Reharmonizing “Racing in the street”

🎵 Listen to Bruce Springsteen singing his iconic 1978 song against a different harmony

        Dm
I got a sixty-nine Chevy with a three-ninety-six

        A/C#
Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor

        C
She's waiting tonight down in the parking lot

            G
Outside the Seven-Eleven store

How to do it

Reharmonizing ^{/riːˈhɑː.mə.naɪz/} taking an existing melodic line and altering the harmony that accompanies it

1. The song

Search for “racing in the street springsteen mp3” and you will find it everywhere: Amazon, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, ... I got mine from YouTube ^[1]

2. The vocals

Use a tool to isolate the vocal track from the rest of the audio. I have used Vocal Remover ^[2] and this was the result:

3. The Harmony

I found a faithful piano transcription on YouTube ^[3]. The 🎹 piano piece is Roy Bittan at his best, using a 3-3-2 rhythmic pattern within a chord progression F, B♭, Gm, B♭

Create a new chord progression that, somehow, fits with the melody. I come up with Dm, A/C#, C, G

4. Your Harmony

Use a tool to write the new piano section.

I used the abc notation^[4] and the abctools online editor^[5] and come out with this new score:

X: 1
T: (new) Racing in the street 
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
Q: 1/4=86
V:1
|[DFA]3 [DFA]3 [DFA]2|[DFA]3 [DFA]3 [DFA]2|[^CEA]3 [^CEA]3 [^CEA]2|[^CEA]3 [^CEA]3 [^CEA]2|
V:2 clef=bass
| D,3 D,4 A,| D,3 D,4 A,| ^C,3 ^C,4 A,|^C,3 ^C,4 A,|
V:1
|[CEG]3 [CEG]3 [CEG]2|[CEG]3 [CEG]3 [CEG]2|[B,DG]3 [B,DG]3 [B,DG]2 |[B,DG]3 [B,DG]3 [B,DG]2 |
V:2
|C,3 C,4 E,| C,3 C,4 E, | G,,3 G,,3 G,, D,| G,,3 G,,3 G,, D, |

and exported the result as a .wav file

5. Mix

Combine the two tracks: Bruce's isolated voice and your newly written piano section. I used Audacity ^[6] for it

Resources