Hi GuyBarry!
It will be fun to hear the tune in its intended way.
To be honest your chord chart gave me a headache.
I just can't stand jazz chords there's too much tension
in them and at the same time an uptempo melody.
That is in now way a criticism to your song and
I might even enjoy it. I do like Django R.
It went down really well last night! I think it's my favourite out of all the songs I've written.
Back to the subject. I think a too elaborate chord
progression can inhibit the interpreters flow of the
melody. Your fist chords F6 to Db6 ( in the key of F)
we have three notes moving and the note F standing still. (Right?)
All of these give possible implications of how the melody
could, not should, go.
The melody is quite chromatic. I'm basically singing an arpeggio over the F6 chord, then I sing Ab-Bb-Ab-G over the Db6 and the C9, then the next note's an A natural and we're back into F again. Fortunately I'm quite good at singing chromatic stuff!
Thanks for the rest of the analysis.
I'm glad you've found theory helpful (and not an obstacle) when composing.
I find it invaluable. If I didn't know any theory, I'd still be writing with three chords, and I wouldn't be able to experiment in the way I do. A lot of people on this forum appear to have a very different approach, so I'm glad that you appear to understand where I'm coming from.
The myth of the harmful theoretical and schooled and the awesome natural
talent is still live and kicking. Something tells me that's not gonna change
after all it has been around a few thousand years. That true talent can not be
taught. But all around us we see the contrary. It's all about will and determination
if you want to learn. If it comes easy to you, well happy you.
I like to think I've got a pretty good natural talent for music, but it's definitely been enhanced by knowing some theory. As I've said elsewhere, I started learning theory when I was very young and in some ways my entire appreciation of music is based around it. To take a simple example, I hear all music relative to a key (even if I don't know what key that is). It was quite a shock to realize that not all musicians hear music in the same way and that some of them have difficulty identifying what the keynote is.
One of the comedy songs I posted for review some time ago is called "Christmas Cacophony". The lyrics are (hopefully) funny in themselves but I put in an extra joke for musicians - the harmony keeps pointlessly changing key all over the place, with silly chord progressions like C-A-Db-G7. I was surprised at the time that some people here didn't seem to get the joke - but if they had no concept of key, then I suppose it would just sound like a sequence of random chords. Perhaps it's possible to be too clever sometimes!