Another old, unfinished track. I like this one a lot. Starts around with some weird electronic, then chromatic jazz, then into funk with some of the meanest bass I've ever produced.

Shotgun

This was my rap debut. A mean personal song about having a bad day and doing pleasurable things. This is the remastered version with added sound effects in the style of Eminem and D12.

Be Like Knave

The song is about seeing a pretty girl walking by. The main electronic riff is reality- when she's just walking. The trap part is when you're clenching your teeth in a fever (so hard that you could probably crack a jawbreaker). The jazz part is imagining the good that could come of you two getting to know each other, and the outro is when she walks away forever, like The girl from Ipanema.

This song was inspired by the fast genre switching in Ron Jarzombek's "Word for Nerds," as well as trap and jazz music in general. 'Major Lazer' influenced the goofy vocal samples, and the trap was heavily guided by 'Brillz.' 

Jawbreaker

#culture

This gentle song is part of an easy-listening CD I'm making for my family.

Intro: ii-V in the key of C harmonic minor. 

|D-7(b5), G7(b13)|

Main riff: II-V in the key of Bb major. I love the bass in this section. It simply plays the four notes of each chord, but it was a blast to play, and I like the sound of the harmony over the various roots.

|C-9|F13|

Chorus: I of Bb major, then switch to the 'parallel' key (Bb MINOR/Db major) and play its relative major's II-V. We are sort of subbing on a substitution here- first borrowing from the parallel key (Bb major to Bb minor), then from the relative major within that new key (Db major of Bb minor); this is known as the "Backdoor turnaround." Can think of it more simply as I, then II-V of biii.

|Bb maj7|Eb-7, Ab7| 

The final turnaround chord is a brief chromatic passing chord, diatonic to the whole-half diminished scale. The chord consists of a root, major sixth, major seventh, major ninth, and a b13. Overall it has a relatively gentle and open sound (especially for a diminished chord). The notes are B Ab Bb Db G. This gives it somewhat of a major 6/9 sound, but with the major 7th in there it adds some blurry 2nds to create rough dissonance. This chord can be heard at 1:37 or 2:33. 

|B 'diminished'|

The song repeats at this point, until we get to the end which is a simple II-V-I in the key of Bb. I use a tritone substitution on the V, and replace it with one of my favorite chords right now: a beautiful dominant 9th with a 13 on top. The song ends on a 6/9 chord with a 7th high in the melody.

|C-9|x2 |B13|x2 |Bb6/9|

The song's general arc follows the circle of fourths, with some chromatic movements. If you look at the root notes, in general they go:

D, G, C, F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Bb, B, C, B, Bb. 

The picture was taken of two rainbows on the way back from San Francisco. I thought the two rainbows were like the parallel grooves, representing how in this song we groove in the parallel key.

Parallel Grooves

My third rap song, aka "Third time's the charm." 

I wanted to make a real music video for this song but I'm too impatient, and don't have the means right now. I like lyric videos anyways.

The time signature changes from common time to 7/4, and then back.

BlikeNave