Composition - The song skeleton

Introduction

We're going to investigate the concept of a song skeleton. In the next few composition videos, we're going to create a song together using the Akousunesis approach. You're welcome to participate in the video comments and I'll possibly use your suggestions in the coming videos.

Modes darkest to brightest

The following table is a list of modes going from darkest to brightest, these might be able to help us in our composition. see Lesson 22.

We're going to introduce common techniques composers use. In my book, "The Secrets To Playing Music By Ear - The Akousunesis Method", I have a list of these, let's look at three of them and see if we can use any in our composition.  I'll explain the list as we go along in the video.
IIM, IIIM and VIM.

Let's begin by choosing a chord progression in the key of C. Let's start in the Aeolian mode (Key of A minor), the first chord will be the VI chord, Am in the key of C.

The song skeleton is going to create a structure for the song, the first thing we want to do is choose our first melody note. These notes may change and evolve as we develop our song. Let's start sad, but how sad? We can determine this by the our choice of lead melody note.

 Am

 2

The high second interval is a very sad sound, let's chose this interval for now, let's look at the table above to see how sad the music will start, Aeolian mode, a nice choice, I didn't want to go too dark, only sad. Time to pick our second chord and lead melody note, both chords and melody note work together to give the music a sense of direction. I'm going to choose the I chord but I'm going to use a common trick and leave the note where it, the 2 interval on Am becomes a 7 on the chord C.

 Am    C

 2     7

Again, I'm going to leave the melody note the same, but I will resolve it down to a 3 on an F.  Sometimes when you right a song skeleton, you might want to include other intervals in the bar because you like the flow and direction of the melody. You will find, once you begin the creation process, Action inspires creativity and creativity inspires more action, before long, you might have a complete melody.

 Am    C     F

 2     7    -5  3

Let's see where we're on the dark-bright table, we ended on the brightest chords, but why does it still sound sad? There are  other factors involved to make a piece of music sound bright,  like the melodic rhythm, the harmonic rhythm in which we haven't added any yet. Because we ended on a brighter chord, let's make it sound brighter by moving to a high 5 on C and a high 1 on F.

 Am    C     F           C       F

 2     7    -5  3        5       1        

Now let's come out of key, but where? There is  a popular location which is use in many pop songs, it's the IIIM. This means, the third chord is Em, we're going to change it to an E major just at the end of the phase.  In the key of C, the chord E introduces the note G# which happens to be the same note as in the A harmonic minor scale. (1 2 -3 4 5 +5 7 1). 

Extra Information: Those of you with sharp eyes, you might be wondering why I use a +5 and not a -6 in the harmonic minor formulas ( 1 2 -3 4 5 -6 7 1), the natural minor is (1 2 -3 4 5 -6 -7), it's because the theory introduced in the Akousunesis Method is designed to make you a better player, it's not theory for the sake of theory. The +5 is easier to locate in real time than the -6, and in our context here, we're in the key of C, a -6 would be the note F#, another black note in which you need to remember to flatten. It's about finding notes quickly for your improvisation. A +5 is the same note as a -6 although not exactly correct in the context of it's derivation. 

 Am    C     F           C       F    E

 2     7    -5  3        5       1    3     

I'm going to leave this for now and continue in our next composition lesson. For your homework, I want you to massage this progression and see what you come up with. Keep the chord progression as a constraint, but go for your life with the intervals. Place your song skeletons in the comments below, I'll check them out in a future video. Feel free to go beyond the song skeleton and add other intervals where you think the melody should go.