- Hi, I'm Gareth Green and those are the first eight bars
of a real jazz standard, "Lullaby of Birdland".
So it's a George Shearing number
and we're just going to have a little look
at what's going on,
that might just reveal something
of the compositional process if you like,
that might be helpful to songwriters,
composers out there and just to see,
well, how does this all kind of add up
to something that makes for a good song?
Well, we could take the whole song,
but I'm just wanting to focus on these first eight bars
so we can kind of go to town on it a little bit.
So first of all, let's take a look
at what's going on in the melody.
It's quite interesting that the verse here,
starts on a chord of F minor
and then we finish in bar eight in A-flat major.
So we're starting in a minor key.
We're finishing off in it's relative major key.
That's quite an interesting transition,
they're closely related keys,
but the sense of ending up
with a slightly more optimistic finish,
that is then going to launch us
into the next part of the song.
That's what flows on from it.
So we kind of go to the major and then the next section
feels just a bit more optimistic, if you like.
So interesting how that tonality thing, major, minor,
can just kind of change the musical character
a little bit.
Okay well, let's have a look at this melodic line
and see what's going on because there's also movement
within these eight bars, isn't there?
So we've got a melodic idea that starts like this.
Here's the first phrase.
And I'm going to suggest that,
that itself breaks into two halves.
So we've got the first half coming down the scale.
So we're in F minor.
We're coming down from the fifth note of the scale
to the first note of the scale.
That's a very simple melodic idea, isn't it?
Just coming down five notes of a scale,
and am going to suggest that the next half
of that first phrase
is fundamentally different in character,
because we're no longer completely moving by step.
We get this D-natural, which has already come down a third
from the previous F.
So we've gone down a third then we go back up the third
before we finish on E.
So the scale run downwards, has now being disrupted
by something that's different.
It's also interesting to see what he does here
with the chords and with the key,
because okay, it's an F minor start,
but we're straight onto a D-flat seven chord.
Okay well, that's a chord VI7,
a submediant chord in F minor.
Perhaps not the most obvious thing to do
straight after a tonic chord of F minor,
but it's interesting,
but then it puts D-natural into the melody.
That's actually quite a brave thing to do, isn't it?
You've got a D-flat seven chord,
with D-flat obviously in the bass,
and then suddenly D-natural,
well normally you'd be thinking,
well that's not a great move,
but of course that D-natural
is just slightly anticipating that G seven chord
that takes us to a C seven chord.
So what's going on here?
Well the G seven to C,
kind of feels like, oh we're in C major.
We've gone dominant seventh to a tonic chord of C major.
When we get to the C major chord,
George Shearing says, well hang on a minute.
If we made that a C seven,
well it's no longer a tonic chord in C major.
It's a dominant seventh and F minor.
So, it's a very clever way of pulling us back to F minor.
So you see, one thing I'm talking about here
is how the harmony interacts with the melodic design.
So a melody in the first phrase that breaks into two halves.
That's the first half, here's the second half.
So thinking about that, if you're a composer yourself
wanting to write a good song,
actually what's the nature of my first phrase?
Does that first phrase, kind of work as a continuous whole,
sometimes that works really well,
or is it worth breaking it into two halves
and what makes the two halves slightly distinctive?
And then thinking well,
what am I doing with the harmony there?
So starting in F minor, going to that D-flat seven,
the kind of VI7 if you like,
but then having this,
what kind of feels like a secondary dominant into C,
where we go dominant seventh in C to C major,
but then we tuck in that seventh
and of course what that's doing as well,
it's making a connection between
the end of this first two bar statement
and what's coming next because that C seven chord
has to be resolved.
It pulls us back onto the F minor chord
at the beginning of bar three.
One thing that songwriters frequently find is a difficulty,
you come to the end of a phrase,
the music kind of sits down and then you get started again.
Well, George Shearing fixes that,
by instead of using the C chord using a C seven chord,
that kind of pulls you over the bar line
into the next phrase.
So it's a kind of quite clever way
of uniting your phrases, isn't it?
And as I say, the harmony is not entirely predictable.
You've also got this kind of tritone relationship
out of the bass, you know,
F, D-flat and then G, so that tritone thing
with C back in the middle.
And it's also interesting when you look
at those four bass notes, F, D-flat, G, C.
Well you know F, D-flat, G, C,
well they're a third apart, the F and the D-flat,
and then they're kind of going out to G and C.
So there's something in the harmony as well,
opening up like that,
that's quite interesting.
And the connection between the second and the third chord,
where you've got this tritone between the D-flat
and the G that kind of has a real pull of its own.
So lots of interesting ingredients
just inside that first phrase.
Well, what happens is we move out of the second bar,
the second measure, into measure three.
Well, he kind of uses the second half of the first phrase.
So if we're looking at the first phrase saying,
well here's the first half
that descending set of five notes,
and here's the second half of it, the second idea.
Can you see how, when we go on,
this is using the second half idea,
because starting back at this point, we've got,
then he goes, so it's the same thing,
but again, he's using this idea about three notes
there kind of expanding outwards,
the D at the bottom goes down to C,
the F and the E goes up to G, F.
So do you see an idea that starts here that expands,
a little bit like
what we saw in the root movements,
F, D-flat, G, C is now happening in the melody,
which is quite interesting.
And of course, kind of adopting this rhythm
as we go in here.
