THROUGH IT ALL
Originally published on The Daily Ditty July 1, 2018
I thought picking my “favourite song” would be difficult because depending on my day, mood, whatever it changes from minute to minute. But surprisingly when I thought about it the first and only song that came to mind was Through It All by Charlie Puth. Even when I looked over the other songs I’ve been thinking about for this challenge Through It All just kept coming to me. Which makes sense, since I’ve only been spending every waking hour since the Voicenotes album release trying to learn the damn record on the piano. The first thing I learned was coming back to the piano and I picked a pop record by a classically trained jazz player, who threw in all the 7th chords, grace notes, and appoggiaturas a pop record can handle.
Challenge accepted.
A bit about the song, it is the last tracked record on the album but the first written. Before Attention (the first song written that informed the direction of the album as a whole) came to creation Through It All was what the sophomore album was headed sonically. A grown up version of Nine Track Mind, saccharine pop with a hint of jazzy-RnB. When listening to it you can hear the remnants of NTM in the use of strings supporting a predominantly heavy piano arrangement. Not so much the Rhode synth bounce feel of with Voicenotes turned out to be. Though a deviation, still, interestingly enough coherent in the grand concept of the album. Very Bublé sequel, Puth could have given it away. but I’m glad he didn’t.
Though it is my favourite song, I don’t think a song has ever given me more piano grief than this one. First the intro: a simple piano solo with warm chords. The right hand melody, easy to figure out, hard to execute with my old rusty fingers. I got it down (ish) and moved on the left hand. SO! Here’s where things get frustrating. The voicing of the left hand is not humanly possible, unless you’re Rachmaninov, or I’m hearing it wrong. And because I’m an arrogant prick and I am never wrong, I have concluded that either Charlie Puth has the worlds biggest hands or he cheated and recorded the melody and chords separately. Which irks me to NO end because now I can’t play it properly. But I still try. In my frustration I decided to move on from the intro and just learn the rest of the song. That was easier, but with Mr. Fancy Finger’s obsession with 7th, diminished, augmented, the whole dictionary of chords, figuring out the exact inversions and modifiers was blood boiling. I couldn’t remember it all. Pop songs are supposed to be easy! BUT NOOOOO! I never in my life had to chart out the song I was learning, but for Through It All I transcribed it thoroughly.
All of this took place back in May the first days after the Album dropped. I looked everywhere for sheet music because “Ain’t nobody got time for that”. But no sheet music, it wasn’t a single so no sheet music. I studied the record for ever, everyday, all day for 2-3 weeks straight trying to figure it out. Finally I figured it out and slowly I’m learning it, and slowly I’m committing it to memory. I’m not half bad.
Though it still causes me grief, I love playing on the piano. Summer Goal 1 complete.
**UPDATE** So I googled Through It All the other night just to see what other people are saying the chords are and GUESS what I found… THE OFFICIAL ALFRED MUSIC PUBLISHED SHEET MUSIC! So I look it over and I’m 85% right on my transcription. But the major thing that made me lose my shit was that those intro chords are written higher than they sound on the recording. Nothing bothers me more than that, but I guess the everyday piano player isn’t going to have Rachmaninov hands so I get it. I bought it and tried it out, I don’t like the transcription, the inversions sound wrong and too high in places. Especially the intro. If anyone reading this knows Puth please let him know I’d like to talk to him about his voicing choices for this record, and maybe he could teach me the actual recording arrangement. Thanks