Lee Barry Composition Diary

While practicing, I discovered this interesting climb that can be used for a IV-I closing line, where each scale degree is connected with a chromatic note. It can also work on a whole tone scale.

Has everyone been noticing the number 11?  It reminded me of an etude I came up with for improv, comprised of altered V-I cadences moving up in 4ths, using the raised 4th/11th as the altered note. They can be played as polychords (A/G, D/C, etc.) in a group situation, where the keyboards play the bottom triad and guitars play the top triad. Chord scales would be Lydian and Lixian (a hybrid of Lydian and Mixolydian), or pentatonics.  Instant Steely Dan. Play at Musecore

Possible piano version, in 3/4, not 5/8

    Is loosely in E Locrian with a tonic chord of an Emin7(b5). Uses every chord in the key. (Retitled as "James" as an homage to James Jamerson)

The piece started to sound like it could be scored for a quartet, and here's the first section. It sounds like Ravel in this context. Playing it through various MIDI patches sounds almost Russian. It's working title was "Morfeo". later changed to MOTN. MIDI  

Fretless improv over keyboard bass loop.

Rough chord and melody/riff ideas. (Perhaps D minor or E minor are better keys) 2046 by Lee Barry

Chromatic bass idea (with a "Another One Bites" funky feel) using a 3-note cell alternately ascending and descending. Chords are in D Phrygian, but the piece is too chromatic to be in any key. First draft, but will change drastically. Ancient AI by Lee Barry

On this second mix a riff emerged:

I realized that if you superimpose the IV and V chords in a key, you can easily flip their function by swapping the bass note: Key of G: C becomes the dominant when D is in the bass (C/D, or D11) and D becomes subdominant when C is in the bass (D/C or Cmaj7#11). The typical 70s singer-songwriter sound (Elton, Carole King)

A clever way to alternate two chords with common tones, whereby moving one half-step gets you to a chord tone:

    There are 3 parallel meters used: 3/4, 12/8 and 6/8+3/4. A common characteristic in African music is a 12/8 meter that can be related to on various levels. In Western music, meter gets divided or simplified into a basic meter and syncopation is used for rhythmic complexity. Since African music is not about scored music, different metric layers can be easily added over the top without consideration of how it relates to 12/8. Rhythmic levels: Rhythm By Addition by Lee Barry

This started as an improvised vocal into a harmonizer on a dummy lyric, which suggested its ultimate mood and production. If the inferences are sinister, it is by accident only, and may have been a story in the news at the time that was incorporated to what I was doing at the moment. (The old Beatles aleatorical trick). The other Beatlesque treatment was a string quartet version I did of this, now lost as a Finale/MIDI file. Anyone that wants to write a lyric and sing a new vocal part on this is welcomed.

This started out with chords on the piano as "Time Being", the first two alternating between C minor and B major 7. It's a strange harmony that eludes a key center, much in the way that jazz is about cycles around the circle of fifths, and subdominant/dominant relationships. It ends in C minor but few of the chords are from that key. The second draft was set in 12/8 and tracked up from a drum and bass part. I didn't like where it was going--too harmonic. I found a nice melodic path (desire path) in the guitar melody.

Bowie was the first artist to successfully fuse rock with sci-fi. I wrote Dome City ten years ago, primarily inspired by the album "Outside". The chord change cliche of a major chord with the inner voice descending chromatically somehow always reminded me of early Bowie, and I still love it, cliche or not. Dome City by Lee Barry (Part 2 was actually the original idea, that I did an acoustic version of): Dome City by Lee Barry