dance notes
Produced by: Madmusik
46 Devonshire Road
Bath, BA2 6UD. +44 (0)1225 313082
1:02; medium 4/4; tango, yearning, litling; accordion, bass, strings
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This one is a mock-up for a commission and is based on an existing track, which is a common occurance.
The comssioning agent will send an example of the kind of music they want and then it’s my job to tease
out of them what it is about the original they like, so I can preserve that quality whilst composing something
new. This piece is obviously clearly defined in terms of genre and style, so there’s not very much leeway in
this case. They specified that they want cello and accordion and they rest of the instrumentation is taken
from the sample track .
My first step with this kind of work is to analyse the sample track, in terms of instrumentation, tempo, key,
structure and harmony. I’ll initially try to mimick as closely as possible some or all of those elements, to get
an idea of how the music ‘works’. Then I’ll leave the temp track alone and focuss on refining the piece
created. There was quite a bit of fumbling around whilst I tried to pin-down the interraction between piano,
accordion and bass. This involved several ‘passes’ recording as MIDI, then gradually refining the harmonic
structure until it all hung together.
Once that was all in place, playing-in the cello melody was pretty straight forward, though I decided to
double this with a solo violin as the cello sound wasn’t very convincing on its own.