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"Dream Can Scream"

Feb 2008, Mar 2010 || Score

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Dream Can Scream is a tune I wrote in 2008.

This song was inspired by a dream I saw one night. I heard the intro piano riff in the dream and recorded it immediately when I woke up.

The dream was about my ex-girlfriend from high school days. It was so personal, beautiful and agonizing at the same, and it spoke to me in high intensity like a loud scream.

Honestly, I wasn't so sure if this tune had much value after I wrote it. I thought the subject was too personal and I wasn't very confident the way I recorded my vocals.

Nonetheless, some people have given me some kind comments on this tune. So I decided to re-produce and improve it.

Like Best Outcome, this song also uses Autotune. Autotune is a software application that can correct the musical pitch of any sound, as long as it's single-note.

To be quite honest, I'm not such a great singer at the time of this writing and sometimes my vocal part goes out of pitch. So this application is pretty useful and almost crucial.

On Dream Can Scream, I used it change the melody pitch very fast in some phrases, thus creating some kind of robotic feel. This is a common trick these days, as you can hear it in the records of artists like Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, etc. I think the originator for this type of Autotune is a Cher song called Believe, released in 1998.

(Try listening while following these sheetmusic pieces, to enhance understanding of the tune.) (?)
Score || Leadsheet || Score (Movie)

(Lyrics)

(Verse 1)
A night when my spirit binds
Like the snow freezing on the ground
Moonlight, help me ease my mind
For strength is not to be found

(Chorus)
I never learned before
A vision of love can make me sore
I fear a dream that gleams
Because the dream can scream

(Verse 2)
So bright is the view I see
So clear is your figure that I sense
In sight there is a rose tree
In front of a silver wire fence

*(Chorus)

Doo bee da ba
Doo bee da, Doo bee da, Stu bee da
Doo bee sta bee, Da ba sti ba
Doo bee sti ba, Da ba stu bee

(Rap)
You were glowing in a beam
Which I saw in a dream
A mix of some personalities
With vague identity
Yet the image was so powerful
It left me mindful
Some thoughts were streaming
And a voice was screaming

Moonlight, help me ease my mind
For strength is not to be found

*(Chorus)

This is how the Scat section goes. The chord changes for the first four bars are Bbm9 - A7(#9) - Abm9 - G7(#9). This is a pattern of a minor 9 chord going down to a 7(#9) chord whose root is a half step below. Then it slips down a whole step to get Fm9 which is followed by E7(#9), to create another instance of the same pattern. What follows then is what we call "contiguous II-Vs (pronounced two fives)", which is a pattern of adjacent II-Vs. In this case they are "Ebm7-Ab9" and "Em7-A9". The two II-V sequences are only a half step away from each other.