Sunday, July 26, 2020

"Love and Beauty"

Yester-day, I figured out the chords in the verses in "Love and Beauty" and discovered that they're extremely similar to a section of the chords in "Go Now."  "Go Now" is in Ab major and in 3/4 time, and the chords for the first half of the verse are:

Ab major | C minor | F minor | Ab major | Db major | Bb minor | Eb major

This section is then repeated (although the Eb major lasts only one measure the second time).  With simplified note values and a simplified bass part, it's something like:


I think "Love and Beauty" is also in Ab major (although I'm not certain, and I think there's a key change for the chorus), but it's in 4/4.  The second half (or so) of the verses has this chord progression:

C minor | Ab major | C minor | F minor | Ab major | Db major | Eb major

Excepting the first C minor, this is only one chord different (it lacks the Bb minor).  Again, with simplified note values and a simplified bass part, it's something like:


Provided I've figured these parts out correctly, they both have a diatonic descent in the bass register until they skip down to Bb and then up to Eb, and the first few chord voicings alternate between the root position (first, third, fifth) and the second inversion (fifth, root, third) to mirror this.

"Love and Beauty" was written by Mike Pinder, and according to the liner notes of the 2008 re-issue of Days of Future Passed (with bonus tracks), it was among the first songs that "revealed that the band had left their old R&B-influenced style behind."  The similarities of these chord progressions don't seem to bear that out, however.  It seems that in starting to write songs that forged the band's own identity (rather than continuing on with R&B covers), Pinder - whether consciously or not - went back to the chords from "Go Now" as a model for his own composition.

Sunday, July 12, 2020

"Nights in White Satin"

I haven't been very active on this blog lately, so I thought I should post something.  A couple years ago, I'd started writing out the flute solo in "Nights in White Satin" in notation.  I finally finished it this morning.  I tried to be precise in the note values, and I discovered a note I'd missed (so my notation is more accurate than the recording I made), but I still wouldn't guarantee that what I have is completely accurate.