Category: Arrangements

Accompaniment patterns for tunes in 3 time

In order to create an accompanying pattern for our recent tunes in 3, we took inspiration from the melodic pattern in bar one of La Tete Ailleurs. This is essentially an E minor triad (three note chord) so we played it and then transposed the pattern for each chord in the piece, starting on an A for the A minor chord, a D for the D major chord etc.

We then took things up a notch, changing the inversions of the triads to keep the patterns a similar register. What’s an inversion? It’s the order in which you play the notes, for instance an A minor triad is ACE in root position, CEA in first inversion and EAC in second inversion. Below is a version that uses root and second inversion chords to create a part that flows.

We switched to long notes in the B section to vary the texture, choosing the root note of each chord.

La Tete Ailleurs with acc patternDownload

Tobin’s Jig and Hardiman’s Fancy

NB. Hardiman’s now has updated chords.

When playing Tobin’s Jig last week, we initially struggled to give the tune a sense of lift, lilt or dance – our solutions were:

  • Have the long line of each four-bar phrase our heads before we started, with it’s peaks and troughs. This got us away from focussing too much on the individual notes and patterns, and from the mechanics of playing this tune on our respective instruments.
  • Add some subtle dynamics – we followed the rise of the melody with a small crescendo (gradual increase in volume) and the fall of the melody with a diminuendo (gradual decrease in volume). Subtle is the operative word here! It isn’t always the case that we need to rise and fall with the melody, this can become a little obvious and predictable, but the idea is that we’re giving an additional dimension, or melodic shaping, to the tune.
  • Add some slurs over the bar lines (this is updated on the original post) – this can give the sense of moving forward across the bar line, with some very subtle syncopation in the phrasing.

The Mallard revisited

The Mallard is a tune from a long time ago! I wanted to revisit it and to potentially pair it with Enfield Wash, though I found it a bit notey and so wanted to simplify it a little.

Stage one: we took out as many notes as we could until we had the bare skeleton of the tune – but it still had to be recognisable as the tune.

Stage two: we add notes back in, either from the original tune or using similar figures.

Stage three: as we tried things out, I wrote down some of the ideas that came out. The two versions below represent some of the ideas that came out during that experimentation. They are not supposed to be definitive versions but rather examples of what can happen if you play around with a tune in this way.

the-mallard3Download

Constant Billy arrangement ideas

Here is an update of the Constant Billy sheet, with the two new riffs at the bottom. The second PDF below contains the chord sequences and the arrangement that we started on the 12th. The video is of the unrehearsed arrangement that we tried out – it’s not exactly what’s written on the arrangement sheet now, but should give you a feel for the whole piece.

constant-billy-all-1Download

constant-billy-all-with-chords-and-arrangementDownload

Coronation Day: more arrangement ideas

Here is the recording of Coronation Day tune with the phased rhythmic ostinato that we used in the warm up, inspired in part by Steve Reich’s Clapping Music which was in turn partially inspired by flamenco music.

Here is a video of Clapping Music with a useful graphic to help you see what’s going on. The pattern is repeated eight times before the lower part phases by one quaver.

Constant Billy

This week’s tune is English Morris dance tune Constant Billy. There are versions in most of the different Cotswold Morris tradition in various keys, though often transposed into G major to suit the commonly used melodeon. We made two different versions of the chords, the first being a conservative version that harmonises every half bar and the second a more contemporary version that harmonises every full bar. To refer back to our inspiration arrangement, Coronation Day, we have used/tried:

  1. long notes that can also be used as in a shuffle rhythm
  2. Playing the tune with a pedal G (tonic) underneath throughout, and also trying a pedal D (dominant) throughout
  3. Using a chord sequence that doesn’t resolve to the tonic of G at the end of each phrase (from the long notes pattern)

We will look at long and short ostinati next week and use these to make an intro/outro for the whole piece, also extending the tune by developing certain phrases.

Here is the video, with the second version of the chords:

Here are the dots:

constant-billyDownload