Help: Lame Song

David Kaczorowski ( kaczordk@UMDNJ.EDU )
Tue, 5 Nov 1996 22:30:52 -0500 (EST)

Last week I agreed to record a couple of bass tracks for a female
vocalist producing her own CD. She labelled her music as being "adult
alternative." Fine, I really don't care. So today in the mail I
received bassless recordings of the two songs, lead sheets, and a letter
explaining that she really wants to completely re-do the first song, a
country ballad. She wants to lose the country sound and rework it.
I didn't agree to doing this kind of work, but it may lead to some gigs.
I'm hoping for some help as I've never done this before.
I get the impression that she thinks it needs just a different
rythmic feel, but IMO, a different feel won't work without some reharm,
the song will probably just sound worse. I realize it's difficult to
do this without knowing the melody, but I don't want to do something
real extravagant that would require a lot of melodic alteration anyway,
however some would be just fine.

Here are the changes as she wrote them:

| A | A | E Esus| E | E | E |
Asus | A | D | D | A Asus| A |
E | E | A Asus| A | A | Asus |
Dmaj7 | Dmaj7 | D | E | A | Esus E|
A | Asus | D | Dmaj7 | B- | Esus |
Amaj7 | Dmaj7 | B- | Esus E | A | Asus :||

I've got some questions:
1. What are these sus chords? I always thought these were used to
lead into other chords.
2. Can I begin by adding a b7 to these triads?

3. Can I put something like A7|A7 F-7 B-7|E7| in the first line
without altering the melody too drastically? Then follow the same
kinda thing throughtout, Eb7b5 back to the A7, etc.?

I know there's a lot that can be done with this progression, but I'm
sure the vocalist would not be able to handle it.

Thanks for your ideas and opinions,
David Kaczorowski
kaczordk@umdnj.edu