This morning, like many mornings, I woke up with a tune in my head. It was Be Yourself, by Audioslave. In case you don’t know, Audioslave is Chris Cornell – the vocalist from Soundgarden, and the rhythm section from Rage against the Machine – whose names escape me. It’s a song that I’ve been considering arranging for String Bass, Tuba, Trombone, and vocalist. Yeah, weird, but think Kronos, the string quartet.
But, in order to arrange a tune, you first have to deconstruct it. This morning when I got up, I had the song in my head so I sat down at our piano and started to play it, figure out the parts. I know the song in my head so I just listen to it until I know the notes. You can do this too. I think that most of the time, if you listen to your head, the song plays (in your head), in the right key.
If you sing the parts then you have must find parts that are in your range. Other parts might be out of your range and you won't sing them well and get discouraged. It is Chris Cornell, afterall.
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I've told this story but...
When I was in music school, I would come back and teach Nicole solfege (do, re, mi) Do is C, re is D, mi is E. I told her here are the note names. Then I played a note and asked her what it's name was?
She got it right everytime. She might not know, today, what a Bb is but that's just a different name from ti. Perfect pitch is a myth. Notes can be any frequency, we just have a covenience set of names for pitches.
Orchestras tune to A, 440hz. But they used to use forks and it turns out that the old ones ranged all the way down to 418hz for A. Nothing 'perfect' about pitch.
Further emphasizing that 'its all relative.'
I woke up this morning with a song that won an Oscar for Original Song stuck in my head. Unfortunatly, I don't like the song.
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," from the movie Hustle & Flow, performed by Three 6 Mafia’s .
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