30s30d: D15

Sep 15

Written By Love Letter

“Short and Sweet”

Prompt: short and sweet
Submission of Member: Aaron A

Downloads:

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Somewhat in the spirit of the topic yesterday - here’s another derivative-mid-century-style tune.

Gotta say right off the bat - I’m really happy with this one as of this precise moment.

I wrote it earlier today, but then had to scramble for a few hours to get ready for the One Big Dark Room September Live Stream, so I’m only just getting to turn it in now.

I must admit: a secret longing I have is to just be a super badass gypsy-jazz guitar player not unlike an acquaintance of mine, Albanie Falletta.

Sometimes when I’m feeling in a rut or stuck- usually in my songwriting, but often with my guitar playing too, I venture through the interwebs to various guitar gurus I admire and flip through playlists of guitar chord voicings and other tips and hacks to see if I can pick up something new. Mostly, all this makes me want to do is really take a few weeks off of EVERYTHING to shed and practice and probably improve my playing at least 10-15%, but then I realize I only have like 2 hours before the gig, or before the song is due, so I find one thing I can apply, and incorporate that into my playing until the next time… [sigh…]

That happened today somewhat, because I really wanted another swingier tune in the pile after a whole week of folk-rock jams. (Which I did enjoy and am happy to have, but still.) I was thinking about what I mentioned in yesterday’s post how it would be okay if I wanted to borrow from another song’s form (or even melody), and started to put something together to the opening chords of “All of Me.”

Pretty quickly I found my own melody and phrasing around the song, though I really struggled to figure out what I wanted to to in the second half of the A section… for a good while… but eventually realized maybe an hour later that one of the ideas I kept going back to was probably fine. sometimes it’s just about making concessions with oneself.

I particularly love these refrain opportunities that remind me of tin-pan-alley tunes with simple “sayings” that can be turned. They present a fun challenge, and can be really fun to try to puzzle.

I felt like the melody sounded a little similar to something else to me, but couldn’t place it, so shrugged it off and continued on. After finishing it and feeling pretty pleased with myself, I finally TOOK A SHOWER (not a thing that always happens when I give myself so much to do and not enough time to do it), and realized that the melody was similar to “Faraway Places” - but, I feel, not so similar that it needed to be changed.

I hope you like it! I am still not totally happy with the refrain of “We could share a love that’s short and sweet”… I wish it said something more like “it would be okay if we shared a love that’s short and sweet” - but, again, maybe I’m just splitting hairs and this colloquially comes across just fine.