This song isn't technically a sea shanty. But I wanted to make a song that had the feel of pirates or other seafaring folk getting together and playing a song. Perhaps in a video game, as a song for a pirates lair... perhaps not.
I started with trying to make the song have a tad odd time signature. It has 3 bars of 3/4 then a bar of 4/4. And this repeats for the main part. The middle section has 3 bars of 7/4, then 2 bars of 4/4.
I started with some inverted chords, to make a slightly off backing sound to the Melody. I messed around with the rhythm of most of the parts to make it slightly off, it's supposed to sound like a bunch of drunk pirates are playing.
This was the most interesting song to make with midi, because there was a specific type of sound I was looking for. Not just to have an interesting melody. It was fun working with the odd time too. To make it sound like it should be in the song, and not just to have odd time to have odd time. (though that's sort of what I did,
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MP3 of the song.