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"Shiver of Spring"
Apr 2006, Mar 2010 || Score
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Shiver of Spring is a tune I wrote in the spring of 2006, with which I attempted to express the unique emotion I feel in this particular season: a mix of optimism and anxiety.I originally wrote this tune with guitar, and later added the lyrics to vocalize it. It borrows lots of musical idioms from Jazz and Fusion, and it probably shows a great deal of influences I've got from Pat Metheny.
The arpeggios played by synthesizer at the intro, of course, is akin to many examples heard in electronic genres like Trance and Techno. The hihat patterns are techno-ish too.
The song contains about 13 parts: vocals, piano, bass, synth, drums, etc. The main vocal part is applied Autotune, and the 2nd vocal part which comes in at the chorus parts is processed with a vocoder. The bass sound comes from Spectrasonics Trilogy. For the synth solo, I layered the sounds from Novation V-Station and HalionOne (which is included in Cubase Studio 5).
When the songs reaches the bridge section (hear), the breakbeats part cuts into the drums part. If you look at the image left, the bottom row is the breakbeats part, and it comes in just as the kick and snare parts (the rows above) stop playing.Here's an image from the Cubase window for the arpeggio part at the intro. The top row is the actual notes of the arpeggios, the second row controls the cutoff frequency of the filter applied to the part, the third row is the control for delay amount and the bottom row controls the portamento amount.
Score || Leadsheet || Score (Movie)
(Lyrics)
This image illustrates the melody and the chord changes in the chorus section. If you look at the chord progression, the 1st bar and the 2nd bar are the same, and the 3rd bar is a parallel variation of the previous two. The FΔ7 in the 1st and 2nd bars slips down a whole step to become the EbΔ7 in the 3rd bar, and the CΔ7 does the same to become the BbΔ7. The key of the song moves from C major to Bb major at that instance, at the 3rd bar.
If you look at the 3rd and 4th bars of the 2nd line, you see the EbΔ7-BbΔ7 set slips further down to become the DbΔ7-AbΔ7 set, leading you to yet another temporary key of Ab major. This is also where a metric shift occurs. The number of beats (8 beats) contained in these two bars are divided into 3, 3 and 2. The EbΔ7-BbΔ7 change consumes 3 beats, the DbΔ7-AbΔ7 change consumes another 3 beats, and then finally the remaining 2 beats are filled by continued AbΔ7 and FΔ7.
(Verse 1)
Birds are free, everyone knows
But do they ever try to flee
Into the higher skies?
I wanna see what makes me so encouraged
Not scared of saying goodbyes
(Chorus)
Still feeling cheered up by the sound I was hearing
It makes me long for a shiver of spring
I'm feeling so nice like the brand new guitar strings
Yearning to pull off my work to make an offering
(Verse 2)
The wind is cold, I must agree
But did I ever try to hold
The warmth in my heart and soul?
I'm growing old, happy and thankful and I
See the sign that says it's time to roll
*(Chorus)
(Bridge)
La la la la, La la la, Lu li lu li lu
La la la la, Ba yee ya
Doo doo doo doo, Stoo doo, La lu li la
*(Chorus)
And I know I still feel
Cheered up by the sound I was hearing
It makes me long for a shiver of spring
I'm feeling so nice like the brand new guitar strings
Yearning to pull off my work to make an offering
Birds are free, everyone knows
But do they ever try to flee
Into the higher skies?
I wanna see what makes me so encouraged
Not scared of saying goodbyes
(Chorus)
Still feeling cheered up by the sound I was hearing
It makes me long for a shiver of spring
I'm feeling so nice like the brand new guitar strings
Yearning to pull off my work to make an offering
(Verse 2)
The wind is cold, I must agree
But did I ever try to hold
The warmth in my heart and soul?
I'm growing old, happy and thankful and I
See the sign that says it's time to roll
*(Chorus)
(Bridge)
La la la la, La la la, Lu li lu li lu
La la la la, Ba yee ya
Doo doo doo doo, Stoo doo, La lu li la
*(Chorus)
And I know I still feel
Cheered up by the sound I was hearing
It makes me long for a shiver of spring
I'm feeling so nice like the brand new guitar strings
Yearning to pull off my work to make an offering
This image illustrates the melody and the chord changes in the chorus section. If you look at the chord progression, the 1st bar and the 2nd bar are the same, and the 3rd bar is a parallel variation of the previous two. The FΔ7 in the 1st and 2nd bars slips down a whole step to become the EbΔ7 in the 3rd bar, and the CΔ7 does the same to become the BbΔ7. The key of the song moves from C major to Bb major at that instance, at the 3rd bar.
If you look at the 3rd and 4th bars of the 2nd line, you see the EbΔ7-BbΔ7 set slips further down to become the DbΔ7-AbΔ7 set, leading you to yet another temporary key of Ab major. This is also where a metric shift occurs. The number of beats (8 beats) contained in these two bars are divided into 3, 3 and 2. The EbΔ7-BbΔ7 change consumes 3 beats, the DbΔ7-AbΔ7 change consumes another 3 beats, and then finally the remaining 2 beats are filled by continued AbΔ7 and FΔ7.