Chords for Black Sails - The Sound of Sails
Tempo:
71.7 bpm
Chords used:
C
G
D
Cm
A
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
Black Sails is very different from any other pirate adventure that you've seen on screen.
It's not really a romanticized life.
It's about [Cm] politics, it's [D] about war, it's about [G] survival, it's about slavery.
So how would that translate into music?
I'd worked with showrunner John Steinberg before on a show called Human Target,
and on that show we went back to sort of an Indiana Jones kind of [Ab] orchestral storytelling.
That [A] sort of tone would [C] not work at all in Black Sails.
So we needed something that was more authentic, more scratchy, [D] and rustic, and raw.
I wanted the score to feel like it's being played on the deck of a ship by weary musicians on broken instruments.
The musicians in Black Sails, I [Ebm] treat them more like little [C] folk bands or even rock bands instead of like an orchestra.
[Cm] And I wanted to capture the feeling of everyone playing together.
I recorded them in [D] groups.
I recorded the percussionists together.
And you're going to hear bauron and [Cm] bones, which is a tradition of Irish [C] music that I've never heard featured in a score before.
You're going to hear the guitars and fiddle recorded together [G] as what I call the rhythm trio.
I recorded these guys together so you can hear them interacting, you hear them improvising together.
I wrote [Cm] for the Calder Quartet, whose sound you've heard on Da Vinci's Demons.
The [G] reason I worked with all these musicians [G] is that I knew they would work well together.
So it wasn't just that each person is bringing their own sound, it's that as an [Cm] ensemble, they focus [Bb] and they're able to interact with one another.
And that's a very different kind of sound, [Abm] and I think it's something that makes Black Sails [A] sound unlike anything else I've ever done.
[E]
[Am] [A] [Am] [G]
[A]
[D] [C]
Black Sails also gave me the [A] chance to play [Dm] some of the weird instruments that I've collected over the [F] years.
I play accordion, and I play hurdy [E]-gurdy.
I've played these in other scores before, but never [D] featured the way they're featured on Black Sails.
I actually think my hurdy-gurdy performance is featured on almost [G] every single cue, which was a real challenge for me as a musician, not only as a [D] composer.
[N]
[D]
Sometimes writing a main title for a series comes very easily.
[Dm] The essence of the show translates in my imagination almost immediately [C] into a melody.
In the case of Black Sails, it was a [D] challenge because John Steinberg was really pushing me out of my comfort [F] zone.
I had to really rethink the way in which I even approached [A] music.
I kind of needed to get away from my [Dm] piano and get away from my studio, and I just picked up the hurdy [A]-gurdy and started messing [F] around with it until I came up with a melody that felt sort of like [C] a sea shanty, but a [D] little more strange and a little more evocative.
The first sound that you [C] hear is the sound of my hurdy-gurdy as I was tuning it up, and this weird, [G] lopsided, almost [C] out-of-tune groove started coming out of the instrument.
So I just started recording it, and that's actually the [Cm] first sound you hear during the Black Sails main title.
[G] To this day, I've never been able to recreate it.
It was [C] like this magic sound that happened.
I had the mics on, and I was right in front of it, and the weather was right.
It wasn't too humid, it wasn't too dry, and the hurdy-gurdy [G] made this sound.
I think it's very iconic of the show.
Every time I hear it, I go, that's Black Sails.
[Cm]
It captures the spirit of the show.
These are [Eb] all broken, [F] sad, almost unlikable [C] characters, and the combination of that hurdy-gurdy groove with the [Db] melody that's slower than it should be, to me, it just struck that nerve.
I think it gets to the core of what the show is about.
[G] [Gm]
[Cm]
[C] [G] Black Sails is airing now on Starz, and in the coming weeks I'm going to introduce you [Eb] to our musical crew.
[C] So join us on this journey.
[Cm]
[C]
[D]
It's not really a romanticized life.
It's about [Cm] politics, it's [D] about war, it's about [G] survival, it's about slavery.
So how would that translate into music?
I'd worked with showrunner John Steinberg before on a show called Human Target,
and on that show we went back to sort of an Indiana Jones kind of [Ab] orchestral storytelling.
That [A] sort of tone would [C] not work at all in Black Sails.
So we needed something that was more authentic, more scratchy, [D] and rustic, and raw.
I wanted the score to feel like it's being played on the deck of a ship by weary musicians on broken instruments.
The musicians in Black Sails, I [Ebm] treat them more like little [C] folk bands or even rock bands instead of like an orchestra.
[Cm] And I wanted to capture the feeling of everyone playing together.
I recorded them in [D] groups.
I recorded the percussionists together.
And you're going to hear bauron and [Cm] bones, which is a tradition of Irish [C] music that I've never heard featured in a score before.
You're going to hear the guitars and fiddle recorded together [G] as what I call the rhythm trio.
I recorded these guys together so you can hear them interacting, you hear them improvising together.
