Let the reharms begin! I'm very excited to be release "Rocketman," the first of SEVEN reharmonizations I have been working on for the past year. I completed these arrangements as part of a faculty development project at Berklee College where I teach in the Harmony and Jazz Composition Department. The goal of the project was to feature the harmonic tools I teach in the classroom in arrangements of contemporary music to inspire students to use the concepts we are learning about in creative ways.
The recording is from a live concert at David Friend Recital Hall at Berklee and features some fantastic musicians - Carl Eisman on guitar and vocals, Rick McLaughlin on acoustic bass and Giuseppe Paradiso on drums.
I was very excited to coordinate the scrolling score with the video! The score features the original chord changes and melody on the top line and reharmonized chords (with suggested chord voicings) on the bottom.
Some of my favorite moments in this reharm are the use of the Gbmaj7 (bVImaj7) and Abmaj7 (bVIImaj7) at the end of the verses. This creates an unresolved and moody feeling at the end of the verses which I really enjoy! I also love the chord sequence in the chorus that moves from Bb to Gb7 to F-7 to E7 to eventually resolves to Ebmaj7 (IVmaj7). The Gb7 is functioning like a subV7/V (tritone substitution for C7, the V7/V) and is deceptively resolving to F-7, which is a related II leading to E7. E7 is a subV7/IV (tritone substitution for Bb7) and is resolving to Ebmaj7, it's expected target chord.
I hope you enjoy! Stay tuned -- I will be sharing the next one in another week!
The recording is from a live concert at David Friend Recital Hall at Berklee and features some fantastic musicians - Carl Eisman on guitar and vocals, Rick McLaughlin on acoustic bass and Giuseppe Paradiso on drums.
I was very excited to coordinate the scrolling score with the video! The score features the original chord changes and melody on the top line and reharmonized chords (with suggested chord voicings) on the bottom.
Some of my favorite moments in this reharm are the use of the Gbmaj7 (bVImaj7) and Abmaj7 (bVIImaj7) at the end of the verses. This creates an unresolved and moody feeling at the end of the verses which I really enjoy! I also love the chord sequence in the chorus that moves from Bb to Gb7 to F-7 to E7 to eventually resolves to Ebmaj7 (IVmaj7). The Gb7 is functioning like a subV7/V (tritone substitution for C7, the V7/V) and is deceptively resolving to F-7, which is a related II leading to E7. E7 is a subV7/IV (tritone substitution for Bb7) and is resolving to Ebmaj7, it's expected target chord.
I hope you enjoy! Stay tuned -- I will be sharing the next one in another week!
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