smithsmusicblog-blog

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Dear Esther

Link Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/track/1X3mzkwOjPOp03lXh1nekA?si=eyh3Qv5aQo2lUJ_qZMfjqg

Harmony

Key: C/Am

Many accidentals note  

The first phrase fallows the key C them to B then to A

The second phrase goes C (keeping to the key) then going to Bb then to Ab

There is also a counter-melody added by the piano in an upper octave

Could almost be considered chromatic for the accidentals

Chords

none

Melody

as shown above, the piece is rather simple starting on a C and then doing down to the A and holding (c, b, a)

then this is where the accidentals come in with the b and a becoming flats.

this is repeated twice

then a melody is started in the higher octave

at the same time, a sample of a voice is added and is distorted.

at bar 12 the voices fade out and strings come in 

Structure

Order

Intro (just piano).

Middle (addition of higher melody with a voice saying you don’t love me I believe).

Ending fuller chords used with a string accompaniment.

lengths

intro: 8 bars

middle: 4 bars

ending: 4 bars

Rhythm

50 bpm

Instrumentation

Piano/keys

Vocals (heavily distorted effect almost sound)

Violin  

Cello

Timbre

I would say the timbre is haunting for this music

Intro

Solo piano

Makes it's sound sparse  

Good use of reverb adds to the effect of a big area (this music is from a game which is starts in a lighthouse)

Middle

The addition of the voice as another layer of unsettling  

The vocals have heavy processing to them with modulation in the form of chorus, flanger or phaser. They also have reverb. There also seems to be a pitch shifter to it in some parts pitching it down to add dept to a high (treble) sound

Ending

The voice is swapped for a string section the voice section continues but at a lower level  

The strings take over and bring the piece home on the starting note of C

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Song Dissection of Strawberry Gashes

 links for listening purposes

youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m6m9tMdca0

spotify

https://open.spotify.com/track/6BbUeBm35cYoGUy70rqsG8?si=PXTAKF_RRuGVC4tv1SzhhQ

harmony

Key: B/G#m

Chords

Intro:  G#m, E (G#m I, VI) (B IV, IV)

Verse: G#m, E, F# (palm muted) (G#m I, VI, VII) (B IV,IV, V)

Chorus: G#m, E, F# (G#m I, VI, VII) (B IV,IV, V)

Bridge: F#, E

Arpeggio in verse:

G#m starting the octave fret 6th. Add a flat 6 to the arpeggio on the 3rd loop

Loops again (arpeggio), the end section is two power chords a fifth above D# which is A# (D#, A#) and then taking the D# to a B (the key signature in regards to major) this would make the power.

After the arpeggio, the notes are E, D#, B

The chords used are all in the key and there is no hidden chords that don’t fit

Melody

The vocals fallow the scale of the song with starting on the tonic of the song ( the home chord). the melody starts on the 6th (G#) (if you look at the song in B i will explain in a minute why). it keeps this note for 2 bars. then goes to the 4th (E), down another semi tone to the 3rd (D#) and finally to the tonic/1st (B)(the reason i said B was the key is i feel a downward pull to this B note as if it is the tonic. which would make sense coming from a 3rd).

the next four bars has a repeat melody for the first two bars which are E, D#, B (cementing that downward pull to the tonic of B). the 3rd bar has a single note which is E and the 4th bar goes to the 3rd of the scale D#.

Structure

order

Intro

Verse 1

Verse 2 + arpeggio

Chorus

Verse 1

Verse 2 + arpeggio

Chorus

Bridge instrumental

Verse 1

Verse 2 + arpeggio

Chorus

Chorus

Finish on g#m

Letter order

A (8 bars) 

B (16 bars) 

C (16 bars)

D (16 bars)

B (16 bars)

C (16 bars)

D (16 bars)

E (16 bars)

B (16 bars)

C (16 bars)

D (16 bars)

D (16 bars)

Rhythm

Bpm:160

Time signature: 3/4

Waltz feel to the verse

The intro has two eighth note sections

1  &  2  &  3  

At the end of the first verse. There is a drum roll on the snare that is recorded over the rhythmical drums to bring in the arpeggiated guitar.

