OCTOBER 25
I revisited the bars that my colleague had commented on and spent some time working on different ways to make the bar sound more appropriate and natural. I overall liked the contour of the original, as well the chords implied by the notes and the general string crossing idea that was present. When I looked closer, the first half of the bar was perfectly fine, and it was the second half of the bar that made this part sound so wrong. This was because the notes were strangely spread and did not lead sensibly into the D that began the next bar. I knew it still needed the A to B movement, so I brought these two notes together. I knew I also needed the melody to descend from this peak and link to the D of the next bar. It was easy to then just skip the A going down and fill in the last beat with descending G to E quavers. When I showed this to my colleague, both she and I were much happier with this change.
At the same that I cleaned up the last section of the melody, I also began developing the accompaniment. I find that descending the scale from 1 to 5 (8-7-6-5) in a minor key works well for 4 bar phrases, an idea stolen from generations of Western composers. This idea was superimposed onto a 3+3+3+3+2+2 groove that we had learnt on camp and features both in The Corrie Man as well as Connie’s Birthday. The draft made here would be close to how this idea appeared in the final product.