Area of Study 3

Context:

(Miles Davis)

• “All blues” comes from the album Kind of Blue
• Released in 1959 

Structure:

(Miles Davis)

• ‘All blues’ is based on the 12 bar blues progression
• The main melody has the head which is played by the trumpet (muted) which lasts 12 bars

The Pieces is broken into 5 main sections-

Introduction, Head 1, Solos, Head 2, Coda. 

Melody:

(Miles Davis)

The head melody is quite simple and characterised by rising 6ths. This is followed by four imrpovised solos:

1. Trumpet solo: Lasts for 4 choruses. Mostly made up of short, syncopated motifs. 
2. Alto sax solo: Lasts for 4 choruses. Uses qucker notes and a wider range.
3. Tenor sax solo: Lasts for 4 choruses. Uses fast scales and qucik runs. 
4. PIano solo: Lasts for 2 chrouses. This is calmer with a simple melody that leads into a string of parallel chords 

Harmony and Tonality:

(Miles Davis)

• ‘All Blues’ is based on a 12 bar blues sequence which is repeated. 

• A chord sequence is known as the changes

• ‘All blues’ is regarded to be in G major (with a flattened seventh) 

• This is the same as the Mixolydian mode, so we can describe ‘All blues’ as modal jazz.

Rhythm, Metre and Tempo:

(Miles Davis)

• The score is notated in 6/4. The tempo is described as jazz waltz because each 6/4 bar sounds like a pair of bars in 3/4.

• ‘All Blues’ is performed with swing quavers. Which means each pair of quavers is played with the first a little longer than the second. 

• There is frequent syncopation

Instrumental Techniques:

(Miles Davis)

• The snare drum is played with wire brushes at the start and then moves onto sticks

• The bass plays pizzicato throughout 

• The trumpet plays with a Harmon mute for the head.

• The piano plays a tremolo at the start of the piece. Once the solos beign the pianist begins comping.

Context:

(Jeff Buckley)

• Grace comes from the album Grace

• Released in 1994

• Grace is a rock ballad – a rock song about love in a slow tempo

Instrumentation and texture:

(Jeff Buckley)

• Buckley is accompanied by guitars, bass guitar, synth, strings and a drum kit. 
• The guitar is printed in tab
• The guitar uses ‘drop D tuning’, which means that the lowest string is tuned down from E to a D. 

• The drums and guitars accompany Buckley throughout most of the song. The synth and strings are less prominent, dropping in and out of the music. They’re are used to add effects or to vary the texture. 

• The texture thickens towards the end of the song especially in the coda.

Use of technology:

(Jeff Buckley)

Various effects are used in the piece:

• Modulation on the synth at the start
• Distortion and flanging on the guitars which help to intensify the sound in the coda. 
• Overdubbing on the guitar parts which creates a thicker sound. The extra vocal parts in the ridge are also produced through overdubbing. 
• EQ in the final verse which removes the lower frequencies of Buckley’s voice. 

Structure:

(Jeff Buckley)

The song has the following verse-chorus form-

• Intro, Verse 1, Chrous 1

•  Intro, Verse 2, Chorus 2

•  Bridge 

• Intro, Verse 3, Coda.

Tonality and Harmony:

(Jeff Buckley)

• The song is in E minor, although the tonality is often ambigious 

• The harmony is unusual for a rock song. Standard progressions are not present and instead many chords are chromatic and move in parallel motion.

• Some of the harmonies are very dissonant (especially in the chorus) 

Melody and Word-Setting:

(Jeff Buckley)

• The vocal part has improvised quality and a very wide range of over two octaves
• Most of the vocal phrases are fallingm reflrecting the melancholy mood of the song.
• THere is frequent ornamentation in the melody line, with gliassandos between various notes. 
• Most of the word-setting is syllabic although there are some long melismas aswell. 
• In the bridge there is vocalisation along with falsetto singng. 
• There are many examples of word painting.

Rhythm, Metre and Tempo:

(Jeff Buckley)

• The metre is 12/8 (compound metre with four dotted-crotchet beats per bar)

• The bass drum plays on beats 1 and 3 and the snare drum accents the backbeats (2 and 4)

• There is frequent syncopation in the vocal melody as well as in the bass line

• Cross rhythms are created through the use of two-against-three rhythms 

Context:

(Moby)

• “Why does My Heart Feel so Bad?” comes from the album Play

• The album was released in 1999.

Samples and Melody:

(Moby)

• This is based on two samples from a recording made in 1953 of a gospel choir. 
• The first sample (A) is sung by a male singer and is used for the verses.
• The second sample (B) is sung by a female singer and is used in the chorus. 
• Both samples have been manipulated to change the meaning of the words. 
• They have a ‘vintage‘ feel since Moby doesn;t like the sound of his samples to be “clean”.
• These samples are looped to create the melody, which as a result is simple and reptitive.  

Structure and Texture:

(Moby)

• The song is based on a verse-chorus structure
• The samples are looped to create the versus and the choruses
• After the second verse there is a breakdown followed by a bar of silence. 
• The texture is built up as individual tracks are introduced one by one. 
• Constrasts in the texture are a result of- Varying instrumentation, use of silence and sections with just static chords with accompaniment. 

Rhythm, Tempo and Metre:

(Moby)

• The song is in 4/4 with a steady tempo of 98 bpm 

• The drum loop is made up of a backbeat that Moby samples from a hip-hop track. The bass drum plays on beats 1 and 3, while there are strong accents on the backbeats (2 and 4) from the snare drum. Repeated semiquavers are played on the shaker. 

• Syncopation is used in the piano, vocal and synthesised string parts. 

Use of Technology:

• (Moby)

• Moby used the following instruments: Synths, Sampler, Drum machine and sequencer.

Various effeccts have been applied to the track-

• Panning 
• Electric ghostings
• Reverb
• Delay 
• Echoes
• EQ effect

Harmony and Tonality:

(Moby)

• The harmony is entirely diatonic. Which is made up of three simple chord progressions each lasting eight bars.

• The first sample is set to sequence Am, Em, G, D.

• The second 
  sample is harmonosied in two ways. Firstly C, Am, C, Am. and then to the chords F, C, F, C. 

• We can describe the verses as being in Dorian mode on A, and the choruses as being in C major.