Mu-ling…
OK, I’ll come straight out with it – it’s not been a particularly productive week. In fact, since I finished the rough guitar sketches for my last post I haven’t done much at all in the studio. So, in order to keep my promise to you, and to myself, I sat down at my DAW this very warm Sunday afternoon as recorded a very early version of “MuMajor”, initially discussed in So What Have I Been Working On? Part I.
As previously mentioned, while this piece was originally conceived on a guitar, it quickly moved to the piano and in this recording you get both parts – the piano (Native Instruments lovely and sonorous Alicia’s Keys which is fast becoming my go-to writing piano) panned somewhat to the left and the guitar (my Fender Thinline Telecaster, through Amplitube 3 and EchoBoy) panned to the right. The melody line is currently being played by LA Scoring Strings First Chair Viola, an instrument for which I have a great deal of love and this slow and weeping melody sits perfectly within its range.
The opening sequence is the previously discussed AμMajor, followed by a DμMinor… One of the key characteristics of the μminor is that it contains a m2 interval between the E and the F, a dissonance in anyone’s book! It’s highlighted in the melody but the piano actually plays the tritone DEF in one block on occasion, just to unsettle the listener!
After the two μ chords are repeated we have a straight G and an F9 before repeating.
The “chorus” section is much more straightforward – an A, A7sus4, D, Dm (that Major-minor chord change that I love so much, once again), back to the A, G, D/F# and back to the beginning of the μ-section again…
The piece needs a middle-8, and some further development and orchestration, but I’m pretty pleased with how this quick recording has come out – it’s often that my “chord salad” ideas fall short but I feel this one is still on its feet and reaching out for the safety of the :: WARNING! Highly Mangled Metaphor Removed For Public Safety Reasons ::
Anyhow, let me know what you think!