Casual Conversations on Composing
Composition part two-page two
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Composition part two

The next two measures:
 

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--are based on the notes already established, and feel like they flow naturally from the first section.  The main guide in this development is that I felt it was time to again shift to a new chord, and that chord’s voicing to a large extent dictated how this new phrase would be written.  The chord progression is the Subdominant—the IV chord, and back to I, the Tonic.
 
The next measures:
 

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--feel like a good “answer” to the phrase that came before it, just as was done with the song’s very first phrase.
 
The next section:
 

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--is transitional in nature, climbing back up to the original Em chord.
 
The closing phrase of the verse departs from the rhythm that’s been used in all the previous phrases.  One goal was to give the singer longer notes to hold, and another goal was to give the entire verse a logical summation and a final return to the Em chord after dipping to the Dominant V chord of this scale.  As is often the case when using the Dominant, that V chord, Am has the 7th added to it.
 
Here’s the ending of the verse:
 

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The second verse’s music is almost an exact duplicate of the first.  If lyrics were being written as the same time as the music, I would want to construct the stanzas in the exact same meter as the first verse—as pointed out earlier.
 
The only difference between the first verse and this second verse, and later, the third verse—is that I compressed the number of measures used.  In the first verse, I have added measures of rest, resulting in a more leisurely pace while the point of the song is laid out by the lyrics.  When the other verses come in, I wanted more urgency, so took out the measures where the singer rested.  The point of the story has already been made, and there was no longer a need for pausing and hesitation.
 

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