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Main Page About Gail About my CDs
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Songbird of Swing
Composer : Gail Selkirk Instrumentation and Musicians:
As well as providing song previews in MP3 format as above, we are starting to try out a new format for song downloads - Ogg Vorbis, which is an alternative to the common MP3 format. We have found that Ogg Vorbis audio files are of a higher quality than comparable MP3 files. It is possible that your media player already supports Ogg format if you are using WinAmp in Windows or iTunes on a Mac. If you are, try downloading and playing the Ogg versions of Songbird of Swing and see if you can hear the difference:
Lead/Lyric Sheet:
Background of the Song
There's a cemetery near our house that we use as our own exercise/boardroom
facility. This large, beautiful space is generously populated with
huge old trees that are the homes of thousands of birds and of course,
gravestones. It's in here that we can walk five enthusiastically paced
miles while solving business challenges and ever dreaming and scheming.
I usually start all of my arrangements here, building the song in my head as I march along. That simple walk in the cemetery rewards me with five miles under my feet plus a skeletal musical structure which I can further fatten.
Songbird of Swing is the name of this cut, the name of this CD and my
moniker as well. I purposely wrote it to be a signature song - such a
quaint, dated idea. :-)
The Gory Details:I sang a cutesy lead vocal, followed by a classically-voiced choir of "Gaillettes" to sound like little birds in tall trees.The key of G minor naturally employs diminished seventh and half-diminished seventh chords to further darken the tonality, making the song sound somewhat spooky and modal. To create an interesting progression, I mixed straight triads with chordal extensions. The melody is a bit "hilly", but I think the changes and rhythmic shots support it well. Thank you to Jimmy Boudreau for moving this tune along at a jaunty clip! Take a listen to Songbird of Swing by clicking on one of the links above. Then download the PDF file that contains the lead/lyric sheet, and try it out! |
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