A Little Something Extra

Composer, performer, arranger and conductor for this season's Stella Artois Happy Hour at the Symphony series, Steve Hackman blogs about how he starting weaving the concept for the next Happy Hour together.

My thoughts on "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room":

When it comes to arranging, picking good material is key, because you're gonna be spending hours and hours on it.  You're going to be peeling through every layer of the composition; if it's wonderful throughout you are in for beautiful new discoveries. I always find that when I'm arranging great stuff I gain a more profound appreciation for the work because I hear intricacies and details that I hadn't detected while listening casually.

This has definitely been the case with "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room" by John Mayer.

I've been a huge fan of that song ever since first hearing it but after spending this many hours evaluating and dissecting it, I marvel at a few things:



1. The restraint of the playing. 

Take a listen to the drum beat of this song. Kick-snare-kick-snare. Tambourine on the and of 1. That's it. Toward the very end he starts adding some snare rolls and tom fills. But for the majority of the song--that's it. And the bass line. Ultra-simple. Not even close to "busy." Those two elements combine to create such a relaxed and hypnotic groove. Obviously these are some of the best session players in the world and they were capable of playing things light years more complex than this--but they didn't--they kept it simple and groovy and I love it.



2. The brilliance of the guitar arrangement.

I knew this guy could play the guitar; what really struck me about this song is how many different sounds he gets out of his guitar and how he combines them all to engineer a production.  It's almost as if he creates his own orchestra. It's funny--he is taking his one instrument and redesigning its sound in several different ways to realize different aural impressions; I am interpreting those impressions and assigning them to the orchestral instruments that can best recreate them. The processes are reciprocals!  For example: the blues licks that are hiding underneath the verse are very suited to clarinets, saxophones and trumpets, and the sustained and liquid oscillations that underscore the chorus ("We're going down….") are perfect for the strings. I find in each section of the song very inspired playing with clear emotion-- that's the kind of stuff that is fun to arrange.



3. I think I combined a few points into one so I don't have anything else to say right now. This tune will be fun!

See you next Thursday at Happy Hour!

~ Steve Hackman