Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Blues for Kyrian, by the Fool

This is the other piece I wrote (mostly) while I was away, to keep myself entertained. Blues for Kyrian, mostly because Kyrian is great and anyway she asked me.

Unfortunately, this one didn't work out all that well. I used a different blues pattern, following (in spirit, not in detail) the song "See that my grave is kept clean", by Blind Lemon Jefferson, written around 1927 or so. One of the all-time great blues songs, but not your usual 12-bar.

One trouble I find with writing music in LOTRO is that the music system is severely constrained, particularly with regard to instrument type and rhythmic variation. So, once you've written a couple of blues songs it's difficult to find new ways to speak the blues language, without it merely sounding like a rehash of older songs.

I tend to fall back on overcomplicated orchestration, which kind of spoils the essential simplicity of the blues sound, turning the whole piece into a sort of big band semi-blues, rather than the purer blues sound I was striving for. I realise my orchestration is overcomplicated, but I don't know how to fix it, without simply writing Bluebonnett's Blues again.

Mind you, it didn't help that I used the same rhymthmic pattern as Bluebonnett's Blues, as well as the same horn line in spots. Pure laziness, that.

Neither do I like the ending, but all my other crazy endings sounded like Bluebonnett's Blues again. So I just cut it dead, as inspiration failed to strike.

The solo passage is a bit short, too, but that's just pure laziness. After I've coded up one time through, I  just can't be bothered doing it all again. In real life I would solo a whole lot more than once. More than twice even :-) So I feel guilty cutting the solo passages so short, but hey, it could be worse. 

1 comment:

  1. Maybe it could be better Aegthil but I think you do yourself down - I'd be happy to play it with Andune.

    Mind you, you are lazy :)

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