Creative Arrangement
The song I have chosen to to is 'Happy' and I shall be changing the genre into Reggae. The instruments I have used to create this track is steel drums, bass guitar, guitar and piano. When making this track, I tried to use as many Reggae features as possible, such as; off the beat rhythms, simple chord sequences, 4/4 rhythm pattern.Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora.A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals "Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use the word "reggae," effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, especially the New Orleans R&B practiced by Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political comment. Reggae spread into a commercialized jazz field, being known first as ‘Rudie Blues’, then ‘Ska’, later ‘Blue Beat’, and ‘Rock Steady’.It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat, and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rock steady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.
Texture - At the beginning of my track, I started off with a steel drum 'solo' rhythm, which can be heard in most other Reggae songs. The after this, all the other instruments, guitar, bass guitar, and piano come in. The drums continue playing a simple rhythm. I used to guitar to play the main melody to the song. I used the bass guitar to provide a bass line and to add depth to the piece. Finally, I then used the piano to play simple chords throughout the track I created.
Structure - With the track I created, I only notated the verse to this song.
