Progress continues on a jazz noir cover of Miracle of Sound's "Ballad of Commander Shepard." I transcribed the ostinato that I'm turning into a bass line, did a rough transcription of the vocal line, and found tabs online:
My music theory is still not good. The ostinato is starting with D as a pedal tone but arguably we're actually in the relative F major all along (for which this is a VI). Or it is D minor -- that Bb should be a clue there! -- and the chord progression is a simple I III IV with that Bb as an VII and that lone C being a very leading VIII. Except that C also pivots to a new I III IV in C major...?
(Incidentally, that lone Bb gets natural for the ascending melodic minor, and the C...is sharped in the harmonic minor. Minor scales are...weird.)
Anyhow, after slapping on the basic triads identified by the tabber, I looked to see if I could impose the distinctive chromatic progression of the James Bond theme as a pedal point. Well, sort of. The Dm Dm F G pattern repeated through most of the song means if you start the progression on D you are then trying to put a D# or an E into a D chord. Well...if you extend the chord, there's an E in the 9th, making a Dm9 chord...(DFACE...which actually creates a nice pivot to the upcoming F). According to PianoChord, this chord is typically played with omitted notes and/or inversions.
Anyhow, that is a full step not a half but sticking too slavishly to the signature Bond progression can be a mistake. Next up is then an F...which is the chord we are in. Then either abandon the rise-and-fall to go up to the G, or create interest by backing down to the E/D#. Well, that's a problem. It only shows up in the G6 and we're trying for a bit of a suspension. Incidentally, that G is missing the Bb -- it requires going to Gm. But the point of chord progressions is to create interest by the notes that are not in common. So the strange Gm6/E 3rd inversion is played E (making our semi-chromatic pedal seem like the root), G, the Bb, and a final D.
Whew! And this is before I try to harmonize the brass or the string section! (One of the dirty secrets of chromatic pedal points is you keep it so far away from the rest of the instruments the ear can't hear the problems. So played in high strings, you might get away with this).
Anyhow. This project is definitely sending me back to music paper. It is the best way to work out some of these harmonies.
I'm not going to take that too far before I've tried out some instrumentation. One problem is this was a guitar-driven vocal number originally. Jazz Noir goes better with a broken lead line with lots of open space in it. So the first thing to try is handing off parts of the line to different instrumentation so the contrast will punch up the brass when they do play. Flute, guitar, vibraphone, strings are all options here. High, lush string sections are part of the "spy" sound all right. Sax is also a natural for a very vocal sound, but I don't play sax (and my lead guitar ain't great, either).
And I have been wanting a chance to try out my now nearly-complete string collection -- violin, (chin) cello and (chin) bass!
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