Composing

I began composing on a piano. I have a very limited knowledge of piano chords however and composed initially using just notes. I devised a melody of A, C# and E played after one another. Which was simplistic but about as far as my piano ability stretched. I then discovered that these notes actually built up to create an A chord. I can play an A chord on guitar and so I began playing around with guitar chords and then deconstructing these chords on piano to create my melody, I also did this with an E chord (E, G# and B) and a D chord (D, F# and A). The rhythm section remains built up of these chords in their entirety and is played on guitar. The melody is the deconstructed chords played note by note on piano. In my final piece I have recorded the rhythm guitar section to sing along too as I do not possess the piano techniques to play the melody over the top myself and time constraints meant I couldn’t record a pianist playing my melody.
I initially decided to use bar chords in my chorus, still A, E and D as they could be played whilst singing. By playing them as bar chords I eliminated a strumming pattern – which is what I struggle with when playing guitar. However I thought that by recording the verse and playing the chorus the piece would come across distorted in performance and so I elected to record the entire track and leave in the strumming pattern for a guitarist with a much greater ability than myself.

My final composition is entitled “The Ballad of The Tyne & Wear Metro”, the song is written in the style of pop, but with the characteristics of musical comedy as it is to be performed as a music hall style act.