Music Analysis Blog

 Unit 22 Applied Music Theory                                      Joey Farrell - 16/04/19. 1) For my first track to analyse I’ve chosen, Discipline by King Crimson. Discipline - King Crimson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtoqZ8DP0FU Discipline begins with two guitars playing a repeating phrase in 5/4 time signature. The guitarists are both playing the same repeating melodic phrase however; one is playing three notes ahead of the other resulting in melodic counterpoint that continues throughout the track with variations in the melodic phrases introduced. This results in the track having a very polyphonic texture throughout. Discipline seems to focus closely to the pentatonic scale in terms of melody from what I could tell and the track is in A minor in terms of Key. The key however changes in the second section of the track or at least the harmony and melody suggest that it modulates to Eflat minor. During this section there is also a time signature change. The bass on the track seems to stick mostly to the chord tones of the key being used at the time without much harmonic movement. The guitars suggest most of the harmony. The track definitely 1980′s new wave influence as it was written and released around the 80′s as well as classic rock and progressive rock influence. On Discipline, the guitars introduce the track while the drums and bass come in later. The drums on Discipline play a 16th note rhythm, whilst the bass plays a groove underneath. The guitars on Discipline have a clean but chorus-like tone and seem to drive the track even though one guitar part never overpowers the other. The guitars on the track play straight rhythms of either 8th or 16th notes throughout the track until last section of the track where one is playing 16th notes and the other is playing a slightly more syncopated groove using power chords (or double stops) from the sounds of it. Structurally-wise,Discipline has five sections, which appear and reappear throughout the track and also features multiple time signature changes: Discipline starts in 5/4, however changes to 4/4, back to 5/4, 4/4 again, 15/16, back to 5/4 and finally ending in 3/4 (With a 15/16 time on the outro). As the title of the Discipline suggests, the track is meant to act as a testament to reflect the player’s discipline and concentration. If I were to write out the structure as a musical form: A(intro) - A1 - B - A2 - B2 - C - D - C2 - E - C(outro). A(intro) =            5 bars. A =                    24 bars. B =                      7 bars. A2 =                  15 bars. B2 =                    7 bars. C =                    15 bars. D =                    17 bars. C2 =                  15 bars. E =                    50 bars. C =                      8 bars. 2) I’ve chosen House Of The Rising Sun by The Animals for my second. House Of The Rising Sun - The Animals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHbKdI26RkE House Of The Rising Sun begins with an electric guitar playing an arpeggio (or a broken up chord). The arpeggiated chords are repeated throughout the track playing an Amin, Cmaj, Dmaj and an Fmaj. On the second repeat of this phrase Dmaj and Fmaj are replaced with an Emaj. In the intro however on the second repeat of the chord sequence, it goes Amin, Emaj, Amin and finally Emaj. These chords are repeated throughout the entire track and lay a strong harmonic foundation for the other instrumentation. The chord progression used throughout the track notated as roman numerals is : i, III, IV, VI, i, II,I V, V.  The track is in Amin and seems to use the pentatonic blues and natural minor scale. Just before the first verse of the track, lead vocals come in using a pickup note just before the downbeat of bar 9. The vocal melody follows the harmonic movement of the chords. The vocalist during this verse mostly sings in short, almost staccato like rhythms with some longer notes here and there. In later verses however the vocalist sings in both a higher register and sustains his notes for longer rhythmically. The track is in 6/8 and has no time signature changes from what I could tell. In the second verse an organ is introduced in the track with some improve harmony and counter melodic “call and responses” to the vocalist with its own improvisation (solo) section in the third verse (extended verse). Throughout the track, the drummer is playing in unison with the guitar rhythmic wise on the ride cymbal of the kit, while the kick and snare land on the downbeats. Structurally the track doesn’t change a lot with no obvious main chorus’ or hook ect, the track sticks to the main progression and the sections are very similiar however I divided the verses I could make out below. Intro =                     8 bars Verse1 =               22 bars.        Verse2 =               22 bars. Verse3 =               22 bars. Verse4 =               22 bars. Verse5 =               22 bars. Verse6+Outro =    22 + 4 bars.

Lead sheets suitable for an ensemble. My own composition featuring the techniques I discussed earlier in the blog with  the chord names written above the bar lines. It is 16 bars that consists of just one section and chord progression with some variation on the repeats. I didn’t have any instrument play the chords outright, I wanted to spell the chords out using the different instruments and elements. It’s in Bbmin, is in 4/4 and consists of a flute, piano and cello. I had the piano play the main melody, doubled by the flute. The flute doesn’t vary in melody on the repeats but the piano does. The left hand of the piano and a cello play the bass line which follows the chords with some passing tones.

Billy Jean - Michael Jackson Transcription. My transcription of one of the first few verses from Michael Jackson’s, ‘Billy Jean’ done by ear featuring melodic, harmonic and rhythmic notation.

Music Theory Blog.