Every 8 bars there is an extra emphasis on the drums with more of a thud in the verse

The bass player seems to be playing eighth notes during the bridge

Instrumentation

Lead Guitar

Rhythm guitar

bass

Drums

Vocals

Plucked instrument (violin?) intro to the arpeggio

Timbre

intro

Heavily distorted guitar

Drums are more “airy” with some cymbals

verse

Palm muted guitar for the verse

Drums are heavy for the verse they have a thud to them. With no cymbals and a drum roll

Bass is heavy and distorted but not as much as the guitars 

chorus

The drums in the chorus have more of a cymbal focus to it 

Heavily distorted guitar     

The bass is the same distortion with more treble

Bridge

single strums heavily distorted guitar

light clean guitar with a chorus effect in the background with some reverb doing an arpeggio 

Verse after bridge

Rhythm guitar isn't as distorted and is not palmed muted allowing a more open sound with single strums for each chord.

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now to read notes

so when looking at how to read sheet music there is two things to read. one is the notes themselves ( if it's a c or g for example). the other is the length of the notes. as shown above. the length notes are relevant to a measure of music (a bar). 

for example say if the music is 4/4 timing (4 beats per bar). a whole note would last for a whole bar (4 beats). a half note would last half the length of the whole note (2 beats). the same is for quarter (one beat each).

now when looking at eighth notes. they are shorter again with only being half the length of 1/4 notes (if you haven't noticed the next division of the next note is in half, for example, whole to half). this means that 8ths last for half a note. the same for 16ths they last for half an 8th (1/4 of a 1/4 note).

with the 8th note we also see the start of flags. flags are the visual difference of a quarter note and an eighth note. to identify if its an eighth, sixteenth of a thirty-second note you can look at the amount of flags. one flag would indicate 8ths, two would indicate 16ths and 3 would indicate 32nds.

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people ain't no good analysis

so now to talk about a song in detail. I chose to go with “people just ain't not good” by nick cave.

the song is in 3/4 timing we can tell this by the time signature on the left of the page indicating 3/4 as the timing. But, if we look at the first measure we can see that there are 3 notes in the bar and they are quarter notes indicating that it is 3 equal beats per bar (we can say this for sure due to no rest in the bar). the bass clef does nothing for the first bar as shown with a rest.

the notes go G, A, B  for the first bar. this leaves it very vague as far as a key goes but if we look at the rest of the song. the next bar the chord C major with a low C. this can be the 1 of the progression. the next bar uses G major which would make this the 5 chords in the progression. the next bar has an F major chord. I need to mention that these chords are inversions and I am using the lowest not to name the chords

the song follows a very famous songwriting structure of using the 1,5,6,4 progression. which would be M, M,m, M (M=major, m=minor). in the key of C major, this would be C, G, Am, F. there is a difference this song follows a 3 chord progression dropping the minor (6) and making it 1,5,4 progression.

the song repeats until it gets to the bridge section of the song where the progression changes. it becomes C, F for the first 3 lines of the bridge and then for the last line it becomes Dm, G. so now if look at the progression, on the whole, it is now 1,4,2,5. this makes the bridge stand out but also gives a lovely resolution going from the 5 chords to the 1 chord as it loops and goes into the last section of the song returning to the original progression

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Chords

when talking about chords, there are many avenues to go down. i will go over the basics

so a chord is made up of two or more notes. some examples of two-note chords are power chords played on guitar usually consisting r,5 (root and the 5th of a scale). to make the chord a major you would have to add a 3rd into the mix. to relate this to a scale and notes to make sense I will refer to c major scale.so the scale is C, D, E, F, G, A & B. so if was to take the notes C, E, G that would make a C major. if we flatten the 3rd (making it Eb) it makes it Cm.

each note has its relevance to the root for example if I added a B to the C major chord it would become Cmaj7.

using this we can construct chords relative to a key and scale. for example, if I said key c major and I played the R,m3,6, m9 ( c,d#,a,c#). going from what I game said before the root, 3rd and a 6th. make a chord and this being a minor 3rd this is Cm6 but with the m9 (flat 9th) it now becomes Cm6b9.

