As a string instrument usually plays the melodic line our challenge when collaborating on a composition  is to find a way to blend with the existing chords and enhance the overall feel to the piece. A good start is to listen to the chords and see how sustaining one of the notes in the chord might blend with the piano or guitar or whatever instrument is providing the main harmony. For example if the first chord is C major, and we know the chord of C major has the notes C E G We can very confidently say that any of those three notes will harmonise well.

We can take this a step further though and make a more melodic line out of those notes like for example repeating the notes G E. This of course is just a starting point and sometimes just two simple notes can really add a lot to a song.  

One song that comes to mind that based a recognisable little ‘riff’ on just two notes is the song by Coldplay ‘Viva La Vida’. If you look it up on YouTube you’ll hear 30 seconds into the song the violin comes in playing A flat and G!

Conor follows Mary’s chords C and Am from last week, adding ideas and giving them a structure with the words we have been working on.

Ken continues to build on our ideas by adding woodwind and brass ideas/riffs/notes using the same chords and adding F and G to C and Am/A, similar to Conor’s music map.

Keep building on these ideas and add anything you think works and sounds good. You can also try different chords and come up with your own version of the melody!