“I can’t control my fingers I can’t control my toes”
The Ramones rock. I wanted to slow this piece down and really make every note whisper. Here it is. I wrote about Chris Weingarten before. He’s awesome, he’s passionate, and he’s loud. So I asked him what his favorite song was, and he replied I Wanna Be Sedated. And that’s when I thought “How cool would THAT be!”
I heard an arrangement last week that changed my entire way of approaching things. Rather than the arrangement being a perfect translation of the uptempo pop song, the composer made it a slow, melodic, beautiful, and lush sounding piece. When I thought about the Ramone’s for orchestra, I thought about capturing this feeling.
It’s a beautiful piece of music when slowed down. I feel that being in an altered state is a very melodic, and peaceful thought – and I wanted to capture those feelings within this piece. The percussion was used to accent rather than excite. The horns held long, shallow notes so to add to the smoothness. The flutes whistle on top of the arpeggiated oboe section to add texture. And the violins whisper the lyrics in this slow, subtle piece, right up to the final note. I’ve learned that silence is more powerful than roars. And this piece has that attitude and power.
A few weeks ago, I spoke with my good friend David Weiss about changing up my pieces, and he agreed I should too. I don’t want every piece to be a perfect translation, note for note, tempo for tempo, line for line. I want to completely morph, create, break down and rebuild the pieces we love. I want to create music that wasn’t it’s original intention. Art has always been about creating new forms of previous works, and new ideas based off of previous influences. Dramatic changes allow us to see things from a new perspective. I hope this arrangement captures that desire.
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