Repertoires of Music According to Darrin Newhardt

Darrin compositions are primarily church, instrumental, film scores, Jazz, and Broadway tunes. His composition teacher said don’t think of “liking” or “disliking” songs, but think of them as “useful” or “not useful right now.” Darrin says at Broadway Nights and at church he approaches music by looking at the basic structure. What are the chords, what is the progression, where is it going, and whatever he can’t play he improvises while keeping the basic structure. “The important thing is to keep going.”

             “Misty” originally composed by Erroll Garner, performed by Darrin and myself. This song is structured ABA the first two verses are A, there is B in the middle, and then it returns to A at the end.  If we were to compare it to Ella Fitzgerald’s version, the first thing you would notice is the introduction difference in the two pieces. Neither one is a direct performance from the score. The basic accompaniment is primarily chords with embellishments. Playing the piece this way fits this genre of music because it allows improvisation to come from both the vocalist and the piano making the song unique. It is obvious that Ella’s version had more piano and vocal improvisation in the song that the one performed by Darrin and myself; this could be due to levels of skill and amount of rehearsal time. Another noticeable factor is the tempo difference. In my version it was more up-tempo and Ella’s was softer and slower. In most Jazz music, including what I provided Darrin the night we sang this song, there are chord charts. This also makes it easier for the accompanying band to follow the singer, and take his or her own artistic freedom with the song. Darrin says that these skills of improvisation have come in handy when performing at Broadway Nights.

Ella Fitzgerald "Misty"

                             

            Darrin also admits that improvisation is one of the ways he approaches composition. He will experiment with sounds and chords until he finds something that sounds right. Similarly to “Misty,” “Commune With Me” has a repetitive structure. It begins with a refrain that’s repeated, verse, refrain, B section (or a bridge), refrain, and then there is a key change for the final refrain. Just like in “Misty” the song is basically composed of chords with embellishments. There are a lot of repeated phrases in the piano and guitar part. The vocal line is also simple which lends itself to being improvisatory in the future. He also has a female singing with him singing the octave above with no special harmony. But the fact that she is singing along gives the audience more color to be listening to and a reference point for where their voice might fall when singing. In the recording of “Commune With Me” there are sections where Darrin calls out to the audience inviting them to sing the song and giving them hints as to which section of the music is approaching.

                                                                 "Commune With Me"