Africa (Toto)
Added 2021-12-03 19:00:06 +0000 UTCToto's song Africa is so famous that it needs no introduction 🙂
In making this arrangement I stayed true to the original key of B major. The song is composed of three parts - intro, verse, and chorus.
The intro consists of two phrases: one in Amaj7 chord and the other in C#m7 chord. The second phrase has quite an intricate pattern for the right hand so I have written out in the PDF the exact fingering I used to make it easier.
In the second part, the verse, the original song has a quadruple repetition of the melody. In order to spice it up a bit I made a new variation for each repetition.
And for the entire chorus we have four chords - F#m7, Dmaj7, A, and E, played as arpeggios. I outlined the melody there with accented tones within the thread of these arpeggios.
This arrangement has a nice balance between two types of playing: the chord-melody playing in the verse, and the arpeggio style in the chorus. You can also find this blend in the intro: the first half of the intro, with the Amaj7 chord, is chord-melody type of playing, and the second half, with the C#m7 chord, is arpeggio type of playing.
