Led Balloon

Led Balloon

Led Balloon Band Video

Genre: 70’s Blues / Rock

The cultural reference here is clearly Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin were an iconic and seminal band for many reasons, the quality of the musicianship; both Jimmy Page - guitar and John Paul Jones - bass / keyboards were highly successful session musicians in the 1960’s. John Bonham - drums and Robert Plant - vocals each brought a unique originality to their instrument styles and performances and they in particular have been a profound influence on countless musicians over the years.

The roots of the Zeppelin sound lie in Blues and they are one of the greatest exponents of the rock riff.

This piece opens, firstly with a John Bonham inspired drum break and then with a riff. Disarmingly simple, this riff is almost a major chord arpeggio but it features both the minor and major third and no 5th just the octave.

This is the A section which runs over two bars. Beats 3 & 4 of bar 1 and the whole of bar 2 are left to the drums and it is the drums that progressively drive the dynamic throughout the piece.

A new melodic idea is introduced at bar 14, a descending figure, starting on the minor 3rd (G) and dropping in 1/4 notes to the b7 (D), developing the melodic interest and emphasizing the modal nature of the piece.

Two chords replace this new idea at bar 18, A & G again very modal (Dorian). This changes the dynamic considerably.

A B section emerges at bar comprising and extended version of the 4 note descending figure that appeared at bar 14. The 1/4 notes are now 1/2 notes and they are accompanied by a rising chord progression: Em, G, A, C.

The intention of this composition was to capture the raw simplicity of the Blues with simple but powerful melodic statements. Though simple, the motifs are progressively developed; they interact with each other and morph into new sections.

Key elements for learning: riffs, developing motivic ideas, morphing thematic material, modal concepts, evolving dynamics, harmonies.

Jimmy J & the IT's

Jimmy J & the IT’s


Jimmy J & the IT's band video

Genre: R & B, 1960’s.

The basic I, IV, V, chord progression that features throughout popular music styles of the last 70+ years, has it’s roots in The Blues. Though the Blues has never been a mainstream popular music style in Western Music, the structures, chord progressions, melodic lines and basic scales associated with this genre have provided a fundamental resource to a significant number of derivative music genres such as Country and Rock.

The intention in writing this piece is to introduce the fundamental 12 bar structure, together with the associated chord changes. There is also a discrete intro and outro section that stands outside of the 12 bar structure. In compositional terms, this intro and outro section demonstrates the flexibility of the structural mechanism.

The melodic material feature a number of Blues derivative techniques:

1. Call and response. Phrase 1 extends over 4 bars and features a declamatory highly rhythmic, ascending melodic statement. This is answered by a more lyrical, extended phrase based around repeated minor 3^rd’s. 

2. Juxtaposing major & minor. The flattened minor 3^rd in the melody is performed over the major 3^rd’s of the chord structure.

3. Scale. All melodic material is based on notes of the Blues scale; the flattened 3^rd, flattened 5^th and the flattened 7^h together with a major 6^th. 

4. The first melodic phrase repeats over the next 4 bars without modulation even though the chords underneath have modulated up 1x 4^th to the dub dominant.

The final melodic phrase, bars 9 – 12 features a new melodic idea, featuring a flattened 5^th tone, followed by the latter answering motif of phrase 1, thus creating an overall sense of melodic continuity.        

The phrasing of the melodic ideas is important for the performers to observe. There is a deliberate contrast between the short clipped notes at the beginning of the phrase and the legato extended notes at the end of the phrase.

The instrumentation features drums and bass locked into a 60’s style groove with Hammond organ playing the melody and providing a sparse chordal backing. There is also a rhythm guitar part which is eq’d quite heavily (all bass and low mid tones removed) to provide a Steve Cropper (Booker T & the MG’s). type ‘jangly’ sound, authentic to the period.

I have also included a lead violin part as I want to create the opportunity for violin players to work alongside rock musicians. Also the violin brings out the intended melodic phrasing beautifully.

Key elements for learning: blues structure, blues scale, melodic phrasing, contrasting phrasing, modulation.                                

Arabesque

Arabesque 


Arabesque Band Video

Genre: Rock / World music influences (Middle East).

As the name implies, the inspiration for this composition is the middle east. My intention in writing the piece was to introduce students to melodic and percussive influences that are not intrinsically familiar to Western ears. My method to achieve this aspiration was twofold: 

1. Melodically, to use a scale that featured unusual intervallic combinations: the Altered Phrygian scale or Freygish scale 

2. In terms of instrumentation, to augment regular band instruments with a ‘Doumbek’, a hand drum of Middle Eastern origin.

1. The scale – Altered Phrygian 

Beginning on C, the scale is as follows: C - D♭ - E - F - G - A♭ - B♭ - C

The sound of this scale is ineluctably middle eastern and is commonly found in Arabic, Greek, Jewish, Turkish and even Flamenco music. ‘Hava Nagila’ is a good example of a popular instance of the scale. Other names for this scale include: Ahava Rabbah or Freygish (in Jewish music) Hijaz-Nahawand Maqam (in Turkish or Arabic music) as well as the Spanish Phrygian scale or Spanish gypsy scale.

The second note of the scale, a minor second is instantly recognizable as non-Western but where the scale differs from the standard Phrygian mode is the presence of a major 3^rd rather than the minor.

2. Instrumentation - The Doumbek. This type of hand or goblet drum is found throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Traditionally it would have been made from clay or wood but the Doumbek used here is made from metal. The sound of the drum is very distinctive with two predominant tones, the Duom - bass tones and the Bek - bright / crisp tones generated particularly near the top rim of the drum head.

The drum is played using a finger based technique that creates the opportunity for a highly flexible range of rhythms that can even include drum rolls as featured in Arabesque.

The piece features 2 sections, A and B.  

The A section is 8 bars long with three repeating chords: D, Eb and F Major that support and underpin the haunting melodic line.

The melody comprises a three note motif followed by differing answering phrases. The occurs three times over the 8 bars with the Middle Eastern tones occurring in the answering phrases. The final phrase resolves to the root.  

There is also a contrasting B section also 8 Bars long, which modulates. There is a new melodic idea with an unexpected final note and this is performed over chords of G Minor 7^th, F Major and E Major.  

The last two bars of the B section cadence back to the A section again.

Key elements for learning: Non diatonic scale tones, Middle Eastern influences, unexpected modulations, constructional elements within an extended melody.

iTutorus Pieces

The pieces presented in this composition portfolio have been written with very clear a intent. 

The expectation is that they will provide new opportunities for study and performance for music students studying on Popular Music courses. 

Ultimately the hope is that they will form the basis for a teaching and learning graded syllabus, (grades 1 - 8) utililising the iTutorus delivery and assessment mechanism.. 

The intention of the stylistically oriented syllabus is to tap in to existing cultural interest & experience and to build on this by presenting the student with a broad range of popular music based genres that will both elucidate and inspire the student to delve into further explorations of each genre and beyond.

The pieces themselves all present a particular performance and or compositional teaching and learning focus, designed to once again elucidate, inspire and raise the awareness of the student. 

The posts to follow will discuss the specific intentions of each piece through description and analysis of each of the compositions. 

In addition to high quality recordings of each composition, every piece has been filmed and edited to help the learning process and these videos are all freely available on the iTutorus YouTube channel.

The resulting videos have been prepared as: full band, band minus 1 instrument and individual instrumental performances, thus providing the student with a significant range of learning opportunities and choices.

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy the pieces, the recordings both audio and video and that my explanations of the process of creation will provide a useful insight.

paul@itutorus.com 2012