My Green Oak Tree

[sxpoet]

sheet

recording

[saxomonica]

5 4 timing
howz that, looks like some bars have 4 notes to the beat and others eg bar 3 have five notes?
cheers

[sxpoet]

it’s a good point.

What happened was i looked out the window at my oak tree and noticed the leaves slowly starting to turn colour.

In my head in thought ‘my oak trees turning brown, oh no. when all the leaves drop on the ground i’m going to have to pick up 30 sacks of dead leaves’.

So i came up with the 1st line of my song, wrote it down – ‘My green oak tree’ – then i when i tried singing that line, it wouldn’t fit to 4 beats, ‘tree’ when i sing it takes 2 beats.
So i didn’t want ‘tree’ going in to the second bar, that’s why i wrote the sheet 5 beats to the bar instead of 4 beats to the bar to get the whole singing line fitting on one bar.

Then i made up the rest of the verses singing them in my head, later on i then played the tune on my sax and wrote down the notes on a music sheet, the lyrics came first, not the melody. After that i got the guitar out and added the guitar chords.

the last word in every bar when sung takes 2 beats. the solo should stick to the same rule when played.

i recorded two versions. the first version i sung and recorded the guitar, used that as a backing track and then recorded the sax.
the second version i recorded the sax first, used that as a backing track and then recorded the guitar.

i uploaded the second version, the first version is played slower than the second version.

[sxpoet]

Thanks for the heads up, i’ve rewritten it in 3/4 time.
I’ll have to record it again to hear the difference.

[sxpoet]

In chord arrangements for song writing in a Major Key, it’s common to have the I, IV, V chords arrangement where the V resolves back to the I chord.

i didn’t realise in a Minor Key song when you use the i, iv, v chord arrangements until i looked it up, you can also use the i, iv, V format instead of the i, iv, v – both arrangements work well in a Minor scale. i found my guitar chords by ear for my song, and i was wondering afterwards why i picked a V chord instead of a v chord.

it all became clear when i read up and tried out the various cadences in chord arrangements for Major and Minor scales. I wasn’t even aware of the fact that i picked a 1 4 5 arrangement when i was matching guitar chords by ear, instead of doing it by theory. could have saved it bit of time by using the theory knowledge.

[Jeff]

Hi James

There’s quite an echo there, are you playing in a hall?

I haven’t heard that tune before.

[sxpoet]

Hi Jeff,
it’s a song i made up about my Oak Tree in the garden.
i’m still working on it, currently working on the 3rd revised version with 3 verses instead of one verse.

i came up with the lyrics first and then added the melody on the guitar, then added the alto, clarinet and tenor. Last of all i added the guitar chords.

Currently revising it, because when i sing it while strumming guitar chords i need to rearrange it slightly without altering the melody, so that the alto replaces the singing voice.

when it’s done i’ll post updates. Started on my second tune…

Anyway long time since we heard from you. are you still practicing?

I can’t email you, as i lost your email address..computer problems.

[sxpoet]

hiJeff,
here are the final lyrics

lyrics

[sxpoet]

and the tune played by the Dorito music software

tune

later on i’ll record it again on my guitar and sax.

[Author]

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