This is a song I wrote in 2011 I believe,

while I was in that band I shared in my other posts the last two days, The Steaks. However, this, and a bunch of other songs, were not metal enough for that band, and were sort of just a solo-project I was working on by myself. I had an application called DoggieBox which I used for programming the drums, and I would just import the drum-track audio file into Garageband, plug my guitar/amp into my laptop, and record direct. Garageband is a surprisingly easy program to record original music with, the loops are cheesy and unoriginal, but I only used it as a substitute for Pro-Tools, which I didn't have anymore at that time.

Listen to BUCHO MAXIMO here

Musically, this song has some cool stuff going on,

particularly the key changes that happen. Around this time was when I began to purposefully use modulation. This song moves from the main riff, which it begins with, in C major, to the little bass fill section, which is in B minor, then we move to C minor, and then a parallel modulation to C major.

The Cmajor section is a pretty simple riff,

|| C, F# (tritone) x3 F, Bb (flat 7), A, G :||. The use of the F# would normally be super dark, but it's a full Dom7 chord, so it gives it a different character, less of the dark tritone, and more just a feeling of needing to resolve. The end of this section moves up from Ab, to Bb, which feels like it should resolve to C (minor really, but in C major it has a very powerful, almost regal resolve), but doesn't. It resolves to B, which feels very dark to me.

Listen to BUCHO MAXIMO here

The next section is where the guitar rings out,

and the bass fills in with the drums. Basically it's a descending chromatic riff, where I move from B up a major third, and down a half step (So B, Eb, D) and then playing that same riff, moving down a halfstep each time it repeats (so beginning on Bb, then A, etc). This allows us to end on G, and by playing an Eb, makes the move into C minor in the next section.

I always called this next part the "epic" riff,

as it's two guitars, playing a harmony in C minor, which always had a sort of "Iron Maiden" kind of epic 80s metal harmonic-timbre to me. It's a short little section, and ends with a little guitar diddle, which begins to fade and then BAM, the intro (C major) comes right back, and takes us to the end of the song. The intro is the outro too, which is common if the intro is also a chorus riff, but in this case, the entire middle of the song is different from what's around it at the beginning and end. However, instead of ending on B (as the intro did), we hear Ab, to Bb, and resolving to nice C major. That's a good trick, if you're in a major key and don't wanna use the boring IV, V cadence, you can play a flat 6 and flat 7 and resolve that to the tonic. It's incorporating part of the parallel minor scale there.

Listen to BUCHO MAXIMO here

That's all for now! Enjoy the song! Thanks for the support, I really appreciate each and everyone of you!

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