Project: "Sweet Hour of Prayer"
Posted: Tue May 23, 2017 9:48 am
I'm providing a bit of help toward the goal of understanding how to play this song on piano, and after listening to it being played on a real piano quite a few times, I decided to transcribe it, hence the first version which is mostly the song as written, except for pedal marks and some Latin stuff that I have not looked-up in Wikipedia, hence have no idea what it means or does . . .
I changed or deleted a few other types of marks, since they didn't appear to do anything useful . . .
My perspective is that it's chords and a bass line, with a bit of leading in the bass line, hence if I were learning how to play the song on piano, I would learn the chords and bass line separately, and then focus on doing them at the same time . . .
I can write music notation, and I can sight-sing just about anything on soprano treble clef (although not as a soprano), but actually playing an instrument by reading sheet music is another matter, which currently makes not sense to me, strange as it might be . . .
The mind mapping is not there for instruments, but so what . . .
[NOTE: This song was composed in 1861 by William F. Bradbury for lyrics written by William W. Walford circa 1842, so I think it's public domain . . . ]
After listening to the first version for a while, I decided to add bass guitar and a harp . . .
And then I decided to add a celesta and glockenspiel, which included doing a bit more arranging, producing, and mixing . . .
In this new version, I adjusted the dynamics and added a few notes here and there, which included changing two half notes to quarter notes with something called "tenuto" in measures 12 and 38, where the goal is to make the notes sound a bit like the bass notes on the piano in one of my favorite Elvis Presley songs--the syncopated staccato bass piano notes at the start of "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear", which is very logical here in the sound isolation studio after consuming huge quantities of very strong coffee . . .
Why "tenuto"?
There are 12 choices, and it's the only one that sounds good for the two pairs of notes . . .
It does something, but it's subtle . . .
And I changed most of the "quarter note plus quarter rest" pairs in the electric bass line to half notes, so the song flows more smoothly and is not so "choppy", since the half notes fade naturally and fill the otherwise empty spaces in the bass line . . .
THOUGHTS
I'm starting to discern the actual melody or something, and this suggests strings . . .
Lots of FUN!
I changed or deleted a few other types of marks, since they didn't appear to do anything useful . . .
My perspective is that it's chords and a bass line, with a bit of leading in the bass line, hence if I were learning how to play the song on piano, I would learn the chords and bass line separately, and then focus on doing them at the same time . . .
I can write music notation, and I can sight-sing just about anything on soprano treble clef (although not as a soprano), but actually playing an instrument by reading sheet music is another matter, which currently makes not sense to me, strange as it might be . . .
The mind mapping is not there for instruments, but so what . . .
[NOTE: This song was composed in 1861 by William F. Bradbury for lyrics written by William W. Walford circa 1842, so I think it's public domain . . . ]
After listening to the first version for a while, I decided to add bass guitar and a harp . . .
And then I decided to add a celesta and glockenspiel, which included doing a bit more arranging, producing, and mixing . . .
In this new version, I adjusted the dynamics and added a few notes here and there, which included changing two half notes to quarter notes with something called "tenuto" in measures 12 and 38, where the goal is to make the notes sound a bit like the bass notes on the piano in one of my favorite Elvis Presley songs--the syncopated staccato bass piano notes at the start of "(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear", which is very logical here in the sound isolation studio after consuming huge quantities of very strong coffee . . .
Why "tenuto"?
There are 12 choices, and it's the only one that sounds good for the two pairs of notes . . .
It does something, but it's subtle . . .
And I changed most of the "quarter note plus quarter rest" pairs in the electric bass line to half notes, so the song flows more smoothly and is not so "choppy", since the half notes fade naturally and fill the otherwise empty spaces in the bass line . . .
THOUGHTS
I'm starting to discern the actual melody or something, and this suggests strings . . .
Lots of FUN!