The Night Smoker- Dark and Light

Youtube Analysis Available Here: https://youtu.be/AIftpqvxXg0

During this song I wanted to channel some of the vocal and chordal choices which would resonate with the likes of Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake. The piece starts with a dissonant and jarring double stop of F and C# over a D major pedal, only to resolve to F# and D, the third and root of our chord I. The dissonance perhaps reflects negative thoughts and how they can stand out in our heads, much in the same way the first chord stands out to the listener.

During the verse, a fingerpicked pattern in D major, continues using a struck bass note to provide the key centre. The choice to tune to Dropped D tuning for the purpose of the recording was to add extra resonance to the chord and bolster the root note for where it repeats in other octaves.

The third phrase of each verse, contains a moving bassline in a Latin style, accentuating a chromatic sequence of 4 notes, whilst holding the same chord shape on top. So the chords would look like this:

|| B minor | Bm/A# or Dmaj#5 | B minor 7^th | Bm/G# or E9 ||

This movement carries similar influence from the likes of the Beatles, whose fingerstyle guitar parts, played by George Harrison on such tracks as ‘Julia,’ ‘Dear Prudence,’ and ‘Something,’ create a slow tumbling feel to the chord progression. This is reflective of the moody introspection that appeared on the albums following ‘Sargent Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band.’  

During the chorus, the choices of chords accentuate how the use of melodic minor can create interest for both the progression and for the vocal. Here are the chords:

|| E minor | % | Bbdim7 | % | G minor 7^th | % | D major 7^th | D ||

Whilst this progression stays majorly faithful towards our Tonic Key of D major, we may repeat some vocal lines over different chords and achieve a different effect each time. Here is how that would look.

Notice how the notes F#, E and D appear in sequence, both in bar 3 over the E minor, and in bar 5 over our Bbdim7, both accentuating different colour tones of the scale relevant to the chord. In the case of Bbdim7 we are accentuating the b4, b5 and b6 of Bb Superlocrian bb7 or Ultra Locrian. This is one of the darkest sounds within the main two alternate minor scales that can be achieved, as every note in the Ultra Locrian scale is flattened, making the scale sound claustrophobic. The use of the IV minor is another common technique as reflected in an earlier piece of writing. This creates a darker sound as would be achieved by a Minor 6^th chord in a Jazz standard, implying the use of Melodic Minor.  This leads up to the resolution of D major 7 which takes us back into the simpler harmony expressed within the verses.

Youtube Analysis Available Here: https://youtu.be/AIftpqvxXg0