Grade 9 Creating & Performing Study
Put your head on my shoulder have a time signature of 4/4 and 116 beats per minute. The song is in G major mainly with a complex chord progression of A minor, C minor, G major, E minor with variations that adapts to the lyrics. The song lasts 2:42 minutes with a 10 second intro from 0:00 to 0:10, a 27 second verse 1 from 0:11 to 0:38, verse 2 from 0:39 to 1:00, a short connection between verse 3 that starts from 1:33 which is the same as verse 1. The song shifted to # G major or A d in 2:02 by vocals and a outro starting in 2:26 and ending in 2:36 on vocals. The song did not have any build up or any chorus and the verse is differed from different romantic lyrics.
The 3 most important musical elements in the song is the chord progression, especially how each pattern ends in A minor, C minor, G major. The motif, being F# D #F E being played one time every chord progression and vocals singing along the main voice of the singer making a variety of sounds from humming, chords, singing alone and repeating.
We chose jazz music for our fusion genre. 3 key elements of jazz are its improvisation, swing and blues notes. Parts of jazz along the melody can be improvised, meaning the person playing the music can use all kind of appoggiaturas and ornaments to make the melody more random, creating a unpredictable melody sounds more relaxed, since most traditional and classical music is quite strict about timing and beats. Blues notes are constantly used in scales by modifying the intervals and the flat or sharp of notes.
Swing is also a important part of jazz. It is a type of more unpredictable beat that packs lots of forward momentum. For example, swing can be achieved by replacing two eighth notes with a dotted eighth note and a sixteenth note, using a triplet that lasts 1 beat with a blank between the first and third note. The inconsistency created by how the beat ends quicker makes a “forward” and “moving” feel as it connects to the next note quickly.
All these three components combined can create a relaxing music style that have a lot of room for creativity because of the improvisation and a smoother, more “legato” feel from the connected notes.
We will use piano (keyboard) for main melody, ornaments and chords to support the singer by giving him a pitch to reference to, an electric bass for low notes and to align with the drum beat for the singer to get reminded of the beat and create a more combined, 2 layered chords with the piano player, a singer to sing the lyrics and a drum player that constantly hitting a ride drum in 4/4, 116 bpm tempo to act as basically a human metronome for other instrument players to follow a same tempo.
We practiced individually in 2 classes. In the first class of practicing we decided our genre being rock or jazz so we picked up a few instruments like the electric bass and piano to try what would rock chords and melody and how would it be louder and more aggressive than the original version being a romantic/ballad/love song that is overall calming and relaxed. Tommy, being the singer, tried to sing the lyrics in a rock style by being louder, faster and left almost no gaps between lines to make the song sound more intense. We then decided it would more fitting if we pick jazz style instead of rock, because like the original version, jazz is relaxing so it should fit better, and it also have very distinct ornaments and foundation (low notes and chords) than the original song. After the decision of we should move to jazz and each practice our own part, we had around 30 minutes left, so Jiyoon searched a sheet music version of the song to play the chords on the electric bass, Tommy practiced singing the song less intense but faster than the original version, I listened to a few jazz songs and searched about basics of jazz piano.
The second class we decided to practice the same elements of converting the song into a jazz song in the practice room, Jiyoon and Tommy worked on their chords and singing. I continued practicing a jazz version of the chord progression which changed to E G B D, instead of the A C G chords of the original song and I explored different improvised chords like F# A# C. Around the end of the class, all 4 of us combined the chords, melody and singing and drum beat and realised we need a more stable tempo as 4 of us are either playing too fast or slow.
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