Can software be a creative collaborator?
This is the final project of a Music Production Degree and comprises two elements - written research and evaluation, plus a supporting portfolio of media. This site presents the media content of the project plus a brief summary of the final reharmonisation.
Introduction
Reimagining existing music has long been part of musical history from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s playful variations on Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman (1781), to jazz musicians transforming popular songs into new artistic statements. Many jazz standards from the Great American Songbook were originally popular show songs later reshaped through jazz harmony and improvisation.
Jazz reharmonisation changes the harmonic structure of a piece while keeping its melody and identity recognisable, with techniques such as chord substitutions, extensions, altered chords and chromaticism enabling musicians to create new moods, styles, and opportunities for improvisation. A well-known example is John Coltrane’s reinterpretation of My Favorite Things (1961), which transformed a short Broadway tune into an extended jazz performance.
This project follows a similar approach, using Band-in-a-Box (PG Music) to explore jazz-inspired reharmonisation techniques before gathering feedback from musicians on several arrangements and selecting the most appropriate version to present in the project.