COLLABORATION REQUEST: LET'S WRITE A SONG!

Whistle
1

Hey. I done did the verse, and it’s open for addition and/or improvement, but what I’m after here mostly is for you hot-shot musicians on this forum to give me a hand with a tune for it! You can read me doggerel here:
http://www.serpentmusic.com/COMPOSITION/pursued.html

This bit will likely be performed at the 2006 Kansas City Renaissance Faire. I’d lurv to see it be a spiffy reel tempo bit with lots of imagination, but still remaining singable by normal folk.

So haul out your whistles, your flute, your guitar, bouzouki, banjo, whatever, and bang out a bit o’ a tune for it, what say? Ye can email an MP3 to me here:

serpent@serpentmusic.com Yeah, remove the asterisks *…

If I use your tune, I’ll credit you on the CD and will give you your choice of a soprano D Coppery Polly, or if you dare, a Toxic PVC Practice Flute in whatever key you want.

If you can, send .nwc score from Noteworthy Composer (you can d/l it free and use it without registration for a reasonable period) It’s a great program with a low $39 registration and the ability to put out polytonal MIDI files, control of tempo, key, everything you really will ever need to properly compose music, and if you’ve a MIDI keyboard going into your comp, it will “understand” it. Significantly less expensive than its competitors, easy to use, and nituitive.
http://www.noteworthysoftware.com

“Audacity” is a free audio editor for you, too. Almost everything you can do with the $800 audio editing software, you can do with Audacity. Easy to use, small footprint, and will output WAV, MP3, and other formats.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
Oh. Did I mention that it’s free? :slight_smile:
Bill

P.S. Don’t get all wrapped up in downloading this stuff and forget me project, please! O.O

2

Hi Bill,
Really nice song with a cute storyline to it, but where’s the chorus? Ya need a chorus! Something that the crowd can join in on. :slight_smile:
raven

3

Bill,

What’s your deadline for this lil’ collaboration/competition?

Walt

4

Ya, it needs a chorus, but not after every verse, as that would be a bit much. I’d add another verse, which would help the story along a bit, and do the chorus after every two verses.

The added verse, to go before she answers the proposal (which was missing…)

The only thing I pine for now’s
A lass where home fire’s burnin’
Would you agree my wife to be
And share my heart’s deep yearnin’?

Chorus:
I chased her, I woo’ed her, I would not let her be,
At the end of the chase, I won the race, she caught me.

(Hey, it’s my first post ever! Be nice! :smiley: )

5

Funny–the way I heard the tune in my head,it doesn’t need a chorus. It’s more a “call and answer” piece, in which the first, fourth, and sixth stanzas are the call, and the second, third, five, and seventh stanzas are the answer.

Got the tune all worked out; now just need to record the bugger.

Walt

6

Walt,
you’re playing the whistle for this one?
which scale - which whistle?

7

Huh. At first I also thought it needed a chorus, then I decided to let
verses 3 and 6 be sung with a variation of the melody instead (as if
they were a chorus), starting those verses with the relative minor
chord on the guitar. It seemed to give them a musical sigh, which
verse 6 sort of needs. Then, the last verse is just a reprise of the
melody and I repeated the last two lines to finish the song.

You could also vary the melody every 2 verses: AABBAAB. (i.e.,
verses 1 and 2 sung to melody A, verses 3 and 4 to melody B, etc.)

8

Actually, I just meant that I’d concocted a tune that I think could be set to Bill’s words. I think his intention was for us to come up with lots of different tunes, which he’d then sift through until he found the one that best suits the song.

As for instrumentation, I tried my tune on six whistles and and Irish flute (amazingly, my wife didn’t expel me from the house!). By far, it (and I) sounded best on my O’Brien D.

Walt

(who’s still thinking about a Howard low D and may have to visit his local music store today to try his tune on yet another whistle)

9

Sounds as if our approaches were pretty similar. I suspect my “answer” is your “variation,” though I used the alternate melody a bit more often than you did.

As for AABBAAB, that was my original plan, but somehow I couldn’t come up with a suitable tune; for me the lyrics didn’t lend themselves to that treatment.

Ah well, sounds as if Bill will have several choices to pore over. Bill, any chance you’ll be flying the contestants out to perform their tunes live in front of you … and, perhaps, Simon Cowell?

Walt

10

Blardy hell he’s not gonna sift through 'em. that’s hardly fair, given I already had a tune in mind meself. No, not on yer nellie. I will put the entries on me website and stick a poll in this here thread and let the good folk of C&F vote on it.

Just so ya know, if you send me a whistle piece only, do expect me to stick in tablature and sing the bit in a mix. I’m fixing to move about a hundred miles in a few days, so will do me best to get it done by the weekend, but nae promises.

the entries I’ve gotten so far have been wondrous indeed, and gotten me many a chuckle. I think we’ll have a winner here, and I will have me brother Little Dick MacKenzie, sing it at the Renaissance Faire. (I’m Big Willie MacKenzie, in case ya wondered!) O.O

Cheers,
Bill