For Orchestra

“Where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky”

I’ve always wanted to do a ballad song. I’ve always wanted to do a Guns and Roses song. Sweet Child of Mine made for an amazing arrangement, and won the total of your votes – so here it is. Appetite for Destruction, in my opinion, is one of the best recorded albums of all time (another is Pearl Jam‘s ‘Ten’). The sound of the drums, basses, lyrics, and more are perfect. The arrangement and overall production are flawless, and of course the songs and timing of the album release were perfect.

I hope to do more GNR songs this week, because their songs are beautifully crafted. The one thing I kept getting with this piece was the difficult translation of the power chords used on Slash‘s guitar. Here’s why: a chord has 3 notes in it, whereas power chords have 2 – so I was undecided on whether to orchestrate the third note, or keep it as the original ’2 note power chord’. So I decided to instead use both – the 3 note chords sound ‘thicker’ when orchestrated, so I used them to build tension in the final chorus. The xylophone takes the guitar solo, the horns take the interlude at the 3 minute mark, and I chose to have the flutes play a ‘lesser’ role than in some of my other pieces. This is a power song, and that called for brass!

Similar to when I arranged Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance, I feel that the lyrics are deeper to me than just about relationships or a physical attraction. Axl Rose’s chant for “Where do we go now” I feel speaks for all relationships. These relationship could be about your career, your family, friends, a memory, or anything. As we grow older we look back, but redigesting past regrets stop us from growing strong into the future. So to me, ‘Where do we go now’ is about the future, not the past.

Where do we go with the orchestra, our lives, and our decisions? What is the next step? Sweet Child is our passion, our dream, and who we are. So where do we go now, sweet child? What’s the future for our passion? Life is a journey, and along that journey we begin to circle back where we started – where everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky.

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