IV, I, ii, vi
which is:
F major, C major, D minor, A minor
which Google doesn't show any results for the way it does many other progressions
I tried to use one that hadn't been explored before (it may have been but I didn't see any results for it)
I put the major pentatonic over this progression, which the rule of thumb is that it matches with major triads but not really minor ones,
but I found that if I was careful I was able to avoid any sour sounding combinations. In my mind anyway :)
The bass line stays completely within the notes of each chord for two measures at a time. I really spend a lot of time on the bass line, actually there was some kind of glitch in the program that moved everything around and I had to redo it.Actually that's how I ended up with this particular chord progression, this is basically what it randomly rearranged the notes to, and then I smoothed it out. So I guess the glitch worked out for the best because I like this progression a lot. The fourth part of the base line is what took the longest, the first three came pretty naturally and then the fourth took a long time for me to get happy with.
The synth I used was "Warm Strings" and it plays the middle note of each chord throughout, I think usually it would be the root note but I decided to try it this way.
The approach to matching the main melody with the base lins was to play basically the same pattern of moving up and down in tone but sort of improvising a pentatonic version. Well, that is, I think that's what I was doing subconsciously, it didn't really occur to me until after I played it.
I don't know much about the theory as far as rhythm goes, I used a drum sample called "Bar Band" on the IPad.
The whole song was done completely within the one program Garage Band on the IPad. (Best 5 dollars for a program I ever spent!)
All in all I think it took about 8 or 9 hours to make, pretty much in one session with a couple of cigarette breaks in there. But not many and not very long ones. A couple times I had to stop and look up some things on the internet, I just learned the Roman numeral chord notation last night.
As far as the overall structure goes, I think it might be unique, as many different genres have all the songs in them following the same basic structures, and I try to make up a new one for each song. I'm not too sure about this because I don't know all the different terminologies for structure. I think this one might be considered to have two bridges, but maybe that would only have been if I had changed the drum pattern when the electric guitar comes in. As it is maybe that counts as a chorus. And for instance it might be unusual to introduce a new instrument in the last couple measures. I don't really know much about it. I'm going off the fact that I made it up as I went along without following a set pattern and most music follows a certain set of basic patterns, so I think the chances it's been used before might be slim.
I'm pretty happy with it, I like listening to it. My Grandma thinks it's really pretty, that makes me happy. A couple of people said each song is better than the last. I like to think I'm improving. Long ways to go yet, though. The stressful part is thinking that someone might hate it, but I think even the greatest masterpieces have their people that can't stand them. Probably a much higher percentage of people won't like this one, haha.
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