I wrote [Cm] for the Calder Quartet, whose sound you've heard on Da Vinci's Demons.
The [G] reason I worked with all these musicians [G] is that I knew they would work well together.
So it wasn't just that each person is bringing their own sound, it's that as an [Cm] ensemble, they focus [Bb] and they're able to interact with one another.
And that's a very different kind of sound, [Abm] and I think it's something that makes Black Sails [A] sound unlike anything else I've ever done.
[E]
[Am] [A] [Am] [G]
[A]
[D] [C]
Black Sails also gave me the [A] chance to play [Dm] some of the weird instruments that I've collected over the [F] years.
I play accordion, and I play hurdy [E]-gurdy.
I've played these in other scores before, but never [D] featured the way they're featured on Black Sails.
I actually think my hurdy-gurdy performance is featured on almost [G] every single cue, which was a real challenge for me as a musician, not only as a [D] composer.
[N]
[D]
Sometimes writing a main title for a series comes very easily.
[Dm] The essence of the show translates in my imagination almost immediately [C] into a melody.
In the case of Black Sails, it was a [D] challenge because John Steinberg was really pushing me out of my comfort [F] zone.
I had to really rethink the way in which I even approached [A] music.
I kind of needed to get away from my [Dm] piano and get away from my studio, and I just picked up the hurdy [A]-gurdy and started messing [F] around with it until I came up with a melody that felt sort of like [C] a sea shanty, but a [D] little more strange and a little more evocative.
The first sound that you [C] hear is the sound of my hurdy-gurdy as I was tuning it up, and this weird, [G] lopsided, almost [C] out-of-tune groove started coming out of the instrument.
So I just started recording it, and that's actually the [Cm] first sound you hear during the Black Sails main title.
[G] To this day, I've never been able to recreate it.
It was [C] like this magic sound that happened.
I had the mics on, and I was right in front of it, and the weather was right.
It wasn't too humid, it wasn't too dry, and the hurdy-gurdy [G] made this sound.
I think it's very iconic of the show.
Every time I hear it, I go, that's Black Sails.
[Cm]
It captures the spirit of the show.
These are [Eb] all broken, [F] sad, almost unlikable [C] characters, and the combination of that hurdy-gurdy groove with the [Db] melody that's slower than it should be, to me, it just struck that nerve.
I think it gets to the core of what the show is about.
[G] [Gm]
[Cm]
[C] [G] Black Sails is airing now on Starz, and in the coming weeks I'm going to introduce you [Eb] to our musical crew.
[C] So join us on this journey.
[Cm]
[C]
[D]
Key:
C
G
D
Cm
A
C
G
D
_ _ _ _ _ _ Black Sails is very different from any other pirate adventure that you've seen on screen.
It's not really a romanticized life.
It's about [Cm] politics, it's [D] about war, it's about [G] survival, it's about slavery.
So how would that translate into music?
I'd worked with showrunner John Steinberg before on a show called Human Target,
and on that show we went back to sort of an Indiana Jones kind of [Ab] orchestral storytelling.
That [A] sort of tone would [C] not work at all in Black Sails.
So we needed something that was more authentic, more scratchy, [D] and rustic, and raw.
I wanted the score to feel like it's being played on the deck of a ship by weary musicians on broken instruments.
The musicians in Black Sails, I [Ebm] treat them more like little [C] folk bands or even rock bands instead of like an orchestra.
[Cm] And I wanted to capture the feeling of everyone playing together.
I recorded them in [D] groups.
I recorded the percussionists together.
And you're going to hear bauron and [Cm] bones, which is a tradition of Irish [C] music that I've never heard featured in a score before.
You're going to hear the guitars and fiddle recorded together [G] as what I call the rhythm trio.
I recorded these guys together so you can hear them interacting, you hear them improvising together.
I wrote [Cm] for the Calder Quartet, whose sound you've heard on Da Vinci's Demons.
The [G] reason I worked with all these musicians [G] is that I knew they would work well together.
So it wasn't just that each person is bringing their own sound, it's that as an [Cm] ensemble, they focus [Bb] and they're able to interact with one another.
And that's a very different kind of sound, [Abm] and I think it's something that makes Black Sails [A] sound unlike anything else I've ever done.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ [A] _ _ [Am] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
Black Sails also gave me the [A] chance to play [Dm] some of the weird instruments that I've collected over the [F] years.
I play accordion, and I play hurdy [E]-gurdy.
I've played these in other scores before, but never [D] featured the way they're featured on Black Sails.
I actually think my hurdy-gurdy performance is featured on almost [G] every single cue, which was a real challenge for me as a musician, not only as a [D] composer. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Sometimes writing a main title for a series comes very easily.
[Dm] The essence of the show translates in my imagination almost immediately [C] into a melody.
In the case of Black Sails, it was a [D] challenge because John Steinberg was really pushing me out of my comfort [F] zone.
I had to really rethink the way in which I even approached [A] music.
