I’ll give you some songs in the next newsletter, but just to demonstrate my point, let’s take “Mary had a little lamb” since everyone knows this nursery rhyme (and its a lot easier to make my point clear with a simple song like this)… With this method, if you can sit at your piano and pick out the one-note melody, then you’re 30 seconds from playing it as a full-sounding song. This is how hymns and popular music are played. Harmonizing melodies, to me, is much easier.
#SEE BENEATH YOUR BEAUTIFUL PIANO CHORDS HOW TO#
To some extent, you have to know how to read sheet music (at least to read the melody line). For example, the chord chart may display a “Cmaj7” over a particular bar with a melody line beneath it. Jazz standards are usually notated this way. You may have heard of fake books and chord charts where you are given chords to play under various melodies.
#SEE BENEATH YOUR BEAUTIFUL PIANO CHORDS SERIES#
It may have been inadvertently achieved, but the removal of the rafter-shakers has perhaps resulted in their best album to date.(Part one of a two week series on harmonizing melodies) Harmonizing melodies is different than laying chords beneath a melody. It would not do to upset the flow at the last second.īy subverting expectations, Elbow have been able to fully embrace and accurately sketch the beauty found within their more introverted side. Closer What Am I (Without You) ventures out further, but just a little. Six Words and The Seldom Seen Kid-also the name of an earlier Elbow album, of course-tread this path, and the former is stunning in its simplicity. It’s not quite at the level of ‘Laughing Stock’, though, more ‘Spirit of Eden’.Īt times they appear to be heading for the usual peaks, but they never quite attempt the summit. It is reminiscent of Talk Talk when they entered their more experimental stage. More attention can be paid to the beauty of the most subtle inflections, such as Is It A Bird’s jabbing bass coupling with Garvey’s vulnerability and some jazzy sax touches. Removing the temptation to skip ahead in search of the next big, emotive release also allows ‘Flying Dream 1’ to flow beautifully.
The title track doubles up as opener and its beautiful piano chords are warming-it’s gorgeous, as is the ensuing melancholy of After The Eclipse.Ĭome On Blue also adopts this gentle approach and the lack of bombastic instrumentation gives Garvey’s vocals a boost that we’ve not heard over the course of a whole album before. Soothing seems to be the best way to describe this effort. It’s the reflective, quieter side of Elbow that’s showcased here. As such, possibly for the first time, there are no big pillars supporting the record at all. Vocalist Guy Garvey has described ‘Flying Dream 1’ as “hushed night-time missives”. While these stadium-ready anthems have taken all the plaudits, it’s often been the more sedate songs, which tick along beneath their neighbours’ grandiosity, that carry the albums home.įor LP nine, however, things were made more difficult by working at a distance from each other. Over the course of Elbow’s career, the Mancunian group have tended to pepper their albums with cacophonous rabble rousers amongst more genteel, subtle pleasantries.