giving you a look behind the scenes.

Many times, I have an idea for a song, a central theme.  I then try to build structures nearby that complement it, providing contrast or support.

All of this takes place in a setting I call a “songframe” (or “skeletune”).  I guess you could say it’s a rough draft.  I do not feel like I have to follow the frame 100%.  Actually, I’m lucky if I follow it 80%.  In the old days, I was a lot more specific on my songframe instructions; I found I ignored them.  So I gave up, and consider anything I write on it as suggestions.  The music takes a form of its own when it is played.

So first, let me present the original songframe (pdf, 32.8 K):

Let It Burn (structure)

If you look at the pdf file above, it’s a printout of a the spreadsheet I used to “block out” the sections of the song.  You can observe several things:

1. The title, with the tempo clearly indicated.  I make it a policy to vary the tempo for each of my songs.  This helps me make sure any new tune “completes the set” on the album I’m working on.  (By the way, 92 is numberwang).
2. Notebook references.  In this case, the settings for any instruments I use on the song will start in Notebook 17, page 22.
3. The time tracker.  Before I discovered tools such as Renoise, this was the only system I had for estimating the length of a song in advance.  I try to make sure a song stays moving, and mapping out the musical landscape before I begin helps with that.
4. Section Letters.  Since I learned to play jazz, I’ve become used to thinking of songs in “lead sheet” form, with lettered section names (A, A’, B, B’, C, in this case) as opposed to the more traditional verse, chorus, bridge and so on.
5. Chords.  This is one of the rare sheets where I was intentionally vague with the chord structures.  If you’re familiar with my other compositions, you know it’s not unusual to find chords like B7 / G# (G# phrygian), Dmaj13 quartal, or Ebmaj7+.  However, here, I’ve gone with simple power chords.

“Let it Burn” was meant to contrast with the second song, “Vale Avis Tenebrica”.  Vale is almost a hymn; Let it Burn is . . . well, we will say unforgiving.  It’s the actual end of the world, not some hypothetical abstraction.  My viewpoint character is Surtr, the fire giant who waits in the south for Ragnarok to begin.  And begin it does . . . in bar 11 of the song.