I kind of needed to get away from my [Dm] piano and get away from my studio, and I just picked up the hurdy [A]-gurdy and started messing [F] around with it until I came up with a melody that felt sort of like [C] a sea shanty, but a [D] little more strange and a little more evocative.
The first sound that you [C] hear is the sound of my hurdy-gurdy as I was tuning it up, and this weird, [G] lopsided, almost [C] out-of-tune groove started coming out of the instrument.
So I just started recording it, and that's actually the [Cm] first sound you hear during the Black Sails main title.
[G] To this day, I've never been able to recreate it.
It was [C] like this magic sound that happened.
I had the mics on, and I was right in front of it, and the weather was right.
It wasn't too humid, it wasn't too dry, and the hurdy-gurdy [G] made this sound.
I think it's very iconic of the show.
Every time I hear it, I go, that's Black Sails.
_ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ It captures the spirit of the show.
These are [Eb] all broken, [F] sad, almost unlikable [C] characters, and the combination of that hurdy-gurdy groove with the [Db] melody that's slower than it should be, to me, it just struck that nerve.
I think it gets to the core of what the show is about.
[G] _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] Black Sails is airing now on Starz, and in the coming weeks I'm going to introduce you [Eb] to our musical crew.
[C] So join us on this journey. _
_ _ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
It's not really a romanticized life.
It's about [Cm] politics, it's [D] about war, it's about [G] survival, it's about slavery.
So how would that translate into music?
I'd worked with showrunner John Steinberg before on a show called Human Target,
and on that show we went back to sort of an Indiana Jones kind of [Ab] orchestral storytelling.
That [A] sort of tone would [C] not work at all in Black Sails.
So we needed something that was more authentic, more scratchy, [D] and rustic, and raw.
I wanted the score to feel like it's being played on the deck of a ship by weary musicians on broken instruments.
The musicians in Black Sails, I [Ebm] treat them more like little [C] folk bands or even rock bands instead of like an orchestra.
[Cm] And I wanted to capture the feeling of everyone playing together.
I recorded them in [D] groups.
I recorded the percussionists together.
And you're going to hear bauron and [Cm] bones, which is a tradition of Irish [C] music that I've never heard featured in a score before.
You're going to hear the guitars and fiddle recorded together [G] as what I call the rhythm trio.
I recorded these guys together so you can hear them interacting, you hear them improvising together.
I wrote [Cm] for the Calder Quartet, whose sound you've heard on Da Vinci's Demons.
The [G] reason I worked with all these musicians [G] is that I knew they would work well together.
So it wasn't just that each person is bringing their own sound, it's that as an [Cm] ensemble, they focus [Bb] and they're able to interact with one another.
And that's a very different kind of sound, [Abm] and I think it's something that makes Black Sails [A] sound unlike anything else I've ever done.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _
[Am] _ _ [A] _ _ [Am] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _ _
_ [D] _ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _
Black Sails also gave me the [A] chance to play [Dm] some of the weird instruments that I've collected over the [F] years.
I play accordion, and I play hurdy [E]-gurdy.
I've played these in other scores before, but never [D] featured the way they're featured on Black Sails.
I actually think my hurdy-gurdy performance is featured on almost [G] every single cue, which was a real challenge for me as a musician, not only as a [D] composer. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [N] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[D] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Sometimes writing a main title for a series comes very easily.
[Dm] The essence of the show translates in my imagination almost immediately [C] into a melody.
In the case of Black Sails, it was a [D] challenge because John Steinberg was really pushing me out of my comfort [F] zone.
I had to really rethink the way in which I even approached [A] music.
I kind of needed to get away from my [Dm] piano and get away from my studio, and I just picked up the hurdy [A]-gurdy and started messing [F] around with it until I came up with a melody that felt sort of like [C] a sea shanty, but a [D] little more strange and a little more evocative.
The first sound that you [C] hear is the sound of my hurdy-gurdy as I was tuning it up, and this weird, [G] lopsided, almost [C] out-of-tune groove started coming out of the instrument.
So I just started recording it, and that's actually the [Cm] first sound you hear during the Black Sails main title.
[G] To this day, I've never been able to recreate it.
It was [C] like this magic sound that happened.
I had the mics on, and I was right in front of it, and the weather was right.
It wasn't too humid, it wasn't too dry, and the hurdy-gurdy [G] made this sound.
I think it's very iconic of the show.
Every time I hear it, I go, that's Black Sails.
_ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ It captures the spirit of the show.
These are [Eb] all broken, [F] sad, almost unlikable [C] characters, and the combination of that hurdy-gurdy groove with the [Db] melody that's slower than it should be, to me, it just struck that nerve.
I think it gets to the core of what the show is about.
[G] _ _ [Gm] _
_ _ [Cm] _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [G] Black Sails is airing now on Starz, and in the coming weeks I'm going to introduce you [Eb] to our musical crew.
[C] So join us on this journey. _
_ _ _ _ _ [Cm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
Facts about this song