Aqua Regis EP - The Cradle Will Swing

Ahhh! I have lots of stuff to tell you guys....where do I start?

Well first off, I've been a bit of a compositional rut as you guys may have known if you read the description in that live piano recording I did. If you saw that vid, you may have also realized that I have something for jazz.

However, I began writing this piece without consciously thinking 'okay, Im gonna write jazz'. I was inspired by perhaps 3 YTubers to write this. My friends Daigoro and Verdegrand have recently been doing some FF Music Box covers and I wanted to try my hand at writing something of a music box lullaby. That would probably explain the soft harp intro ;).
While writing this 'lullaby', I began talking more with my friend Rachel, an alto with an absolutely gorgeous voice (scroll down for links). She seemed to like my jazz impressionist arrangment style but she is a big jazzhead and wanted me to do a jazz arrangement of a song for her to sing to. I was a bit doubtful of my ability to do jazz so I continued writing the lullaby and then I just decided to add some swing and see where I could take it and thus, inspiration was struck!

Needless to say, I dedicate this to her Rachel ;)
Surprisingly, I felt COMPLETELY comfortable writing in this style however that did not mean this wasn't challenging! This piece was difficult for many reasons but the main difficulty lay in the notation. Secondly, I used percussion in this and if you guys haven't noticed, Im not very keen on that....I shall be incorporating more percussion in my pieces from now on as I've realized that it's sort of a weakness of mine. On another note, this piece actually took about 3 days to compose and mix. And yes! I finally began mixing! I promised myself that when I felt comfortable as a *composer* I'd get into some basic production techniques so you guys may notice the upgraded audio quality ^_^.

This mixing thing however is kinda time consuming especially because I'm a n00b to my new DAW . I embarrassingly chopped, deleted and did a myriad of other unspeakable things to this track while fumbling around FL. It'll take some getting used to but I'm willing to put in the extra effort =D.

Well, let me get to the nitty gritty. I'm actually preparing an EP/Album of sorts so that I can have my work on a disc for clients to have an idea of what I can do.
However, I wanted my EP tracks to have better quality so Ive been trying to source VSTs/Mixing Equipment/Tutorials etc for a while now. Anyway, Im really happy that I finally have one track from my EP on YT! You guys can expect some higher quality works from now on and anything you see 'EP' attached to, you'll know that it was a track that I toiled for hours upon XD! So enjoy ^_^

The lovely Rachel ^_^ - http://www.youtube.com/user/munchkinonice

Comment, rate, subscribe!

Kevon

Category:

Music

Tags:

• VGM
• Jazz
• Hiromi Uehara
• Corea
• Ellington
• Hamauzu
• Sakimoto
• Mitsuda
• PertinaciousOne
• ZachEatonMusic
• BazOdink
• max05xiii
• RidvanDuzey
• Farrow
• Upright Bass
• Grand Piano
• Brushes
• Trio
• Truncation
• Atonality
• Lullaby
• Harp
• Blues Harp

[Shurshwii]

very nice! i know next to nothing about jazz, but i did enjoy this song - keep it up!

[Arrow9100kj]

@Shurshwii Hehe! Thanks alot, btw recently uploaded something new as well ^^.

[AltoSaxOlly]

Thanks for the sub man, keep up the compositions, they're all great! I particularly like this one! Take a closer look into jazz harmony - 9ths/11ths/13ths and just generally more dissonance perhaps with minor 7 flat 5 chords or dominant 7 sharp 5s and just stuff like that to spice up your pieces even more! Thanks again, Olly.

[Arrow9100kj]

@AltoSaxOlly Hehe, dont worry man, Im a theory buff =D. I know from as simple as a maj7 to as complex as a dom13#5b9#11. This piece just didnt call for any severe amounts of dissonance - I just got a bit darker at the bass solo but thats about all the dissonance this needed >_<. I hope to write some more jazz and hopefully those half dims and more deeply altered chords would come in later! Greetings!

[AltoSaxOlly]

@Arrow9100kj - well said, i think perhaps you're right, it would of spoiled the 'lullaby' feel to add more dissonance perhaps! Im glad you're interested in writing more jazz, perhaps you could even experiment with improvisation, i dare you! ;) I really like what you do and i'll be very interested to see what you come up with next! I find composition a very arduous process! I did once compose a fantasia on a theme of chopin if you're interested, its on my channel somewhere :):):)

[Arrow9100kj]

@AltoSaxOlly Oh yes, Im very much subbed to your channel and will check your fantasia soon. Composition can INDEED be arduous...I often have to take breaks....this particular piece was one of the most challenging ones I ever did - took me 3 days and a couple sleepless nights and weeks of studying and internalizing jazz structures O_O. I need to contact you so expect a PM from me soon, Olly ^_^

[docnanomusic]

Whoa, it's like a boogie-woogie lullaby! Great stuff, man.

[Arrow9100kj]

@Arrow9100kj typo fail *carry >_<

[Arrow9100kj]

@06cornej Many thanks Elliot! Do cary on with your listening ^_^!

[sexierikamalubuy15]

@Arrow9100kj :]