Composing Smooth Jazz: Evolution of a New Song – Transcendance, Part 1
Composing smooth jazz music is, for me, a never-ending process. The music comes to me in a variety of ways, and sometimes when I least expect it.
Recently, while driving back and forth to a show over several days, a new song came to me, and I thought it would be interesting to chronicle the evolution of this song. So I’m going to make notes as I go along and share them with you here.
The idea for this song came to me as I was listening to a tune from the CD Tourist from St. Germain, the music of french musician Ludovic Navarre. called “What You Think About”. Here’s an excerpt from that tune:
As I was listening to that tune, I was hearing another tune in my head. I wrote down what I was hearing on an envelope while I was driving:
(I realize this looks a little sloppy, but hey – I was writing while I was driving!)
This was very exciting for me. I love it when music comes to me that because I know something cool and interesting is going to come of it, and this one was very powerful. I must have listened to “What You Think About” at least 50 times – but of course what I was really hearing in my mind’s ear was this new song.
Back in the studio, as a starting point, the first thing I do is attempt to replicate the basic drum groove on “What You Think About”. This is an interesting exercise because there is a little “hitch” in the groove on beats 3 and 4 (did you hear it?). Here’s what I come up with:
Then, I start working with that groove and adjusting it to my own style and sensibilities with slightly different beats, quantization, and instruments:
Finally, after some more groove massaging, I add bass and some keyboards. Here’s the final basic groove for this new song whose working title is “Gotta Wannit” (don’t ask me why – it just is).
Continue to Part 2 —>
