Posted October 25, 2023 by A. Weis
WEEK 8 (Oct 11)
Music Composition (~4 Hours)
A few neat things to share, most notably on the main theme for Spit it Out...Spit it Out!
I was reading up a little on chord progressions on Tuesday, mostly to draw inspiration on what to compose for this week's sprint. I came across a really cool website called HookTheory, and they have a resource called TheoryTab that gives you a bunch of tools for listening to and making chord progressions. One of those tools, Trends, is gonna be the highlight of this section. Without it, I think I'd practically be stuck in the mud.
Trends is basically a predictor for chord progressions. You put in your scale and a starting note (for Spit it Out, I went with A Major, starting with A). Trends will not only give you predictions for which note should be taken next, but will also give you a list of songs where the progression is applied along with the tabs for how they were played.
It was also during this research that I had a brain wave: Chord progressions work regardless of which octave your notes are in. Total game-changer. It opens up your horizons in regards to how you want to interpret the chord progression you want to use. I went with a I-V-IV-I progression in this instance, and I didn't have to stick to going up my current octave for the progression; I could go to the octave below for the V-IV part, and then go back to the original octave to complete the progression! It's insane!
So, with this in mind, I had my base progression. I did some trial and error with higher chords to compliment the original progression (V-I-bVII-I), did some more trial and error, and came up with this.
Now, another fun fact for you, Hail to the Chief, the theme of the POTUS, was first published in 1812. Because of this, it's in the public domain because anything published before 1928 in the United States is considered as such.
We're gonna use it, but me and Grayson both agree that we need to differentiate how it's presented in the theme rather than using it note for note. Something to think on for the future if there's time to work on it.