You are Mine

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Credits: The bass, the piano, the acoustic guitar, and the solo guitar are played by Cem. The drums and the cellos are programmed by Cem. The song was first written in the summer of 1991 and later composed in November 2021. This track was recorded in September 2022. It was released in December 2022 with the rest of the album.

Conception: My second song was a natural choice. When I was 20 years old, I wrote a song for my girlfriend (who is now my wife) in college. 30 years later, I could still remember the chord progression, but not the words. I decided to change this old love song to an instrumental piece and add some piano in the background. I decided to break the song into three pieces with a piano transition between each piece. The song does not have a chorus. The guitar solo is composed separately for each piece, reflecting different phases of our relationship – when we first met, when we got married, and when we had kids.

Execution: This love song starts with a slow and sweet melody. The piano opens up the first chapter. The solo guitar tells its story. The remaining two chapters follow the same structure. The song ends with a fading piano transition, hinting that the final chapter is yet to be written.

Mechanics: The song is written in C major with 4/4 measures at 70 bps. It is composed of four chords – C major, A minor, G major, and E minor (1-6-5-3). The acoustic guitar was initially supported by a piano, which was later changed to Cellos to lay a sweeter foundation. The speed was also bumped up from 60 bps to 70 bps to keep the momentum up. The guitar solos jump through the notes of the C major scale. Again, I did not know music theory too much then and I played whatever sounded good to me at that time. Some note-bending gets introduced in the first chapter. The last chapter has some triplet runs -which were too fast to play at 70 bps (thus the reason why it was first written at 60 bps). The drums and bass stay steady throughout the whole song.

Here are private notes.