Sometimes when you write your second phrase,
you might think,
well I could start the second phrase
the same way as I started the first phrase,
and then go somewhere new with it.
But this is quite intriguing that George Shearing
has said, "Well I've got the first phrase in two halves.
"I'm going to use the second half
"rather than the first half to go on."
And then he takes it further.
Because when you look at this next statement,
you realise it's the same rhythm again, isn't it?
And further expansion has come about.
We've had,
and we've expanded that to this.
So the bottom goes lower, the top goes higher,
but now, do you see what's happening.
It's the same figure, isn't it?
But you see how these intervals are expanding,
because back here, when we first heard this, that's a third.
When we come into bar three, it's become a fifth
and in bar four, it becomes a seventh.
And then we can also sort of hear
the impact of harmony on this.
So you notice in bar three,
even though we've used the second half idea,
when we start this phrase,
we've actually borrowed the harmony from the first bar.
So that's rather clever as well, isn't it?
So going into bar three...
And then going into four,
you feel the expansion of that interval we talked about
and how it makes that melody grow.
Also what are we doing?
Well, bar three, we're back with F minor,
that D seven that we talked about before,
but then kind of what we're doing
is really heading for A-flat major aren't we?
So, B-flat minor is Chord II7 in A-flat major,
E-flat VII is V7.
So we're kind of feeling, aha,
now we really out going into A-flat major,
and it's another pull, isn't it?
Because at the end of this second phrase,
we're using that seventh again,
because that seventh,
we know is going to have to resolve to A-flat.
So the seventh, again pulling us through the end
of one phrase into the start of the next.
So it's rather clever the way he's done that.
Okay, so having done that, what happens next?
Well, when we look at this,
you can see that that is connected with this, isn't it?
So at the beginning in bar one,
now when we get to the end of bar four,
exactly the same melody,
but it's a third higher than it was.
So we've kind of raised the emotional temperature a bit
by placing it a third higher.
Also, it kind of relates to the key, doesn't it?
Because we were in F minor at the beginning,
by going up a third, we can represent that in A-flat major,
this relative major thing.
Okay, and interesting that the harmony in five,
we've now got A-flat, but he's making it an A-flat seven,
he's really into his seventh chords.
Lots of chord extension in this piece.
And then back to that F minor seven again.
So there's a kind of, we're always kind of never far away
from the F minor, aren't we?
But an F minor chord is chord VI and A-flat
as well as been chord I in F minor.
Okay, so you see what we've done now,
having used the second half of the phrase in these places,
we then go back to using the first part of the phrase.
So then you think, "Oh, I know what he's going to do now,
"he's just going to use the second half of the phrase."
Well actually, what does he do from the end of five?
Does something slightly different, doesn't he?
So a different finish to the phrase
so it doesn't become too predictable.
So you see the great design of this melody
is how it has so much cohesion by reusing things,
but doing it in an unpredictable way.
You're never quite sure
which twist in the tail is coming next.
Well, what happens at this point
is we almost have two parts within the same line.
We have these kind of upper notes,
which are the same both times.
The C, B-flat, that comes twice, and down at the bottom,
we've got this descending chromatic thing, F, E, E-flat.
So you kind of hear this kind of going down
at the bottom and at the top.
So...
And that kind of gives it a certain independence
from the previous material.
Yet, we've still got the same
kind of syncopated rhythm going on.
What's happening with the chords
while in this phrase, we've got A-flat seven, F minor seven,
and then we're going to go to B-flat minor seven
and then E-flat seven and again quite brave
with the E-natural in there.
And then back to this A-flat seven again,
and then we just have
this kind of quick finish, don't we really?
Where there's the kind of throw away and the phrase,
before we go onto the next bit.
So there's quite a clever little internal design
of the phrases I'd suggest.
And then what really gives it extra character
is all the syncopated rhythm.
You know, we've got some straight rhythm,
like we've got at the beginning, I mean,
it's a swing rhythm piece obviously,
but we soon get into syncopation, don't we?
And if you take the syncopation out of this,
it loses so much character.
If you just did that,
it wouldn't have the same kind of ring to it, would it?
Put the syncopation back in,
what's happening?
Terrific stuff, and notice one
other little rhythmic thing that he does,
all these phrase endings,
we finish on that kind of one and a half beat thing
followed by the rest.
One and a half beats followed by a rest.
You know, one and a half beats followed by a rest,
plenty of that going on, isn't there?
And then we have a kind of more continuous flow,
but then just before the last thing,
two beats followed by a rest.
So even the rhythm,
becomes just slightly less predictable at that point.
So this is what I'm suggesting
is the kind of magic mix here,
you know, what makes this an iconic song.
And I think it's kind of how he designs the melody
in the way we've talked about,
what's going on with the harmony, the modulations,
the seventh chords pulling us across the bar line,
the use of seventh chords in general,
kind of making things rich,
the clever use of notes that are not quite in the key
that you're in, like the, you know, things like that
D-natural, we talked about up here,
E-natural down here.
Just gives a bit of colour, don't they?
And then all the character that comes
from the syncopated rhythm.
There's much more we could say about that.
We could get into the rest of the song,
but just looking at the first eight bars of that,
there's a huge amount that we can take away from that,
that maybe helps us to appreciate what's particularly good
about Lullaby of Birdland.
What's George Shearing's kind of particular mix of magic
and ideas that we could take into our own songwriting.
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