When Jason Yarde introduces the horns’ melody, he tries it out with two backing harmonies – two bass lines. Which works best?
In this clip, from near the beginning of Where will it take you? composer Jason Yarde introduces a new melody to the song. He gets the band to play it twice, although the melody’s slightly different the second time round.
But perhaps the biggest difference is in the bass line. Use the Explorer close-up below to see if you can hear how.
Try using ‘Focus on part’ to listen to the four parts on their own.
If you hold down the shift key you can select multiple bars. Select the eight bars of the second part – Horns (2)…
…and then with ‘Snap’ turned on, use the hand tool to drag them underneath the Horns (1) bars.
Then if you mute the two Pianoandbass parts, you can listen to the two sets of horns together.
Both horn phrases together
They should sound a bit like this. Although it now sounds a bit untidy, the two sets of horn bars ‘fit’ together harmonically.
Try doing the same thing with the Piano andbass parts – moving the second eight bars underneath the first.
Both piano and bass phrases together
You should get something like this. They don’t quite fit together. The chords in the piano are the same but the bass lines are different.
So although two melodies fit the same harmony, the second melody has got a different bass line and harmony underneath it – it has been re-harmonised. (Use the 'Reset' button to return the music to its original state.)
If you want to explore a step further, the new, re-harmonised, Pianoandbass part is written in two-bar groups. Try re-ordering these two-bar groups and see what results you end up with.