22 Applied Music Theory.                                          Joey Farrell - 22/01/2019.

On this blog, I will be explaining basic music theory principals and transcribing some music using music notation software. I’ll start off with explaining what a ‘note’ is fundamentally. Notes are the sounds you hear when an instrument or voice produces a pitch. The degree of how high, low or long a pitch is can be notated on a musical score. When multiple notes are played simultaneously, an audible relationship between those notes is created based on their ‘distance’ from one another. This is called an interval. The interval between two notes (or the distance), is what gives chords and melodies their defining characteristics. For example, we generally perceive major chords as bright and happy and we perceive minor chords as dark and moody however, these distinctions are subjective. Its important to remember that when talking about ‘notes’ you are also talking about how long the pitch is held for, not only the frequency or pitch. The length of notes is what we call, ‘rhythm’. There are many types of note lengths that are used to tell the player how long they play a note or how long they don’t play a note for. In music notation ‘rests’ are used the same way as crotchets etc however instead of playing your instrument, you stay quiet for however long the rest lasts for. This is how rhythm is notated and comes in varying forms: Whole note / semibreve  = Hold note for 4 beats. Half note / minim = Hold note for 2 beats. Quarter note / crotchet = Hold note for 1 beat. ect. An interval is the distance between two notes. The interval between two notes is measured by major, minor and perfect distances. For example, If a note is 3 semitones higher than a starting tonic note, it is described as a minor 3rd. However If it were 4 semitones higher instead, it would be a major 3rd. A melody is essentially just a sequence of notes generally played over some kind of chord progression or bass line however for a melody to count as a melody, there just needs to be a series of at least two or more notes played after one another. Melodies are generally written in the treble clef on the staff - as they are generally higher in pitch. The different ‘clefs’ are used to organise the instrumentation, of a piece of music by the range of the instruments being notated. For example higher ranged instruments such as a violin, will be notated in the treble clef whilst the ‘bassier’ instruments such as a cello will be notated in the bass clef. There are other clefs as well such as the alto and tenor clef. If you want good sounding melodies, having some functional harmony might help out. Harmony is essentially two or more notes playing simultaneously with an interval difference, not in unison (unison being the same note). So say if one instrument was playing an E and another instrument was playing a B, the player playing a B would be harmonizing the first player with an interval of a ‘perfect 5th’. Perfect intervals are neither major or minor and the perfect 5th is used in is both major and minor scales. Bass lines are another form of harmony. Usually the bass will stick to the root of whatever chord is being played in a piece of music and will add another layer of harmony in the lower registers of the staff. Chords are three or more notes played simultaneously and are made up of note intervals, and musical scales. Chords are commonly used throughout western music to harmonize the other melodic content in the music. To construct a ‘triad’ or a three note chord, you must have a ‘root’ or tonic note (1st), a 3rd and a 5th. The interval of the ‘3rd’ determines whether the chord is a major or minor chord. For example, to make a C major chord, you need to play a C, an E and a G. The E is four semitones away from the root note making it a major 3rd and the G is a perfect 5th away (8 semitones). The distance between the semitones and the major or minor intervals are separate from one another. Semitones are used to describe the distance, while intervals are used to describe the actual sound or characteristic.  An inversion is a musical technique commonly used in many different genres of music. A chord inversion is essentially taking a note from a chord above the tonic, and moving it down by an octave (12 notes). Taking the 3rd of the chord and lowering it by an octave, is known as 1st inversion and lowering the 5th of a chord is known as 2nd inversion. Even though a chord requires 3 notes to be played simultaneously, a harmonic technique known as playing ‘power chords’ breaks this rule. In contemporary blues, rock n’ roll, punk (music featuring guitars), many musicians removed the ‘3rd’ of the chord to create a 5th chord. A sequence of chords played one after another is what we call a chord progression. In contemporary music, people say the most common chord progression used is the I–V–vi–IV progression and what they are referring to when talking about roman numerals and chords is the ‘scale degrees’. When notating for chords , sometimes its easier to notate the chords as roman numerals because, sometimes you may not know the exact chord names however you will know the progression. This is a lot easier to remember than remembering each of the exact chord names that changes by each scale and or key you are using. For example, the I–V–vi–IV progression in the key of Cmaj is: Cmaj - Gmaj - Amin - Fmaj. In the key of Gmaj the progression is: Gmaj - Dmaj - Emin - Cmaj. That’s only keys whilst there are 24 total major and minor keys not even mentioning the modes and pentatonic scales. The reason why the roman numerals are called scale degrees is because the number represents the note of the scale you are in, which ever scale it may be for example: the I in a major scale is referring to the first note of the scale and the V is referring to the 5th note of the scale. You use these notes as the tonic notes for your chords. (Look below for example of a chord progression/notation). Sharps are flats are basically just an easier way of saying or signifying ‘to go down a semitone’ or ‘to go up a semitone’. If a piece of music ever asks you to play a note with ‘#’ after it. It asking you to raise that note by a semitone. Same goes for the flat symbol: ‘b’, except you lower the note by a semitone. In the western chromatic scale, there are 12 notes:                C - C# - D - D# - E - F - F# - G - G# - A - A# - B The notes with the ‘#’ s are known as the sharp notes however when going  down the scale are known as the flat notes. Different combinations of these notes played one after another creates what we call scales. A scale is a sequence of notes ascending or descending and each scale has its own musical flavor or characteristic based on the intervals.  If we go back to notation and ‘meter’, I think I’ll also talk about rhythm and time and key signature. The key signature is dictated by the number of sharps or flats that are written at the start of a piece of transcribed music and the sharps and flats at the start of said piece of music also dictate what notes you have to ‘sharpen’ and ‘flatten’ (raise and lower by semitone) throughout the piece of music. The time signature is slightly different. The time signature determines the amount of beats needed to complete a single ‘bar’ or ‘measure’ of the notated music. A time signature of 4/4 means; One bar = Four beats played using 1/4th notes (or crotchets). A time signature of 5/8 for example = Five beats using 1/8th would require the player to fill a bar full of ten 1/8 notes or five 1/4 notes. When you are told to play on the beats of a bar, this is called ‘on beat’ however in some genres such as jazz and reggae, a technique known as syncopation is used all the time. Syncopation is basically playing notes on the ‘off-beats’ of a bar. A bar is divided into the beats which can be divided again to reveal what we call the ‘and’ of a bar. When playing on the ‘and’ of a bar, you are creating syncopated rhythm:                                               1 and 2 and 3 and 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ - 4 Chords | Music Videos | The Axis Of Awesome, Jul 20, 2011. Basic notation example: