"Tightrope"

At the end of November, I got a Moog (the Subsequent 37).  I'm still learning how to use it, but here's the Moog part at the beginning of "Tightrope."

"Tightrope"

Lately, I've been really into the synth part at the beginning of "Tightrope."  I recently figured out about half of the violin part in the introduction, so I had enough to make it worth recording.

I had to make some instrumental substitutions.  I don't really have access to a good synth sound (a Moog is near the top of my instrument wish list), so I used the B3 bass pedals setting on my keyboard.  The string parts are both mellotron sounds (violin and cello).  Some of the violin part is triplets, which are a bit difficult to play; I did my best.

I recorded this more from memory than anything else.  I vaguely remembered this post from a couple years ago in which I mentioned that - while they're similar - the lower string part isn't exactly the same as the synth part.  Had I lookt at that before I recorded my audio example, maybe I would have thought to reference the instrumental mix (a bonus track on the CD re-issue) for greater accuracy.  I'm pretty confident of the synth part and what I have of the violin part though.

"Tightrope"

Between listening to A New World Record this morning and figuring out some chords for "Tightrope" this afternoon, I found a couple things to note.

"Down" in the line "I was headin' down" is sung with a descending melisma (A C), musically giving a sense of "headin' down."

Under the lines "They say some days you're gonna win / They say some days you're gonna lose" and "They say some days you gotta give / They say some days you gotta take," the chords keep changing between F major and G major, musically giving a sense of that alternating.

I found two things to note about the line "If you believe that's how it's gonna be, I better put you down."  This "down" is also sung with a (generally) descending melisma for a musical sense of its meaning, although I'm unsure of the specific pitches.  Underneath that "down," the chords change from F major to F minor, so that "down" is also musically represented in that drop from A to Ab.

"Tightrope"

"Tightrope" was the only song from A New World Record that I hadn't either written about or learned a part from, so last week I figured out a synth part at the beginning:

To make my notation, I program a MIDI part and then just take a screen clipping of it.  I don't know how to put in repeats (if that's even possible with my program), so I added my own repeat signs when I edited the image.

I also referenced the early instrumental mix that's a bonus track on the CD re-issue.  The synth part isn't present there, so it's easier to hear the string parts.  I think for the most part, the upright bass plays the same thing as the synth, but I haven't lookt into it that closely yet.  I did notice that in one measure the synth plays G and B notes but the bass plays only a G (in my notation, it's the last measure in the third line).