Same pattern repeated half a tone lower - good idea in a song? How to make it work?

Not even gonna read this to lyk if it sounds good it sounds good.

 

My advice is to use your ears, if it doesn't sound good, it doesn't work.

 

On paper, this sounds like the reverse of that old cliche, when the songwriter has run out of ideas; throw in a key change (usually playing the next verse / repeating the chorus a semi-tone higher).

But in all honesty, you're only going to know for sure if you try it.

 

If my advice to use your ears is garbage, I guess you probably don't even need help. Just do it, if it sounds bad, stop doing it. Repeat until sounds good. Easy. I'll take my garbage advice elsewhere though.

 

Perhaps if the mood of the song is melancholy, moving a pattern a half step down would convey the right sentiment. It seems that the lyrics/mood need to match the music more than moving up a half step, which to me can be utilized in a wider variety of circumstances.

 

Rebel Rouser by Duane Eddy repeats the same melody 4 times moving up a half step each time.

 

Back in the late 70's / early 80's I knew a guy who played solo gigs on the same circuit as me and my friends. Now and then he'd ask me to sit in with him, and his key to building excitement was to modulate up a half step toward the end. Every single song. I can still hear him yelling "modulate! modulate!" in the middle of a song.

 

Demodulate!

 

Try it record it.

If you think it sounds good keep it. It really is that simple. Lots of songs do this.

 

I have always felt 1/2 step up modulation as a cheap tired trick to (attempt) creating sime excitement in a tune. Doing that several times in a row, or for every song, would be just unbearable.

I am not sure about whether the opposite (1/2 step down modulation) will sound much more interesting. But, as many already pointed out, you ears (and your musical taste) will tell you, just as it will tell your band mates and your audience.

 

Miles spent half his career modulating up for 8 bars and then back down. I don't see it as a gimmick; more of another useful composing tool.

 

Sure, you are right about "So What", but Miles had so many different ways of creating tension and interest in his playing. He could make "twinkle twinkle" sound amazing...

My comment was about this post:

Doing this in every single song suggests some rather unimaginative playing (kind of one-trick poney).

 

I can’t remember ever hearing a chorus drop down a semi-tone upon repeating in any of the hundreds of popular music songs I’ve ever learned for corporate and wedding cover gigs over the years.

So no, that kind of stuff definitely doesn’t happen often in popular music.

As far as “how to make it work”, forcing an key change is never very musical: a momentary key change a half step down, before I assume returning to the original key in the verse, is something most vocalists will definitely have a problem with.

It’s worth trying something new, so don’t throw it out without actually giving it a shot with the band, but it’s never worth doing something new that doesn’t sound musical just for the sake of being “unique” or “progressive”.

 

I tried it once. There's a nice tension build-up between triad chords, because the root note of the 1st chord forms a tritone with the fifth note of the 2nd one.
In my case it was:

• Ab (Ab C Eb)
• G (G B D)

With a tritone between Ab and D.

 

Didn't The Ramones do it quite a lot? I hear it all the time in contemporary pop music. And I do mean all the time ...

 

Ok, the answer is it depends on how you do this, what else is going on, the context as a whole. This is where learning some theory might help. Example, a half step shift like you are talking about takes it from one tonal area (key) to about the farthest tonal area away, quite jarringly. This kind of thing is usually avoided in music composition because it's not smooth and sounds bad. But there are ways to make it sound good, if used sparingly. Your job is to figure that out.

 

This is way out of my grasp of theory at the moment, but watching Janek Gwizdala’s practices I’ve made a mental note to check out Neopolitan chords. Db major against Cm (or is that Cmaj7?) for example? Again I don’t have a handle on how it works just yet, but your post reminded of that and I was wondering if, as you modulate down, you might use the neopolitan triad to maintain the melodic theme after the demodulation?

Possibly someone with more theory could riff on that idea in a way that it becomes useful! Good luck!