Who Are You? (a medieval bard song)

In keeping with the forum guidelines I'll explain a little bit about this piece.

I play the part of a human bard in a interactive fantasy novel. I wrote this piece as a song that the bard sings to a female human monk. She had lost her memory and has no idea from whence she came.

It's a fairly simple song. It came to me naturally, as if I was actually the bard. The bard is supposed to play a citole which is probably a lot closer to a mandolin. However, I wrote this piece using the only bottom for strings on a guitar. I believe a citole only had three sets of 2-strings each, but I'm not concerned with duplicating the instrument.

In any case, I'm not good with music theory. I just started with Bm and when where the song felt like going.

I'll try to post the chords with the lyrics in a code box shortly. In the meantime I just say that it basically uses;

Bm G Bm Am A(sus2)

It also uses the following;

C#m A C#m Bm Am A(sus2)

And that's it.

Here are the lyrics. The link to the sound file is at the bottom of the page.


Who Are You?

I feel you
Like starlight shining on my soul

You touch me
In ways that I’ve never known before

I know you
From dreams that I’ve dreamed many lives ago

~~~

Who are you?

~

Somewhere in your heart
You must have some feelings for me as well

I know, you know me
Don’t try to tell me that it isn’t so

~~~

Who are you?

~

Cherubs are flying
in search of the secrets of love divine

Demons are slaying
with dragons that spew mortal flames of time

You are an Island
adrift in the sea of eternal life

~~~

Who are you

~

Time can’t hide you
for time is nothing more than a mere façade

Life can’t blind you
from the love that I hold for you deep inside

Someday you’ll know
the feelings I have for you within my heart

~~~

I know who you are

~

Music can be heard here:
(Performed this myself so its quite amature)

Who Are You?

Any comments are welcome.

Adagio


Bm G Bm G

Bm 	G
I  	feel you
     Bm        Bm      G
Like starlight shining on my soul

Bm  	G
You 	touch me
   Bm             Bm    G 
In ways that I’ve never known before

Bm 	G
I  	know you
     Bm               Bm           G
From dreams that I’ve dreamed many lives ago

Bm  	Am         A(sus2)
Who 	are you?


Bm G Bm G


Bm        G
Somewhere in your heart
Bm                 Bm           G
You must have some feelings for me as well

Bm      G
I know, you know me
Bm                Bm         G
Don’t try to tell me that it isn’t so

Bm  	Am         A(sus2)
Who 	are you?
 


C#m     A
Cherubs are flying      
C#m                         A
In search of the secrets of love divine

C#m    A
Demons are Slaying
C#m                    A
with dragons that spew mortal flames of time

C#m     A
You are an island
C#m                  A
adrift in the sea of eternal life

C#m Bm           
Who are you

Am     A(sus2)


Bm G Bm G


Bm 	   G
Time can’t hide you
    Bm              Bm          G
for time is nothing more than a mere facade

Bm  	   G
Life can’t blind you
         Bm          Bm           G 
From the love that I hold for you deep inside

Bm 	G
Someday you’ll know
    Bm         Bm               G
The feelings I have for you in my heart

Bm     Am         A(sus2)
I know who you are

Very nice song, but harmonically it's a bit boring. If you do not leave the Bm-G axis, your harmonies become static (there will be no real change in harmony). Although it's fine for the first 4 rows of your melody, I expect a change in the beginning of the 5th row ("I know you..."), for eg. a D major chord would be logical since your melody uses f# and d notes frequently. To make things more interesting you can replace G major with its relative minor (E minor), when you feel it sounds good and fits your melody.

A long static section (first 4 rows) also would serve as a preparation for something special. I mean I expect a melodically much more interesting material from the last three (5th-7th) rows after the long and harmonically static "intro". This can be easily done by for eg. singing on a higher pitch and altering the melody a bit (or replacing with a new melodic part).

Btw. the lyrics are self-written? I like it.



PS. If you like your song as it is, just easily ignore my comments.

Originally Posted by Matthaeus

Very nice song, but harmonically it's a bit boring.

I tend to be a boring person. A lot of my songs are very mundane. I think part of it truly is my personality, but another part of it seems to be that I can never find a harmonic place to go that really satisfies. Although I often do feel like I'm hemmed into a harmonic box.

I do appreciate the suggestions of D/G or D/Em. After the 4 row. I'm sitting here with the guitar right now though and can't seem to get anything I like for this particular piece, but I am discovering some new arppegios patterns using D - Em - Bm - G

I might end up with a whole new song.

If you do not leave the Bm-G axis, your harmonies become static (there will be no real change in harmony).

I known I have a problem with static harmony a lot. I find it very difficult to break out of a harmony. Although often I can hear it in my mind, but I can never find the chord I want. It's like it doesn't exist in the real world.

I mean I expect a melodically much more interesting material from the last three (5th-7th) rows after the long and harmonically static "intro". This can be easily done by for eg. singing on a higher pitch and altering the melody a bit (or replacing with a new melodic part).

I know it needs go somewhere. Even the use of the A(sus) chord was kind of a feeble attempt to break out of the harmony rut, but it seemed to be a dead end. So I just left it hang, and then started over again. Taking the third verse to C#m and using a slightly different arpeggio for those rows was my desparate and feeble attempt to finding a new harmonic place.

Btw. the lyrics are self-written? I like it.

Yes, and as simple as they are they took a month to write. As short and simple as this song is it was slow going. In fact, I almost gave up on it twice but it just refused to go away.

PS. If you like your song as it is, just easily ignore my comments.

It is growing on me now that I've been playing it for a while. I do kind of like the simplicity of it. I tend to like very simple things. Having said that, I'm always open to trying something new too. After all, it's not like the original piece will disappear. If I do something better, that's great. If i can't find anything I like better, I always have the original.

Also, a whole new song could be born out of trying to change this one up.

Thanks for talking the time to listen, and posting your comments, I'll play around with the D/Em a while and see if anything comes of it.

P.S. I just listened to the piece again myself, and I totally agree with you, it's screaming for some kind of change on line five. At the moment, going to D there doesn't seem to be working for me yet. Maybe a melody change will work as you've suggested. I'll keep toying with it, this song just seems to want to progress slowly yet at the same time it also seems to insist on being written. It just won't go away.