My latest composition

I just finished this song a few days ago. Been a work in progress over the last six months. Glad to call it done!

Genre/Style: latin jazz/fuzion/jazz rock
Starts out in a sort of latin songo groove, moves in the 2nd half to more of a hard rock feel.

Creative Vision for the Track:
I wanted to write something that wasn’t so conforming to any specific genre, and something that had some unexpected twists and turns. I think I achieved some of that.
The title comes from the fact that our dog loves to play with socks, especially right out of the laundry basket. And she makes me laugh at how happy and silly she gets.

Composition Details (Tempo, Key, Main Chords etc):
The first half of the song is based on a latin groove, a sort of deconstructed songo pattern. The chords are all one type. Essentially, it’s a Major 7 chord with the 9 in the bass. And the 5 is replaced by the 6.
So the first chord in the melody is an EbM7(no 5, add 13)/F. And then the chords just move in parallel down chromatically. So the solo section is (leaving out the paranthesis) EbM7/F, DM7/E, DbM7/Eb, DM7/E, and repeat.
The second half is essentially modal Eb7 the whole way.

Main Instruments used:
Drums- Addictive Drums
Bass- Cakewalk SI Bass
Trumpet- Native Instuments (NI) Session Horns Pro
TBone- NI Session Horns Pro
Alto- Cakewalk Dimension Pro
Tenor- Cakewalk Dimension Pro
Electric Guitars - NI Electric Sunburst Deluxe
Piano - NI the Giant
DX7 - Dimension Pro
Synth Bass- NI Elements Synth
Percussion - NI Cuba

All comments are welcome. Hope you enjoy!

3 Likes

Lots of fun with this one Steven! I just wrote my first Jazz piece, not sure it was any good, but I have a deeper interest in Jazz styles now. Really liked that first section. With the second section, that electric guitar riff had me thinking “heavy metal jazz” :smile:

1 Like

Thanks for the encouraging words!
Heavy metal jazz- I love it!

Steven

Matt- I was just thinking- you might appreciate these instructional videos; I just discovered them a few days ago, and I’m really enjoying them and learning a lot. A big band composer/arranger in LA, Elliot Deutsch. He does a great job teaching fundamentals and specifics in a very easy to understand way.
Here’s the first of the video series:

Let me know what you think!
Steven

Excellent! Nice driving groove. Chick Corea would have loved to play on this chart. He recently passed away (Feb 9, 2021). Your stuff continues to amaze me.

Thank you, Clinton! I really appreciate your encouraging feedback.
Chick Corea was/is one of my favorite musicians ever, so your comment regarding him makes me smile big time!

Steven

Instantly transported me to what I imagine a hot summer night sounds like in Havana

Let that pup have as many socks as she can handle :wink:

Wow - This is so Cool! Really like the descending / ascending feel and I would have to agree very chic-ish! The drums and bass lines are solid! The Metal lines and solo are phenom!!!

She’s learned to jump into my laundry basket a pull them out two at a time!
And thanks for the comment- the music of Havana; that made me smile.

Steven

1 Like

Thanks, Stuart! Yeah, I was really pleased with how those chords worked as a progression, and again, any time Chick is mentioned with respect to something I wrote, huge smile, floating on air! The metal part of the song was definitely where I stressed the most about whether it sounded okay or not, so really happy you like it!

Steven

Wow …! really beautiful jazz/rock composition, I love it… great sound and realistic …! Bravo

Thank you for the kind comments! Really appreciate it!

Steven