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"Amadeus"
April 2009 || Score
I conceived this tune after watching a movie called Amadeus (1984), hence the title. I thought about renaming the tune once it's finished, but I'm keeping it this way because it's such a charming name. This doesn't mean that I say my music is something comparable to that of Mozart, of course.What's unique about this tune, I think, is that the chord progression never really looks like it belongs to any stable key, and yet it tightly interlocks with the melody.
(hear) If you look at the chord changes only, it'll read "Cmaj7 - Bm7 - Bbmaj7 - A7sus - A7 - A7(b9)", and that doesn't really tell you what key you're in by itself. Am I in C major? G? Or D major because I have A7?
The melody, on the other hand, is pretty much according to one key. I mean, one key at the moment. The first line, where there are 2 bars containing Cmaj7 and Bm7 respectively, has a melody that's strictly G major. The actual notes are B, G, A, D, F# in the appearing order. Nothing but G major. And the second line has these notes: A, F (natural), G, E, D. You could almost say it's C major, but since the other melody you've just heard was G major, you'd probably want to call it "G" something.
(Continued from the left column)
And, thinking in terms of G might lead you to think it's G Mixolydian judging from the F natural. But this 2nd phrase is accompanied by the chord of Bbmaj7, which presents Bb, the minor 3rd note in the key of G. And this cancels the possibility of G Mixolydian which is a major mode. What this phrase is is G Dorian mode. If you take Mixolydian and lower its 3rd, you'll get Dorian mode.
(hear) This image is from the part where the music moves to the key of D major. Let's look at the chords. They're Dmaj7, Gmaj7 and Gm6. Dmaj7 obviously is a I chord, Gmaj7 is a IV chord and Gm6 is a IV minor chord. This "IV minor" chord is called "subdominant minor", and it's derived from the parallel minor key. The Gm6 is borrowed from the key of D minor.
Let's look at the melody on the second line. It continuously leaps in the interval of perfect 4th, starting with C# which moves into F# which is a perfect 4th above C#. The F# then jumps into B which is a perfect 4th above F#. After having two quick notes at the end of the bar, it then repeats the perfect 4th ascending from E to A to D.
To me, this kind of intentional, schematic way of writing melodies helps a lot especially when I've exhausted my ideas by trying only intuitive methods.
(hear) This image shows you an example of "contiguous II-Vs". The chord moves from Fm7 to Bb9, creating a II-V motion, and then it goes on to Em7 and A9, forming another set of II-V. And it keeps going to create two more sets of II-Vs. If you look at these II-Vs, all of them are only half-step away from the adjacent ones: Fm7-Bb9 is only one semitone higher than Em7-A9, etc. This constitutes "contiguous II-Vs", a common technique for jazz composition. This example here is a case of descending contiguous II-Vs, but you can also have ascending ones too. Descending ones probably sound more familiar because they involve sub-V resolution: Bb9 can be analyzed as a substitute dominant (or sub-V) chord of A9, etc.
Read in Japanese
And, thinking in terms of G might lead you to think it's G Mixolydian judging from the F natural. But this 2nd phrase is accompanied by the chord of Bbmaj7, which presents Bb, the minor 3rd note in the key of G. And this cancels the possibility of G Mixolydian which is a major mode. What this phrase is is G Dorian mode. If you take Mixolydian and lower its 3rd, you'll get Dorian mode.
(hear) This image is from the part where the music moves to the key of D major. Let's look at the chords. They're Dmaj7, Gmaj7 and Gm6. Dmaj7 obviously is a I chord, Gmaj7 is a IV chord and Gm6 is a IV minor chord. This "IV minor" chord is called "subdominant minor", and it's derived from the parallel minor key. The Gm6 is borrowed from the key of D minor.
Let's look at the melody on the second line. It continuously leaps in the interval of perfect 4th, starting with C# which moves into F# which is a perfect 4th above C#. The F# then jumps into B which is a perfect 4th above F#. After having two quick notes at the end of the bar, it then repeats the perfect 4th ascending from E to A to D.
To me, this kind of intentional, schematic way of writing melodies helps a lot especially when I've exhausted my ideas by trying only intuitive methods.
(hear) This image shows you an example of "contiguous II-Vs". The chord moves from Fm7 to Bb9, creating a II-V motion, and then it goes on to Em7 and A9, forming another set of II-V. And it keeps going to create two more sets of II-Vs. If you look at these II-Vs, all of them are only half-step away from the adjacent ones: Fm7-Bb9 is only one semitone higher than Em7-A9, etc. This constitutes "contiguous II-Vs", a common technique for jazz composition. This example here is a case of descending contiguous II-Vs, but you can also have ascending ones too. Descending ones probably sound more familiar because they involve sub-V resolution: Bb9 can be analyzed as a substitute dominant (or sub-V) chord of A9, etc.
Read in Japanese