Writing a simple ballade from just four harmonies

[felsenstein]

I wonder, how would you start out if this was your task. You have basically four harmonies, the result should be a nice, "easy to chew", but still touching piano-based ballade. Straight ahead, but with some neat "cliché" fill-ins. Slow, but not lame. Interesting, but still leaving enough space for the lyrics. Modern (pop), but still with a touch of classic.

Anyone tried such a ballade project ever?

[themeandvariation]

looking to find someone to write music for your lyrics?  Because you are unable to do so?
What exactly, 4 harmonies do you mean?  You don't know much about talking music do ya?
And probably not musically literate at best….
So your query is a tad disingenuous, as Usually people commission  such requests (instead of trying to disguise them)

[felsenstein]

No idea, what you are talking about, but let me try in other words.
Btw, English isn't my frist language, so, sorry, in case my way to express myself causes misunderstandings.

In my case, I have an existing track. A sophisticated musician might call it very "cheesy". It's produced very pompous, orchestrated with piano, strings, timpanies etc. Now, I'd like to break it down into a ballade, keeping the original melody (partly) and the general mood.

Unfortunately, I never wrote a ballade and playing/composing for piano is not one of my strenghts (am percussionist). To make the piano not the center of the ballade, but the lyrics, still having an amazing musical background, is another challenge I'm faced with. So, I wonder, how do the pros attempt to such a task. I simply find it very hard to start...

Maybe my question can't be answered from a purely verbal ground. So, I could provide audio files from the track, as well as what I consider to be the sort of ballade, I'd like to have in the end.

[klavieronin]

Here are some suggestions to hopefully get some ideas flowing;