Color Theory

Piano Piece Named After a Girl

The instrumental arrangement of Song Named After a Girl centers around a reversed piano, as you can hear in this snippet from the intro. It starts with the reversed piano, and then the normal “forward” piano plays the same thing on top of it.

At first I wasn’t sure how I’d arrange a whole song with the piano reversed, but it turned out to be pretty easy. I recorded this short “piece” containing all the chord changes used in the song, then reversed it, sliced it at each chord change, and arranged the component parts in reverse order.

And so I present to you: Piano Piece Named After a Girl. If the monotony doesn’t bore you to tears, you’re welcome to download it by clicking on the down arrow in the player.

{ 5 comments }

Reginator May 18, 2010 at 3:38 pm

Creativity beats a new plugin every time. I like how the reversed part swirls around the piano. ;-)
I’ve also used a similar technique but with rev’d violins and a fwd synth line. A different sound but still cool.

Brian Hazard May 17, 2010 at 6:48 pm

Exactly. I cut the left hand out entirely in the main piano line. The left hand octaves are just to fill in the arrangement for the reversed part.

Thanks for the kind words everyone! The song is done, and I’m thrilled with the way it turned out. Today I started Pretend Extroverts.

Satie's Faction May 17, 2010 at 9:59 am

Lovely. The piano piece would stand well on its own if you developped the left hand a bit, but I guess you’ll just need the right hand for your song.

907Britt May 14, 2010 at 11:32 am

Thanks for sharing, Brian! Lovely piano.

Mark May 14, 2010 at 10:30 am

Beautiful. I love how this turned out.

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