Rare Pickle

A good way to begin to write interesting music is to listen to and study interesting music. Take some songs you love and figure out the chord changes, and how the melody weaves and connects the chords. Add more songs to your library that you wouldn't normally listen to and study these songs too. Play back these chords and experiment with them. If you do this enough, if you hear a song for the first time you'll be able to pick out the chord changes (especially if the song is pop, because all pop songs have pretty much the same chord changes!). You can then more easily come up with your own chord changes that sound cool to you. I'm no music expert, but I've found that doing the above has helped me with finding chord changes to use. Do you have an example you can share with us of your music?

Aw shoot. Disqualified. My score is pretty messy, isn't it?. I can assure you though that it is very playable, although challenging, with two people (except maybe for m147, and the range of playing over the 5 octave marimba, that was just lazy). I was hoping the judges might ask me if they had any questions about playability, but I guess I should have made it obvious with my score. I'll be sure to give more attention to score quality the next time I submit one. (If you're at all curious as to how it is playable, PM me I guess :toothygrin: ) Oh well, thanks for the comments anyways! I had a good time composing. And congrats Silky! I was blown away the first time I heard your entry. I look forward to hearing the recording!

Hi everyone! I am working on an arrangement for jazz band that is almost entirely in 9/8 or 9/4. As with most latin charts, this arrangement will rely on a solid percussion groove. However I don't know a whole lot about latin rhythms apart from what I picked up by watching our high school jazz drummer, and on top of that, I can't find any examples of 9/8 latin to build off of. I was hoping there might be an expert here who knows of any musical examples that apply to what I'm trying to do, or who can give me some much-needed advice! Attached is my attempt at my 9/4 latin groove, with the option of two different bass drum parts: drum sample 2.pdf In the above drum pattern, I am trying to accommodate for two different beat divisions, which fit two different bass guitar lines at different parts of the song: 1) 9/8 + 9/8 or 3-2-2-2 + 3-2-2-2 2) 7/8 + 7/8 + 2/4 or 3-2-2 + 3-2-2 + 2-2 Since I don't really know exactly what I'm doing, I would appreciate any comments/suggestions. If you need more detail into what I'm aiming for please let me know. Thanks!

I haven't been on YC for a while, but I remember when I was last here, I was able to download most files to my PC as well as listen to the streamed mp3. Now when I try to download music using the download button next to the print button, it only gives me the .html file. I consulted the help guide, which talks using about a download manager, which I can't seem to find. Has downloading files become disallowed or am I totally missing something? Thanks for the help!

I pretend to be able to play drums and guitar, but I really can't. So, I'd have to answer the question with those two, plus tuba.

Found this album (Tricycle) among my dad's CDs and I'm hooked. I especially love this song, The 8:29, since I am a jazz piano player myself. I want sheet music for the piano solo part, but I can't find any online. Does anyone want to try transcribing this? Here's a video of them actually performing, for those interested. Different song though.

That's some interesting stuff. Really out there. A little bit painful to the head to listen to. I would really love to see the modified piano or whatever he is performing on!

Well, I am writing the melody as if it is Abmaj7. I just added the minor 7th in the piano because it sounds cool. But then immediately after that I have supposedly Gmaj7#6 (the first chord taken down a half step), which I want to emphasize as more of a G7 than a Gmaj7. The maj7 just adds an unusual quality to it. I might even add a b13. And then you've already figured out that it resolves to Cmin9 (or Cmin11). I hope that answers your question. You can probably tell I haven't any formal counterpoint training! Any ideas on how to write the Gmaj7#6 in order to communicate an emphasis on G7 to the performer? I'm guessing just a polychord Bm/G7 would work best. And thanks for all the responses!

I have this jazzy chord: Ab major with both a major 7th and minor 7th added to it. Ex: Ab-F#-C-Eb-G (from left to right on piano) I can't find anything on what kind of chord this is or what it is called. Would it be something like Abmaj7#6? I don't know...

Thank you! I can see I was pretty off on the melody now.

You've all heard it before, and right now I'm trying to think of the name of it but I can't. It's like a tango-style chromatic thing used in an opera, Carmen maybe. Attached is a midi file with the melody (or at least somewhat close to it) namethissong.mid

It's called the double harmonic scale, and it's very cool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_harmonic_scale

I don't know much about choral work, but to me this has the potential to sound gorgeous. But I think that the last chord needn't be so loud and bright. Maybe instead of stepping up from the second to last chord, you step down to make a more mellow sound. Or maybe you leave it the same, but just reduce the volume.

No, they haven't played it yet. I hope to have them try it first thing after winter break. Do you have any tips perhaps about getting songs like this into the market? :) I originally had no intention of making money off this, but if it is possible... Also, any feedback on the song itself?

G10 haha, no Middle C