5662 / 18210 · Workshop 39 — “Watermelon Man”: Blues-Funk Vocabulary, Dominant Vamps, Riffs as Harmony, and Making Repetition Feel Inevitable Instead of Boring← prev⊞ allnext →
39.92Apply it to “Happy Birthday”
This transformation can be surprisingly effective.
Put the melody over an F7 blues-funk world.
Intro
main bass riff.
Phrase 1
melody with sparse dominant shell.
Phrase 2
blue ♭3 approaches.
Phrase 3
brief B♭7 IV area, perhaps octave melody.
Final phrase
C7 creates the only strong functional dominant.
Then:
F7 → F6/9.
The melody remains unmistakable, but its emotional character becomes entirely different.