Over time, my taste changes somewhat and I find myself gravitating toward new ideas. I can point out a few in the recent arrangement of “Honey in the Rock,” but I want to talk about one in particular. Check out these examples and then we will talk about them. If I asked you to name […]
Tag Archives: reharmonization
I have a few teaching moments from the arrangement that I published last week. We have already discussed the overall feel of the piece. When you hear this song typically, it is grand and a bit ponderous. I took a sort of wistful approach but it works with the lyrics just as well I think. […]
It would nice in some ways I suppose if I could give you lots of rules for all music situations. That would make it easier; but of course at that point, music would no longer be an art. There are some general rules; but much to the consternation of those who think this is all […]
One of the decisions I made in my recent arrangement of “Crown Him With Many Crowns” was to intentionally break some of my own rules (or at least rules I have stolen from others). For example, consider this: Look at the roots of the chords and you will note that I am moving in thirds. […]
Read Part 1 here Remember this line from that last post? You can substitute a half diminished chord for a minor chord of the same spelling if it is functioning as a ii chord for a target that is also minor. That is one confusing bit of writing so let me do my best to […]
Someone recently mentioned to me that I have never really discussed the half diminished chord and how to use it –and I realized they are right. I want to remedy that over a short series of two posts. As a quick reminder, a half diminished chord is a stack of 4 notes that are separated […]
About seven years ago, I recorded a series of videos about the song “What a Friend We Have In Jesus.” If you watch all five, you will probably invest an hour but also get an extensive look at how I evaluate music and reharmonize it. Basically, these videos go through the song line by line. […]
If you have played a lot of my arrangements such as last month’s “I Need Thee Every Hour,” you have seen me do this kind of thing quite a bit: Note what happens in bar 31. You guys know by now that I automatically change almost every V-I progression in music to a ii-V-I. However, […]
Here is a new video I recorded this afternoon discussing my favorite tag. For those that don’t know, tag is a music slang term that refers to repeating part of the song (such as the last phrase) to create a more stylized ending. If you don’t see the video below, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpDluxCCSuo
Earlier in the week, I gave you a challenge to arrange “A Shelter in the Time of Storm” with me. Several of you have let me know you are on board with that. Make sure you have printed off the rough sketch of the harmony I provided in that last blog post. Then, here is […]
Today I am kicking off a new little series that will be of interest to many of you. I am going to walk through the building of an arrangement from start to finish. Ideally I would like many of you to work on this along with me and we will see what comes from it. The […]