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Time signature

time signatures dictate two things the first is how many beats there is per bar of music (which is the top number) and the bottom number dictates the type of note played. so 4/4 would be 4 beats per measure (bar) and the note would be a quarter note

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Scale & Modes

when we talk about scales and modes. they are the same. the main difference when you talk about the different modes is the starting point and the relevance that has on the mode in total.

the scale I am going to talk about in this post is C major (Ionian). the Ionian mode is the major scale and has the formula of WWHWWWH (W mean whole as in a whole tone, H means half tone (semi tone))

the next mode would be D Dorian which starts on the D note of the C Ionian mode (which is the second step) the formula is WHWWWHW

this continues for all the modes I will list them below and the formula 

C major (Ionian) (WWHWWWH)

D Dorian (WHWWWHW)

E Phrygian (HWWWHWW)

F Lydian (WWWHWWH)

G Mixolydian ( WWHWWHW)

A Natural Minor (WHWWHWW)

B Locrian (HWWHWWW)

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The Great Stave

the image above is the great stave. the great stave is used for reading notes. the top row is the treble clef and the lower stave is the bass clef. there is one note that separates these two clefs and this is middle c. the treble clef notes are as fallow F,A,C,E for the spaces (bottom to top) and E,G,B,D,F for the lines.

the bass clef is different it doesnt have the same notes for the lines. the spaces are A,C,E,G and the lines are G,B,D,F,A

#the great stave

[smithsmusicblog-blog]

I prefer playing in songs where I have a tempo, groove and harmonic map to hang on to.

Paul Gilbert

#quote #tempo

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Tempo

When talking about tempo there is a lot to consider the simplest way to look at it is at its core is that tempo is the number of beats per minute that a song is measured. For example, if a song is in 60 bpm it should have one beat per second. This is the same with any BPM, so 90 BPM would be divided into 60. If you wanted to find out what that breaks down to it works out to one beat every .66666666....... seconds (60/90=.666666 recurring decimal)  

Different tempos have different names associated with them

Larghissimo which means very, very, slow and is about 20 bpm or below

Grave which means slow and solemn and is about 20–40 bpm

Lento which means slowly and is about 40–60 bpm

Largo which means broadly and is about 40–60 bpm

Larghetto which means rather broadly and is about 60–66 bpm

Adagio which means slow and stately (literally, "at ease") and is about 66–76 bpm

Adagietto which means rather slow and is about 70–80 bpm

Andante moderato which means a bit slower than andante

Andante which means at a walking pace and is about 76–108 bpm

Andantino which means slightly faster than andante

Moderato which means moderately and is about 108–120 bpm

Allegretto which means moderately fast and is about but less so than allegro

Allegro moderato which means moderately quick and is about 112–124 bpm

 Allegro which means fast, quickly and bright and is about 120–168 bpm

Vivace which means lively and fast and is about ≈140 bpm (quicker than allegro)

Vivacissimo which means very fast and lively

Allegrissimo which means very fast

Presto which means very fast and is about 168–200 bpm

Prestissimo which means extremely fast and is about more than 200bpm

#tempo

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Pitch

the topic of pitch can be a very vast topic,

in this post, I will sum pitch up as quickly as possible. Each note has there owned pitch. Pitch is measured in hertz (Hz). I will use a common example when it comes to a pitch and Hz. The example I will be using is A=440Hz. When we talk about  A=440Hz, we mean that it is a sound wave has a total of 440 cycles. the time in which Hz is measured is one cycles per second. this means that there is 440 cycles (one peak and valley) per second. This is what is meant when it is said A=440Hz. Each note has there own pitch which is measured in hertz, some other examples are :

middle C (c4) =  261.6256 Hz

D (D3) =  146.8324 Hz

F (F2) =  87.30706 Hz

to get the octave of any note, its simple to go up you double and to go down you half.

 A (A3) =220Hz

A (A4) =440Hz 

A (A5) =880Hz

#pitch

[smithsmusicblog-blog]

When I make music, I often sound better singing as a woman, go figure, so I like to tweak the format and pitch and suchlike of my recorded voice. Sounds better.

 Timothy Morton

#pitch