Using Bad Pollyanna's creative work seems a natural starting point for this learning exercise for me. It was after all Olivia that introduced me to singing and restarted my musical adventures.
This beautiful song is something of an anthem for Bad Pollyanna fans. I feel that is builds naturally upon the conveyed humanity of their prior work's, 'Invincible Girl'.
A big thank you to Liv for permission to use and share this interpretation of Bad Pollyanna's creative work.
The starting point for my learning project was to repeatedly listen to the music, study the lyrics and their emotive interpretation. I watched the official video and raw live performance videos. From this point I determined the songs key, the tempo and the chord sequence.
This of course being my opinion rather than concrete knowledge.
This of course being my opinion rather than concrete knowledge.
I See You - Song Lyrics and Structure
Intro (instrumental)
Verse
Are you there?
Can you hear me?
I am thinking of you
Are you hurt?
Are you lonely?
Hope my words get through
Pre-Chorus
Did you know nobody's perfect?
We all fall down
See into the heart of you now
Chorus
When you are lost, I will find you
Through the dark, I can see you
And you are loved, you are worthy
Cannot hide all the beauty
I can see you
Verse
Show me weak
Show me helpless
Show me something that's real
Don't be strong
Be defenceless
Know you can lean on me
Pre-Chorus-2
When you go to places that scare you
And it all falls down
Look into the heart of me now
{ Chorus }
Bridge
Let me put my cards on the table
I've been where you are
I'll never see the stain of a label
Or a scar
You need to know that i wont reject you
Let's unbreak your heart
You are not the voices that shame you
{ Chorus }
Bad Pollyanna
The Broken Toys
Song Chord Progression
Relative Chords and resolution in Keys of interest
My first attempt at transcription, in 2018, was to try to capture the chord progression. This enabled strumming along on the acoustic guitar and even joining in with the singing albeit at least one octave lower.! In practice I played the C Major chords with my Capo at the guitar's fourth fret. Later I realised that my strumming pattern was wrong.
That first, chords only transcription, led to a partial cover with a flawed strumming pattern. However I always feel that if a cover is just attempting to replicate the original then why bother? I'm not going to create anything to compete with the original. Professional creators did that. Therefore I'm in the cliched 'Make it your own' school of thought. So here I strum along to a drum track that's simply not present in the original.
My next attempt to transcribe was targeting playing the melody on Alto Sax. As this is a transposing instrument, with a home key of Eb, transcribing from Bad Pollyanna's original key of E would result in the key of C# - seven sharps! That's way beyond my novice saxophonist skills!
Another musical friend, Laura Morrell, suggested raising the key a semitone to F. Using concert key of F for the accompaniment parts would transcribe to the key of D on the Sax and the seven sharps will become two. That's the deal!
The plan then is to listen and transcribe in E, then transpose to concert key F including the Alto Sax part in D. The transcriptions will be captured in Musescore 4.
Then the song will be rearranged to include drums, Bass Guitar, Guitar and Sax. I may add a Yamaha DX7 synth emulation for the Intro and Outro sections.
This version will then be recorded in Cockos Reaper using direct recording for Bass and Rhythm guitar (and synth) parts. Drums will be provided by EZDrummer 3. The Sax audio will be captured via the condenser microphone.
EZMix will be used to EQ and process.
To test the approach a section was transcribed by ear in the original key of E. Then I used the Musescore 4 transpose to the Key of F. The Alto Sax part (being an Eb transposing instrument) was then added pitched as D but sounding as F.
Musescore4 did a pretty good job and the playback is very impressive. There seems to be a tendency to merge some consecutive identical notes as a slur. So I am experimenting with adding articulations to generate tounged notes rather than slurs.
Musescore4 did a pretty good job and the playback is very impressive. There seems to be a tendency to merge some consecutive identical notes as a slur. So I am experimenting with adding articulations to generate tounged notes rather than slurs.