I Think I Kinda You Know that You Don't Know (part 2)

Welcome back my couch potatoes. I hope you are all doing well with the whole quarantine. You know with the distance learning, social distancing, basically staying inside your house 24/7, especially on a day like today where it's gloomy, icky, and foggy outside :(  I really thought this was going to be a time where I could clean around the house, do somethings I always wanted to do or never had time for and should be doing (like practicing guitar or singing... what? pfft I mean, I do that on a daily basis). But instead, my teachers, mostly AP, are throwing a bunch of work into my face while my dad is yelling at his co-workers. So basically I am sitting in the same seat and staring at this computer for about 13+ hours... fun. Well, writing this blog is so let's get to it.




I wanted to get back on my process of how I arranged two songs, creating a mash-up (previous post on this is right here). Let me recap a little bit. So I discussed how these two songs are written in the same key, with the same tonality, and follow pretty much the same chord progression (if you are already confused, I suggest clicking on that link that you skipped over... please and thank you) which makes it easier to arrange and mash the songs together.

But I am going to go in a little deeper. As I have mentioned, I explained that the chord progressions of the songs "I Think I Kinda You Know" and "Can't Blame a Girl for Trying" follow the almost the same chord progression in the verse. For the HSMTMTS song, the progression is I-V-vi-IV while the Sabrina Carpenter song goes I-ii-vi-IV. Now as you can see the second chord in each progression is different. They have a different tonality and are completely different chords. Meg, what did you do? Well have you ever wondered what makes up a chord???


Actually, Meg, I have never wondered that what so ever...

Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.

The official definition of a chord is playing 2 or more notes simultaneously; therefore it doesn't have to be pretty like the ending of Eric Whitacre's arrangement of the "The Star Spangled Banner" (like literally the last chord is the entire scale of C major plus more... I like to describe his writing as if he blindly put his entire hand on the piano and played every key that touched his hand... obviously that's not actually true, it just sounds like it... anyway please cut to 2:17 if you don't want to listen to the whole thing). But in more modern music and what most musicians use standard chords that are, for the most part, pleasant to listen to. In part one I discussed how there are certain chords for a certain key... well there are also notes for certain chords. Most of them consist of three notes, making them a triad which is a more specific chord.



The V chord in the key of C major is G major and the ii chord is D minor. Now look at the notes each chord consists of. G major has the notes G, B, D and D minor has D, F, A. They share a common note: D. This may not make much sense, but because they share a common note, I am able to substitute the D minor chord for the G major chord.  Let me explain a little further. The notes that are sung in the HSMTMTS song mostly consists of D and not so much of G or B, therefore, it sounds fine to use the D minor chord in this case. If they sang mostly B's then there would be a lot of clashing with the notes in a D minor chord and it would just sound wrong. Substituting a major chord with a minor chord does switch the tonality a bit but the difference is so small that most people don't think about it.

Now what I actually did to create my arrangement was take the chord progression of of Sabrina's Carpenter's song (which is the progression with the D minor) and they rhythm of the chords they use. The four chords follow the same rhythm and is put on repeat. I then sing on top of the chords with the melody and lyrics of the HSMTMTS. I have to sing this part at a little bit fast of a tempo so the correct notes in the melody line up with the correct chords. For the most part, that is the most complicated part of arranging this piece. The next most difficult thing is making sure the songs flow into each other well so I have to make sure the lyrics line up and the chords flow correctly.

To give you an idea, here is how I arranged it based on the lyrics.

So much has happened, think of what we've done
In the time that the Earth has traveled 'round the Sun
Winter, spring, summer an' we're back to fall
We've been together hand-in-hand through it all
From the minute we kissed and my heart skipped a beat
To the night that we danced, I was swept off my feet
Sure is every year has to come to an end
I'd go spinnin' 'round the Sun with you again and again and again and again

'Cause I'm young and I'm dumb
I do stupid things when it comes to love
And even if I always end up crying
Well, you can't blame a girl for trying

Oh, oh
Oh, oh
No, you can't blame a girl for trying
Oh-oh-oh-oh

I should've shut my mouth, I could've kept it quiet
I might have freaked him out 'cause I was so excited
But I just couldn't wait, I took a leap of faith
Oh, the things I say(ing)
is this, what I'm sayin' is this

I think I kinda, you know
I think I kinda, you know
Like the way that we flow
Like the way that we go
And I love
I think I kinda, you know
I think I kinda, you know
Mm, I think I kinda, you know, you know, you know



I still have yet to figure out how I am going to end the song but I will have it figured out and get back to you guys.

But here is a short clip of me singing what I have so far... It's not perfect but that's why I'm not going to school for performance. Also ignore my sluggish outfit and the messy room (quarantine life got me a little lazy).

That's all for now. Thanks for sticking around and read how I struggle to explain things. Until next time, look, listen and lay low.

Sources:
I think lyrics
Can't lyrics

Images:
c major
Lilo
yay me
margo
minnie